Job Description

Paid Search Associate Director

As an Associate Director, you own the strategic quality, performance outcomes, and team development across a defined book of business. You provide strategic direction and operational leadership for pod structures consisting of Managers and Specialists, ensuring best-in-class paid search execution, innovation, and scalability.

This role is designed for a senior leader who thrives at the intersection of people leadership, platform expertise, and systems thinking, and who wants to help modernize and elevate a paid search organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Ownership & Performance
  • Own the strategic direction, performance outcomes, and execution quality of all accounts within your pod.
  • Set clear account-level and pod-level strategy, ensuring alignment to client business goals and agency standards.
  • Serve as a senior escalation point for complex performance, platform, or client challenges.
  • Translate performance data into clear, executive-level narratives that reinforce client trust and retention.
• People Leadership & Development
  • Lead people management, performance reviews, coaching, and career pathing for a cross-functional team of Managers and Specialists.
  • Build succession plans and actively develop future leaders through mentorship and promotion readiness.
  • Foster a high-accountability, high-support culture focused on continuous improvement and strategic thinking.
• Operational Excellence & Systems Thinking
  • Drive operational leverage through process standardization, automation, and tooling (e.g., scripts, dashboards, QA frameworks).
  • Improve forecasting accuracy, budget fluidity, and performance visibility in partnership with analytics and leadership.
  • Ensure alignment between Client Services and Paid Search teams to support scalable, profitable growth.
• Innovation & Platform Leadership
  • Establish points of view on platform changes (e.g., PMax, AI bidding, Demand Gen, privacy shifts) and translate them into actionable team guidance.
  • Lead structured testing frameworks and experimentation to move beyond "best practices" toward differentiated performance.
  • Pilot and help productize new tools, workflows, and service offerings that improve results and margin.
• Departmental Leadership
  • Surface trends, insights, and risks across accounts to inform department-wide strategy and improvements.
  • Contribute to department-level forecasting, resourcing, and capacity planning.
  • Partner cross-functionally to support innovation, efficiency, and long-term growth.

Paid Search Excellence Expectations

• Deep fluency across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and emerging AI-driven search experiences.
• Ability to guide teams beyond tactical execution into strategic frameworks and scalable systems.
• Strong perspective on automation, measurement, and platform evolution, and how to operationalize them.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity while setting clarity and direction for others.

Success Metrics

• Team engagement, retention, and internal promotion velocity
• Consistent achievement of client performance targets relative to forecast
• Client retention, expansion, and executive-level trust indicators
• Adoption and measurable impact of standardized frameworks (testing, QA, automation)
• Improvements in operational efficiency, margin stability, and workload balance.

Required Experience

• 7+ years of progressive experience in paid search and performance media, including leadership responsibility over accounts, teams, or pods.
• Advanced platform expertise across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, including complex account structures, Shopping/feed-driven programs, automation, and AI-driven campaign types (e.g., PMax, Demand Gen).
• Strategic audience and intent modeling experience, including first-party data activation, signal layering, and audience strategy aligned to full-funnel objectives.
• Data-driven decision-making at scale, with the ability to interpret performance across large datasets and translate insights into clear strategic actions.
• Strong measurement and analytics fluency, including Google Analytics (GA4), conversion tracking, attribution models, and performance diagnostics (e.g., CPC, CPA, ROAS, incrementality).
• Forecasting and budget management experience, including pacing, scenario planning, and performance projection tied to client goals and profitability.
• Operational and systems thinking, with experience implementing or contributing to automation, scripts, dashboards, QA processes, or standardized workflows.
• Cross-functional leadership experience, partnering with Client Services, analytics, creative, and product teams to deliver integrated, scalable solutions.
• Executive-level communication and presentation skills, with a proven ability to confidently present strategy, performance, and recommendations to senior client stakeholders.
• Client trust and relationship leadership, including ownership of escalations, performance narratives, and long-term roadmap discussions.
• Demonstrated experience developing people, including mentoring, coaching, performance management, and supporting career progression.
• Ability to evaluate and optimize campaign performance holistically, balancing efficiency, scale, experimentation, and long-term growth (e.g., ROAS, LTV, incrementality, retention).

Perks and Benefits

• Incredible company culture - we are passionate about the impact we make every day; we balance freedom with responsibility, and we aim for a consultative, transparent, and communicative approach in both our internal and client relationships
• Diverse and forward-thinking environment
• Great career growth opportunityyou'll have direct access to agency leadership
• Company-assisted medical insurance programs, life insurance, optional vision and dental insurance programs, and short-term and long-term disability offered
• 401(k) with employer matching
• Company events and industry conferences

At Lamark Media, we're looking for people with passion, grit, and high integrity. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the job description. Your skills and passion will stand out; especially if your career has taken some extraordinary twists and turns. At Lamark Media, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously and aren't afraid to challenge assumptions. Join us.

As a company, we take hiring very seriously. Interviewing with Lamark Media may include phone/video interviews, written projects, and/or on-site interviews. Although we are unable to follow-up with every applicant, we do our best to run a thorough process for candidates with whom we identify a potential fit.

Lamark Media is an equal employment opportunity employer. Candidates are selected based on qualifications and defined requirements of the job, not on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or any other protected status. Further, Lamark Media encourages United States' Veterans and persons with disabilities to apply for positions for which they are qualified.

In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire.

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