Managing Director, Paid Media (San Francisco)

Boston, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington

TEAM LEWIS is a global marketing agency that has grown from start-up to multi- national in a little over two decades. Its success is due to a combination of factors: talented creatives delivering award winning campaigns; expanding client relationships into new markets or services and its independence from outside investors. The agency, its people and client campaigns have won many awards, including Cannes Lions, PRovoke Media, ICCO, European Excellence, PRCA Digital, Digital Impact, Global Digital Excellence.

At the heart of the business is the TEAM LEWIS Foundation (TLF), a non-profit charitable entity. Since its launch in 2021, it has funded over 2,000 causes. The TLF promotes a wide variety of social, cultural, and environmental causes that benefit society. It aims to strengthen the bonds between the creative industries, businesses, government, and non-profits. Community charities are championed by employees, who in addition to the financial donation, volunteer their time and skills to leverage effectiveness.

About the role

The Managing Director, Paid Media will be responsible for leading the strategy, management, and implementation of client paid media plans and activations while ensuring tactical collaboration with other TEAM LEWIS teams (including but not limited to Creative, Content, PR, Research, Performance + Analytics, SEO, and Integrated Strategy). They will work with teams and clients across the US, as well as collaborate with international teams across the TEAM LEWIS network. Some travel in the US region may be required.

This is an opportunity that will suit an ambitious professional who relishes the chance to help grow something, thrives on challenges and on working in a fast paced, international environment. With a strong entrepreneurial spirit, you understand how to best apply this spirit to a growing global organization. An important aspect of this role will be to further build out of the agency’s paid media practice, building upon the work to date. This includes hiring and team leadership, as well as cultivating new business opportunities with current and prospective clients, partnering closely with the client engagement teams and account leaders.

Client-facing skills, technical knowledge and strong organizational ability are important in this role, as well as the ability to integrate across teams and practice areas.

Purpose of the role

The Managing Director, Paid Media will deliver best in class paid media programs to our clients, from account leadership, audits and strategy development to execution and effective tracking and reporting. This individual participates in all aspects of executing high profile and complex clients’ paid media campaigns across channels including but not limited to paid search, programmatic, and paid social. This individual will be a member of the TEAM LEWIS Paid Media leadership team and will support the further build out of TEAM LEWIS’ paid media offerings, growing the team, educating internal and external stakeholders, and overseeing junior members in both training and oversight of paid media campaign strategy and execution. This position will work closely with the Paid Media team and broader Digital team on the development of Paid Media strategies, tactical plans and best practices and cross-team trainings.

Key responsibilities and tasks

• Owns and grows relationships with the client and executive stakeholders, providing insight and partnership across all aspects of the marketing and communications spectrum
  
• Takes responsibility for ensuring excellent client communication at all levels; defining KPIs, deadlines and service agreements.
  
• Engages in and ensures a strategic relationship with the client, providing insight and partnership in paid media, as well as across the digital marketing spectrum as a whole
  
• Communicate account performance internally and provide strategic advice to the client based on measurable analysis
  
• Drive a proactive approach to upselling services/projects and increasing retainer budgets.
  
• Delivers consultancy with clients to deliver campaigns, services and products across all communications channels, while proactively makes recommendations based upon evolving industry best practices, competitor strategies, and benchmarks
  
• Works as a senior leader, ensuring account profitability and optimizing revenues for the business
  
• Spearheads paid media plans (i.e. research, targeting, budget allocation, forecasting, channel distribution), POVs and builds effective relationships with paid media vendors and platforms
  
• Actively works with team to manage paid media campaign budgets to the clients’ daily, weekly and monthly budget goals. Collaborates with members of the Paid Media and the Performance + Analytics teams to create, manage, measure, and optimize campaigns to meet established KPIs on various channel; oversees performance data analysis and provides actionable insights / recommendations and appropriate action plans based on conclusions; leads monthly/quarterly reporting and presentations to clients
  
• Participates in the new business process (and pitches as needed), playing a crucial role in showcasing TEAM LEWIS paid media credentials to further develop TEAM LEWIS’ paid media practice and client portfolio
  
• Develops relevant audits and innovative strategies/tactics for clients
  
• Develops paid media plans (i.e. research, targeting, budget allocation, forecasting, channel distribution), POVs and builds effective relationships with paid media vendors and platforms
  
• Works with other TEAM LEWIS business disciplines (including but not limited to Creative, Content, PR, Research, Performance + Analytics, SEO, and Integrated Strategy) to integrate, optimize and cross-sell campaigns
  
• Acts as a respected line manager, working closely with line reports to maximize strengths, improve weaknesses and support career development and appraisal processes
  
• Runs and supports training sessions, with a view to maximizing opportunities to expand team skills and grow our client portfolio
  
• Acts as leader in guiding colleagues on how to best manage campaigns and projects
  
• Takes a “never go at it alone” approach, ensuring shoulder-to-shoulder training and education in the paid media space is a regular and consistent practice
  
• Takes a proactive role in promoting the TEAM LEWIS brand, its identity, values and work
  
• Supports the HR / talent team by promoting both internal and external opportunities at TEAM LEWIS across social media and via the referral program

About you

You are an ambitious Paid Media pro, who relishes the opportunity to grow and share your craft. You have a proven track record of success in an agency position with extensive experience in executing paid digital media campaigns and leading paid media strategy. You have an impressive track record of retention and organic growth of existing clients as well as winning accounts across a variety of sectors. You enjoy seeing campaigns progress from a nugget of an idea to clear ROI for the client. You are ever curious, passionate and constantly strive to produce exceptional work. You are driven to continue learning about paid media to enhance and expand the work that you can produce. Inherently collaborative, you engage your colleagues to achieve success for employees, clients and the business. High energy and dedicated, you are able to work to tight deadlines to get the work done, all while fostering a fun and engaging environment with the team. Experience working in a fast-paced and changeable environment is essential.

Additional requirements

• Extensive experience working in advertising platforms (i.e. Google Ads, Bing Ads, LinkedIn Business Manager, Meta Business Manager, Twitter Ads, StackAdapt, The Trade Desk, etc.) and with paid media partners
• Experience managing paid investments across the following are nice-to-have but not required:
• Nascent and Developing Social Platforms, e.g. TikTok, Threads, Reddit
• Influencer Partnerships
• Traditional Mediums (broadcast, print, OOH)
• ABM Programs
• Content Syndication
• Experience with AI-powered paid media automation and management tools, e.g. Marin Software, Basis Technologies, Albert.ai, Trapica
• Highly commercial – experience retaining and growing existing clients and winning accounts
• Well versed in bid and budget oversight and management, content strategy, and planning
• Significant experience in building and managing day-to-day client relationships at all levels
• An analytical mindset and approach to problem-solving, with a passion for data
• Experience managing/mentoring junior staff and team leadership
• Excellent project and time management skills with an ability to plan and prioritize
• Acute attention to detail, comfortable managing and analyzing campaign data
• Familiarity with relevant paid media pixel tracking and web analytics tools (i.e. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Tealium, etc.)
• Excellent research and writing skills
• Excellent presentation and communication skills
• Self-motivated, ability to work autonomously
• Ability to learn quickly, and adopt industry-specific and agency-specific software
• Expertise in Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint.
  

This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of the responsibilities for this role. Other responsibilities may be added from time to time.