Director, Performance Media

We’re looking for a strategic, hands-on Director of Performance Media with deep experience across Paid Search, Paid Social, and Programmatic.

This is a working leadership role for someone who can see the connections across performance channels—and make each one stronger because of how they work together. This person will help advance our performance media offering, support and develop our specialists, provide strategic leadership across client accounts, and ensure our plans are built around business outcomes rather than individual platform KPIs.

The right candidate will be equally comfortable developing a cross-channel performance strategy, evaluating platform and partner opportunities, mentoring a team member, advising a client, and jumping into a campaign when additional hands-on support is needed.

What You’ll Do

Lead Performance Media Strategy

• Establish a cohesive vision for how Paid Search, Paid Social, and Programmatic work together across the consumer journey.
• Translate client business objectives into integrated, insight-driven performance media strategies.
• Ensure channel recommendations build on one another rather than operating as separate, platform-specific plans.
• Review and strengthen media strategies, tactical plans, investment allocations, testing roadmaps, and optimization recommendations.
• Bring a clear point of view on the appropriate role of each channel, platform, audience, and buying approach.
• Potentially provide direct strategic and day-to-day leadership for a designated client.

Improve Platform and Partner Value

• Evaluate the agency’s existing DSP, platform, data, technology, and media partner relationships to identify opportunities to improve pricing, effectiveness, transparency, and client value.
• Assess contracts, fee structures, data costs, technology costs, auction dynamics, supply paths, inventory quality, and deal structures.
• Partner with internal leadership to identify negotiation opportunities and ensure platform agreements support both client objectives and agency needs.
• Evaluate DSPs and other buying platforms based on client goals rather than defaulting to a single technology or partner.
• Maintain strong relationships with partners including Google, Microsoft, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Amazon, The Trade Desk, and other emerging platforms.
• Use those relationships to secure strong support, marketplace intelligence, beta access, and differentiated opportunities for clients.

Provide Working Leadership

• Serve as a senior resource across Paid Search, Paid Social, and Programmatic—helping teams solve complex strategic, platform, measurement, and campaign challenges.
• Maintain enough hands-on platform expertise to step into accounts or campaigns when the team needs additional support.
• Lead by example while ensuring the role remains focused on raising the strategic and operational performance of the broader team.
• Mentor and develop channel specialists, helping them strengthen their strategic thinking, client leadership, technical expertise, and cross-channel perspective.
• Establish and reinforce best practices across planning, campaign setup, QA, optimization, budget management, documentation, and reporting.
• Help identify capability, training, staffing, and workflow needs across the performance media team.

Advance Performance and Measurement

• Partner with Media Planning, Strategy, Data & Analytics, Creative, and other agency teams to build connected media programs.
• Guide cross-channel investment and reallocation decisions based on business impact, audience behavior, marginal performance, and client priorities.
• Ensure reporting explains what happened, why it matters, and what should happen next—not simply how individual platforms performed.
• Collaborate with Analytics to develop learning agendas and test-and-learn frameworks across audiences, creative, platforms, formats, bidding approaches, and measurement methodologies.
• Advance the team’s use of attribution, incrementality, forecasting, experimentation, and other measurement approaches.
• Identify opportunities to improve campaign effectiveness, operational consistency, and agency profitability.

Shape the Agency’s Point of View

• Stay ahead of platform changes, privacy developments, automation, AI, identity, measurement, retail media, and other shifts affecting performance media.
• Translate industry developments into clear implications and actionable recommendations for clients and internal teams.
• Develop POVs, best practices, training materials, and thought leadership that strengthen the agency’s performance media offering.
• Help clients separate meaningful marketplace changes from platform hype and determine where testing or investment is warranted.

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of digital media experience, including significant hands-on experience across Paid Search, Paid Social, and Programmatic.
• Demonstrated ability to lead integrated performance