Director of Media/Ad Operations

VisionPoint Marketing, a Google Premier Partner, is a full-service marketing agency that specializes in higher education marketing. We partner with colleges and universities across the country in pursuit of their marketing and enrollment goals. Our portfolio features a range of award-winning campaigns and projects which we showcase at national conferences every year. 

We are seeking an experienced Director of Paid Media/Ad Operations to join our talented team. As the Director of Media/Ad Operations, you will play a hands-on, pivotal role in driving our clients’ integrated advertising strategies and optimizing campaign performance. This position will lead the paid media practice area for the agency, overseeing both digital and traditional media. We are looking for a leader who has significant paid media experience within an agency setting who both understands how to operationalize media processes and solutions, and who also has led and managed a growing team at scale. The ideal candidate will  have a passion for paid media and a proven track record of delivering exceptional results both personally at the campaign level but also through the leadership of a high-performing team. This role can be in-person, hybrid, or fully remote.

What You Will Do

Team Leadership

• Provide forward-thinking vision and leadership on paid media campaign strategy and management, cross-team process implementation, and other operational functions.
• Optimizing our campaign management approaches and processes, including launching, optimizations, reporting, and reconciliation.
• Lead weekly team meetings to identify, discuss, and solve team issues. 
• Lead the recruiting, hiring, and training process for direct reports and participate as needed for all other paid media practice area members.
• Manage the individual growth, professional development, and performance of each direct report. 
• Actively support direct reports by mentoring, problem-solving, overcoming obstacles and serving as a final escalation point for particularly complex project and practice area-related issues.
• Actively participate in identifying, raising, and solving company-wide opportunities in pursuit of our vision and goals. 
• Act as a subject matter expert for our Business Development team, contributing media subject matter expertise to help propose, pitch, and close new business as well as supporting key client partner renewals. 

Ad Operations

• Oversee integrated (digital and traditional) media planning and placement for select clients including, 
  • conducting research, 
  • developing effective paid media strategies, 
  • creating unique media plans (digital and traditional),
  • ensuring execution of effective plans and tactics, and 
  • delivering on measurement/reporting to prove ROI.
• Provide active campaign management on an occasional/as-needed basis to provide overflow project coverage and maintain up-to-date knowledge of online advertising platforms.
• Interface with all other practice areas for ad development, implementation, and execution in the context of complex, integrated campaigns.
• Identify, implement, and document systems and process/workflow improvements for Ad Tech and Ad Operations.
• Meet regularly with Media team members to identify and forecast both issues and opportunities across accounts that may require additional support.
• Drive partnership and negotiations with 3rd party vendors/partners. 
• Maintain accountability for the ROAS of the media practice area and work closely with our Analytics team leader to ensure accurate measurement and analysis of our campaigns. 
• Maintain digital platform and digital industry knowledge to ensure and advise best practices.
• Lead strategic conversations with cross-functional departments around paid media strategies and ad tech integrations that can improve efficiency, range or quality of data, or support of new media.
• Drive continuous performance efficiencies by managing the enterprise ad-tech stack, supporting technology, campaign tracking/analytics, and resourcing strategy.

Experience and Education

The ideal candidate would possess the following skills, interest and experience:

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, communication or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 10 years related experience in integrated media.
• Deep experience with digital media planning, including programmatic, paid search, and paid social advertising (your experience must be direct and in an agency setting not that you have hired an agency to do this work).
• Experience in planning and buying traditional media including radio, television, direct mail and print is a bonus.
• Must have current Google Ads and Google Analytics certifications.
• Outstanding verbal, written, and interpersonal skills as a critical, strategic thinker.
• Minimum 6 years experience managing a team.
• Demonstrate solid leadership, confidence and teamwork, with expert-level decision-making skills.
• Ability to motivate and manage others to achieve measurable goals.
• Process-oriented leader with ability to recognize and solve not just individual challenges but systemic issues through systems and process improvement. 
• Highest standard of quality and efficiency.
• Ability to effectively plan, anticipate, and take appropriate action in a proactive manner.
• Actively contribute to VisionPoint’s culture.

Don’t quite meet all of our requirements? Apply anyways. Research shows that people from underrepresented identities are less likely to apply to a job if they don’t match the posted requirements to a T. We at VisionPoint value diversity and want to continue creating a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment. If this role and the prospect of serving the higher education sector excites you, but you are missing a few bullet points, we would still love to see your application. Even if this role isn’t the right fit, there’s a chance another role or a future opportunity could align with your experience.

WHAT WE ARE LIKE HERE AT VISIONPOINT

At VisionPoint, we believe that a strong culture is as much a valued benefit as health insurance, PTO and 401k. That’s why it’s important to us that future team members connect with — and contribute to — our culture. Our communication, collaboration, satisfaction and growth are largely dependent upon how we all, as individuals, embrace and live out our values. We have a laser focus on knowing, providing solutions for, and advancing higher education because of its transformative power in the world. We believe in the work we do, we support each other, we work hard, and we like to have a bit of fun, too. When it comes right down to it, happy and fulfilled team members produce better work, and better work is what drives us every day.