Associate Director, Paid Search

Job description

Digital Matter is a next-generation growth and transformation partner built for the realities of today’s market. We combine the pace and precision of a startup with the discipline and rigor of a global advisory firm. We help consumer brands manage media as a strategic asset class, with the same intentionality and governance applied to capital allocation. By connecting data, technology, and creative, we turn media investment into measurable enterprise value: accelerating growth, improving efficiency, and building durable capabilities. Over the past seven years, we’ve guided organizations through IPOs, digital turnarounds, and successful exits. Our point of view is simple: when media is managed as capital, it becomes a catalyst for transformation at scale. **About the Role** We're looking for an Associate Director of Paid Search to lead search strategy, execution, and growth across our client portfolio. This is a senior, client-facing leadership role for someone who has deep, hands-on paid search expertise built over a decade of experience and who has seen the business from both sides of the table, having worked agency-side and platform/vendor-side (Google or Microsoft). This person will own paid search performance and strategy for a book of business and be accountable for the revenue tied to that book and play an active role in growing it through client retention, upsell, and new business support. **Key Responsibilities** - **Strategy & Leadership** - Own and evolve paid search strategy across assigned client accounts, ensuring alignment with each client's broader marketing and business objectives. - Serve as the senior search point of contact for clients, presenting strategy, performance, and recommendations directly to client stakeholders, including senior marketing leadership. - Translate platform-level trends (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and emerging AI-driven search products) into actionable strategic recommendations for clients. - Partner cross-functionally with integrated, paid social, programmatic and product to ensure integrated, full-funnel media strategies. - **Planning & Activation** - In partnership with the integrated media team, lead paid search campaign planning, budget allocation, and channel strategy across search accounts, ensuring efficient and effective use of client media investment. - Oversee campaign build, QA, and activation, ensuring accuracy and adherence to best practices at scale. - Stay ahead of platform betas, product releases, and policy changes across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and proactively bring relevant opportunities to clients. - **Optimization & Analytics** - Direct ongoing campaign optimization, including bidding strategy, audience/keyword strategy, and creative/ad copy testing. - Own performance reporting and analysis, delivering clear, insight-driven readouts that go beyond metrics to explain the “so what” and “what's next.” - Lead test-and-learn agendas (incrementality testing, brand lift, channel mix testing) to continuously improve performance and prove impact. - Ensure measurement infrastructure (conversion tracking, attribution, tagging) is set up correctly and audited regularly for accuracy. - **Team Leadership** - Build scalable processes, playbooks, and best practices to standardize search execution across the team and client roster. - **Business Growth & Revenue Ownership** - Own growth of your book of business, proactively identifying opportunities to expand scope, budget, and services within existing client relationships. - Be accountable for revenue goals tied to your book of business, tracking performance against targets and taking ownership of the outcome. - Support new business efforts, including contributing search strategy and POVs to pitches and RFPs. - Build strong, trust-based client relationships that lead to renewals, referrals, and organic growth. - Track and report on book-of-business health, including revenue, retention, and growth metrics. **Qualifications** - Tenure in hands-on, consistent paid search management experience. - Required: experience on both the agency side and the vendor/platform side at either Google (Google Ads) or Microsoft (Microsoft Advertising). - Proven track record managing multi-million-dollar search budgets across complex, multi-brand or multi-client portfolios. - Deep expertise across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads platforms; familiarity with Google Analytics, Search Ads 360, or similar bid management/reporting tools. - Demonstrated experience leading and developing a team. - Proven accountability for revenue goals within a book of business, not just campaign performance. - Strong track record of growing client relationships and revenue, not just managing performance. - Excellent client-facing communication and presentation skills, with experience presenting to senior stakeholders. Strategic thinker who can also go deep into platform execution when needed