Director, Paid Media

Avenue Z is the leading marketing and communications agency pioneering AI optimization driving influence across all channels—from ChatGPT to The Wall Street Journal to TikTok. With 30 years of leadership in search and content marketing, we apply strategic communications, high-impact PR, performance media, and AI optimization to help companies build reputation and grow revenue through our proprietary, technology-driven approach. We are the agency for influence.

Avenue Z is seeking a Director of Paid Media. This is a hands-on role for a strategic, performance-minded marketer who can translate business goals into strong paid media plans, guide day-to-day execution, and help elevate the team’s operating standards.

The Director of Paid Media will lead strategy and execution across core paid social and paid search channels, with particular strength in Meta and TikTok. The ideal candidate also has experience with TikTok Shop paid media and understands how campaign performance connects with products, creators, affiliates, offers, and shop operations. This person will manage client work directly, support onboarding, mentor team members, and bring structure and follow-through to the paid media function.

• Own the day-to-day paid media strategy and performance for our portfolio of client accounts.
• Develop channel strategies across Meta, TikTok, Google, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and other platforms as appropriate to the client’s goals.
• Translate client objectives, budgets, offers, and performance targets into clear campaign plans, testing road maps, and optimization priorities.
• Serve as a trusted strategic partner to clients, communicating performance, recommendations, risks, and next steps with clarity and confidence.
• Oversee the team’s execution of paid media campaigns, ensuring campaigns are built, launched, monitored, and optimized in line with account strategy, agency standards, and client goals, with appropriate attention to pacing, tracking, creative performance, audience strategy, and measurement.
• Lead creative strategy for paid media by developing creative performance reports that translate audience, offer, platform, and campaign insights into clear recommendations; hand off creative production priorities to Creative Strategists, including which concepts, formats, hooks, and variations to produce, test, and scale across channels.
• Lead all paid media client onboardings by establishing clear requirements, ownership, timelines, access, tracking, and launch plans to create a smooth client experience and ensure campaigns are launched accurately and on schedule.
• Identify account opportunities, address issues proactively, and escalate challenges to the Group VP with a clear diagnosis and recommended path forward.
• Maintain accountability for campaign quality, accuracy, timelines, deliverables, and results across assigned accounts.

• Develop and optimize TikTok Shop growth strategies in alignment with client goals, promotions, budgets, and return targets.
• Support campaign execution across TikTok Shop, including GMV Max where appropriate, covering setup, creative selection, budget pacing, publishing, monitoring, and optimization.
• Connect paid media recommendations to TikTok Shop fundamentals, including product listings, product tagging, offers, inventory, shipping, and conversion considerations.
• Partner with affiliate and creator teams to align paid media plans with creator content, product sampling, affiliate activation, and top-performing content opportunities.
• Use TikTok Shop and campaign performance data to identify testing opportunities, improve efficiency, and inform client recommendations.
• Monitor relevant shop and seller-health indicators, surface operational issues, and coordinate with internal partners to resolve problems quickly.
• Stay current on TikTok Shop platform developments, creator-commerce trends, and emerging best practices.

• Mentor and support paid media marketers through campaign planning, optimization, troubleshooting, reporting, and professional development.
• Review campaign builds, strategy documents, reporting, and client-facing recommendations for accuracy, quality, and alignment with performance goals.
• Define, document, and maintain agency-wide standards, guidelines, workflows, and best practices for ad buying, campaign execution, optimization, testing, and measurement, and ensure the team applies them consistently across client accounts.
• Support account onboarding by clarifying requirements, ownership, timelines, access, tracking needs, and early execution priorities.
• Help assess team capacity and flag resourcing needs to the Group VP.
• Share platform knowledge, campaign learnings, testing results, and practical best practices with the team.
• Conduct weekly ad account audits and provide actionable feedback on improvements, optimizations, and testing opportunities.
• Hold regular 1:1s with marketers to review account performance, provide support, and address development needs.
• Lead regular department meetings to review performance, discuss upcoming initiatives, brainstorm, and reinforce standards.

• Monitor account-level KPIs and use performance insights to guide optimization, testing, budget shifts, and strategic recommendations.
• Lead recurring performance reporting and client updates, ensuring results and next steps are communicated in a concise, actionable way.
• Partner with creative strategy to develop concepts, briefs, and assets that support paid media performance across channels.
• Collaborate with client services, CRO, PR, organic social, design, and other teams to align priorities and deliver a cohesive client strategy.
• Document wins, insights, and learnings that can support case studies, internal training, and stronger account planning.
• Contribute ideas that strengthen client relationships, improve performance, and create opportunities for account growth.

• 4+ years of paid media experience; agency experience is preferred.
• Demonstrated ownership of paid media accounts, including strategy, campaign execution, optimization, reporting, and client communication.
• Proven ability to train, build, and develop a high-performing team.
• Strong working knowledge of Meta and TikTok Ads Manager, with familiarity across additional paid media channels such as Google, LinkedIn, or Snapchat.
• Practical experience with TikTok Shop paid media, including GMV Max or comparable campaign types, is strongly preferred.
• Understanding of TikTok Shop Seller Center, product listings, product tagging, affiliate marketing, creator content, and basic shop operations.
• Experience connecting paid media performance with creative strategy, ecommerce fundamentals, offers, and conversion outcomes.
• Understanding of ecommerce fundamentals that support brand growth beyond paid media, including landing page development, offer testing, Shopify, CRO, and product assortment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to turn performance data into clear actions.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, maintain strong attention to detail, and follow through in a fast-moving agency environment.
• Clear, confident communication skills and the ability to build trust with clients and internal partners.
• Experience mentoring teammates, reviewing work, or serving as a senior resource to other marketers.
• Strategic judgment, ownership mentality, and a willingness to remain hands-on in account execution.