Associate Director, Performance Marketing Paid Social

Position Overview

This is a rare seat for a performance marketer who wants to own both the strategy and the execution rather than choose between them. You'll shape the paid social agenda for your accounts, manage the spend, build and run the campaigns yourself, and answer for the numbers, all while holding a strategic voice at the client table. The visibility is real: you'll steer performance reviews with clients, turn complicated media results into plain-language business impact, and help win new work through pitch contributions.

Position Responsibilities

• Set the paid social direction for your account and carry it through to execution, leading on Meta while staying fluent across other major platforms such as Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
• Shape media plans that tie directly to each client's business objectives, weighing in on channel mix, audience targeting, success metrics, and how the budget gets deployed.
• Handle campaigns hands-on inside the platforms, from initial build and quality checks through pacing, optimization, and the reporting that comes out the other end.
• Own the performance story with clients: walk them through what the numbers say, why they moved, and where the next round of investment should go.
• Team up with the data and analytics group to produce reporting that ties results back to objectives and the broader strategy.
• Turn shifts in platform features and audience behavior into specific recommendations clients can act on, not just trends to note.

Required Position Qualifications

• A proven history of driving measurable performance through paid social at an agency, with results you can point to.
• Roughly six to eight years in performance marketing weighted heavily toward paid social, including time spent agency-side.
• Deep, current command of Meta, plus the range to toggle between doing the work in-platform and steering strategy as each situation demands.
• Clear, persuasive communication, including a knack for making media performance make sense to people outside the media world.
• Sharp analytical instincts and a detail-driven approach to tracking the metrics that matter.
• A self-directed, well-organized operator who troubleshoots independently, manages up, and pulls teams together.

Preferred

• Hands-on paid search and/or programmatic experience alongside paid social.
• A bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

Location

Hybrid role based in Chicago, with three days per week in the office and occasional travel as needed.