Director of Paid Media (Remote, Virginia Beach)

Blacksmith Agency – Marketing (Full‑time, Remote: USA, Canada, or South Africa)

About the Role

Blacksmith Agency runs PPC and SEO for clients across multifamily, B2B, and technical verticals. As Director of Paid Media you will lead that department. The PPC strategist and the SEO strategist report to you and are the specialists in their channels. This is a management seat, not a senior individual‑contributor role – you will not be building campaigns yourself, and your SEO strategist will have deeper technical expertise. You own channel strategy, budget allocation as accounts scale, and overall department performance.

What You Own

• Set and enforce the quality bar for the PPC and SEO strategists, including their development, performance reviews, and decisions when someone is not meeting expectations.
• Define audit standards, pre‑delivery checks, and reporting formats; write the guidelines and hold the specialists accountable.
• Ensure honest client results across the function, including auditing attribution and GA4 accuracy.
• Diagnose at‑risk accounts, direct the strategist to fix issues, and join the client call for escalation.
• Develop channel strategy and allocate budget as accounts scale.
• Communicate credible deliverables to sales before deals are closed.
• Create the hiring plan for the department and conduct first‑round interviews for new team members within roughly a quarter.

What You Need

• Experience managing strategists or specialists, including conducting reviews, guiding development, and making performance‑management decisions.
• 7+ years of experience across paid media and SEO (ownership of a single channel does not satisfy this requirement).
• Deep knowledge of Google Ads, GA4, Search Console, Meta, and Microsoft Ads sufficient to evaluate work quality beyond surface‑level reporting.
• One concrete account turnaround you can discuss, including pre‑ and post‑metrics and the reasoning behind the improvement.
• Comfort acting as the client‑facing owner when an account underperforms, taking the call yourself rather than delegating.
• Agency experience managing multiple accounts simultaneously.
• Do not apply if you have never had direct reports, have never performed performance‑management, have only ever run a single channel, or have only in‑house brand experience.
• If your primary goal is to continue building campaigns yourself, this role is not a fit.

Process

Three conversations lead to a decision: a 30‑minute screen with our recruiter, a first round with the founder (the role’s direct report), and a final interview. No take‑home project or panel interview is required.

How to Apply

Complete the four fields at the provided link, then take a short 6‑minute Predictive Index assessment. Use the same email throughout. No cover letter is needed.