Senior Director, Paid Media

About the role

The Senior Director, Paid Media leads Point Success Media — SmartBug Media™'s paid media division — as a strategic, growth-focused business line, reporting directly to SmartBug's CEO. This is a senior leadership role built around go-to-market strategy, service expansion, and profitable operations, not day-to-day platform execution.

You'll own the division's growth strategy, steering the business through fast-moving market shifts with agile, long-term plans. You'll read where the industry is headed to shape, price, and commercialize next-generation service offerings, keep the team resourced and profitable, and develop the senior leaders who run daily operations. You'll be the executive point of contact for top-tier clients, while your leadership team owns day-to-day account management. This is a general management role: you set the strategic vision, own the unit economics, and drive the long-term trajectory of a business built to adapt and scale.

What you'll do

Go-to-market & service expansion

● Own the go-to-market strategy for Point Success Media, steering the division through fast-moving market shifts to identify, develop, and launch new high-growth service offerings

● Define how new technical and media services are packaged, positioned, and priced to protect margins and support sustainable growth

● Partner with sales and marketing leadership to bring new offerings to market and drive adoption across the client base

● Track how the media landscape is evolving — platforms, buyer behavior, competitive dynamics — and translate that into strategic direction so the division stays ahead of the curve

● Act as a strategic voice for the division's trajectory, both with senior leadership internally and with prospects and partners externally

Business operations & profitability

● Own the division's P&L: revenue growth, margin performance, and overall profitability

● Design and refine staffing models, team structure, and capacity planning so the team is utilized profitably against demand

● Champion the use of AI to drive efficiency across the division — from delivery workflows to internal processes — keeping Point Success Media ahead on speed, quality, and cost

● Identify and implement operational improvements — workflows, tools, delivery models — that improve efficiency and scalability

● Monitor performance against business benchmarks and adjust strategy, structure, or resourcing as needed

● Collaborate with senior leadership on forecasting, budgeting, and long-term planning for the division

Team & leadership development

● Lead, manage, and develop the division's senior leaders and managers, building their ability to run day-to-day delivery, client relationships, and team performance

● Build a strong culture, growth path, and leadership pipeline within the division

● Coach senior leaders on managing their own teams, rather than directly managing individual contributors

● Recruit and develop senior-level talent to strengthen the division's leadership bench

● Keep the team's skills and ways of working — including use of AI tools — evolving alongside the media landscape

Executive client relationships

● Serve as the senior executive point of contact for the division's top-tier, highest-value clients, focused on relationship, strategy, and account health

● Step in for executive-level escalations, renewals, and expansion conversations on key accounts

● Support sales on strategic, large opportunities where executive presence and business credibility matter most

● Delegate day-to-day client management, reporting, and campaign oversight to the leadership team, freeing this role to focus on the top of the client portfolio and the health of the business overall

Required Qualifications

● 12+ years of progressive experience in a media or marketing agency environment, with significant time in senior management or general-management roles — not primarily an individual-contributor or platform-specialist track

● A track record running or scaling a services business line or P&L within an agency, including responsibility for revenue, margin, and profitability, not just campaign performance

● Experience developing and launching new service offerings and go-to-market strategies within a services or agency business

● A strong grasp of staffing economics — how to structure, size, and utilize teams profitably against client demand and delivery requirements

● Demonstrated experience using AI tools and technologies to drive efficiency, quality, or competitive advantage within a services organization

● A strong understanding of the media landscape and its trajectory, with the ability to anticipate shifts and translate them into business and organizational strategy

● Experience managing and developing senior leaders and managers, not just individual contributors

● Comfort operating as an executive-level presence with senior client stakeholders, sales leadership, and company leadership

● Strong business and financial acumen — budgeting, forecasting, margin analysis, and operational metrics

● Organizational agility, with the ability to operate in both structured and ambiguous environments

● Working knowledge of the paid media landscape (channels, platforms, buyer's journey) sufficient to lead credibly and make sound strategic decisions — deep platform-level expertise is owned by the team, not required here

● Experience working remotely in a similar senior role, reporting to executive leadership, preferred