Zealous Agency
Head of Paid Media
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We're excited to be partnering with an award-winning digital agency entering an exciting phase of growth, looking for an experienced Head of Paid Media to take ownership of its growing performance offering.
This is a rare chance to join an ambitious agency at a pivotal stage, helping shape how the performance function operates while staying hands-on across client delivery. You'll have genuine influence over strategy, processes, client growth and the future direction of the team, with a clear pathway to building and leading the function as the agency scales.
Working across an exciting portfolio of recognised brands, you'll combine strategic thinking with hands-on execution, ensuring exceptional performance across Paid Search and Paid Social campaigns while playing a key role in the agency's commercial growth.
The Role:
Performance Strategy & Delivery
- Shape and lead cross-channel paid media strategy across a diverse client portfolio.
- Independently plan, build, launch and optimise Paid Social campaigns, primarily across Meta, alongside Google Ads PPC campaigns.
- Remain actively involved in campaign setup, optimisation, testing and troubleshooting rather than operating in a purely strategic capacity.
- Manage bidding strategies, audience targeting, budget allocation and campaign optimisation to maximise performance.
- Take full ownership of campaign performance, budgets and reporting, with accountability for delivering measurable commercial results.
- Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, increase ROI and drive continuous performance improvements across accounts.
Data, Tracking & Performance Insight
- Oversee campaign measurement, attribution and tracking frameworks.
- Produce meaningful performance reporting that focuses on business impact rather than platform metrics alone.
- Translate campaign data into actionable recommendations for both clients and internal teams.
- Stay ahead of developments across AI, automation and advertising platforms, implementing new tools where they add genuine value.
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Client Leadership & Account Growth
- Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, acting as the day-to-day performance lead.
- Present campaign performance confidently, providing strategic recommendations and clear commercial context.
- Identify opportunities to grow existing client accounts through additional channels, services and performance initiatives.
- Support new business activity by developing media plans, forecasts, channel strategies and performance-led proposals.
- Contribute to pitches and commercial conversations, embedding performance thinking into how the agency wins new business.
Building the Performance Function
- Work closely with the leadership team as a genuine partner in shaping the agency's paid media offering.
- Help establish scalable processes, reporting standards, best practices and operational frameworks that will support future growth.
- Introduce structure and consistency across campaign delivery, reporting and account management.
- Coordinate closely with wider agency teams to ensure integrated delivery
- As the agency grows, take responsibility for managing freelancers and future hires, mentoring and developing the team while helping build a high-performing performance department.
What We're Looking For:
We're looking for someone who combines technical expertise with commercial thinking and leadership ambition.
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You'll ideally have:
- Proven agency experience leading Paid Media or Performance Marketing campaigns.
- Strong hands-on expertise across Google Ads, Meta Ads and other major paid media platforms such as LinkedIn.
- The ability to independently manage both Paid Search and Paid Social campaigns from strategy through to optimisation.
- Experience managing significant monthly advertising budgets with accountability for performance against commercial objectives.
- Strong understanding of attribution, analytics, reporting and performance measurement.
- Confidence presenting campaign results to clients, explaining performance clearly and providing strategic recommendations.
- A commercial mindset with the ability to identify opportunities for account growth and contribute to agency revenue.
- Experience supporting new business pitches and developing media strategies.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- A passion for building, improving and scaling processes within a growing agency.
- Leadership potential and the ambition to develop into a key leader as the business continues to expand.
Why Join?
This is far more than a traditional Head of Paid Media role. You'll be joining an ambitious agency at an exciting stage of growth, with the opportunity to influence strategy, shape the future of the performance offering and build a team around you over time. You'll remain close to the work that delivers results while playing a significant role in the agency's long-term success.
If you're looking for a role where you can genuinely make your mark, help build something exceptional and accelerate your own career into a senior leadership position, we'd love to hear from you.
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