Paid Media Manager

The role:
You will own the paid media on one of our largest retail accounts, across Google and Meta, with another team member reporting into you as the account grows.

Where you fit:
Paid media is not a bolt on here. Your campaigns are built off strategy, brand and creative in the same building, and you will have a say in all three. This is a hands on role. You will be in the accounts every day, building the paid media function around a significant retail account.

What you will be doing:

• Own the account end to end. Strategy, build, optimisation, pacing and reporting across Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube) and Meta.
• Manage real budget. Forecast spend, hold pacing and decide where the next rand goes, then explain why.
• Part of client meetings. Present performance and defend recommendations. Platform metrics alone do not survive here. We want revenue, margin and cost of acquisition.
• Run a proper testing discipline. Creative, audiences, bidding and landing experience, planned rather than ad hoc.
• Protect the measurement. GA4, conversion tracking, feed health, Conversions API and consent.
• Develop the team. Review builds, explain the thinking and give work that stretches. As the function grows, so does what you run.
• Work with the rest of the agency. Brief creative properly and push back on briefs that will not perform.

What we need from you:

• Minimum three years in paid media, with retail or e-commerce accountability
• Deep, current Google Ads. Shopping and performance max in particular, with product feeds you have had to fix
• Meta Ads Manager, including catalogue, signal quality and creative testing
• GA4, and a working grasp of attribution and its limits
• Google Ads and Google Analytics certification
• Excel or sheets to the point where you build your own pacing and return views
• Clear writing and confident presenting to senior client stakeholders
• Meticulous. Feeds, budgets and tracking punish carelessness
• Retail with a considered purchase cycle involving finance, delivery or a store visit
• Agency experience, or evidence you can carry client relationships as well as campaigns
• Restricted advertising categories on Meta and the targeting limits that come with them
• Server side tagging, Conversions API and Consent Mode v2
• POPIA literate on tracking and audience data
• Channels beyond Google and Meta. We do not run these today, but the account may extend
• Mentoring or reviewing someone else’s work

What will put you ahead:
We are not screening on degrees. Prove the work and the qualification is secondary.

Posted on 02 Sep 15:53, Closing date 1 Nov