Vice President, Paid Media

Role overview

The Vice President, Paid Media is the most senior leader guiding paid media at Kanahoma. This role shapes the direction of the practice, sets standards for quality and performance, and oversees its ongoing evolution. Reporting to the SVP, Marketing, the person in this position owns the paid media function end to end, spanning strategy, team leadership, delivery quality, and partner results.

The ideal leader will help define what the paid media practice becomes, bringing a clear perspective on attribution, the changing future of search, and creative strategy in a landscape that will evolve significantly over the next five years. The role also includes direct team leadership, contribution to agency operations and business growth, and responsibility for bringing AI and emerging technologies into daily work so the agency stays competitive in performance marketing.

Key responsibilities

This position carries ownership of paid media as a product, leadership of the team, accountability for performance, and stewardship of the agency’s long-term point of view on the channel.

• Set the vision for paid media in partnership with the SVP, Marketing and evolve the operating model, standards, and service offering.
• Convert agency strategy into practical playbooks, frameworks, and repeatable processes, using AI tools where helpful to speed up execution and improve consistency.
• Work with the Accounts team to uncover expansion opportunities, including upsells and renewals, and help grow paid media scope within existing partnerships.
• Represent the paid media function in partner pitches and agency-of-record discussions.
• Collaborate with the SVP, Marketing on scope of work creation, staffing plans, and the new business pipeline.
• Manage Sr. Directors and Directors of Paid Media and act as the main leadership layer for the broader team.
• Lead with urgency, accountability, and a solution-oriented mindset.
• Promote a culture where challenges are met with practical solutions rather than objections alone.
• Hire, coach, and retain strong paid media talent, while supporting onboarding across all levels.
• Build AI confidence across the team and ensure approved AI tools are used consistently in daily workflows.
• Hold weekly one-on-ones with direct reports and quarterly skip-level conversations with non-direct reports.
• Set goals with direct reports, review progress twice a year, and complete bi-annual performance reviews.
• Escalate team concerns to the SVP, Marketing or through L10 discussions when necessary.
• Own performance outcomes across paid media books of business, including inquiry, application, and start targets.
• Keep campaign spend within 5% of approved plan levels.
• Maintain detailed knowledge of portfolio performance for weekly L10 meetings, including pacing and key metrics.
• Use AI-based optimization approaches to improve results, remove inefficiencies, and strengthen partner outcomes.
• Ensure deliverables are completed on schedule and communicate early when risks or delays arise.
• Act as the senior escalation contact for paid media service issues and support fast resolution with proactive partner communication.
• Serve as the agency’s primary voice on where paid media is going, especially in attribution, search evolution, and creative strategy.
• Develop a clear roadmap for the practice based on that forward-looking perspective.
• Bring an informed view on cross-channel attribution and measurement approaches that reflect true business impact in multi-step acquisition journeys.
• Maintain a strong point of view on the future of paid search, including AI-driven bidding, changing match types, and intent capture.
• Guide creative strategy thinking as generative AI and platform automation reshape how campaigns are built and scaled.
• Share this perspective with agency leadership, partners, and prospects in industry conversations and new business settings.
• Run a recurring testing program across paid media and promote a culture of experimentation and innovation.
• Own the annual and quarterly testing roadmap and review results with internal teams and partners.
• Evaluate new channels, platforms, ad units, and AI-native or AI-enhanced opportunities for testing.
• Work with vendors to surface new ad formats and AI-driven targeting or bidding features.
• Design and standardize the creative testing workflow, using AI tools to accelerate iteration and analysis.
• Own landing page testing as part of the broader experimentation program and partner with the Web team on conversion rate optimization.
• Make sure quarterly creative refresh requests are submitted for every partner based on prior testing outcomes.
• Share quarterly creative performance results with the Creative Services team.
• Partner with accounts to define reporting metrics and reporting cadence that meet partner expectations.
• Work with the Data and Analytics team to ensure daily trackers and performance reports use CRM and platform data correctly.
• Find opportunities to automate reporting, detect anomalies, and generate predictive insights through AI.
• Own data quality and reporting integrity across the paid media portfolio.
• Lead annual, quarterly, and monthly planning across strategy, forecasting, and execution.
• Take active part in the agency’s EOS process, including weekly L10 meetings and quarterly right person right seat exercises as directed.
• Work with the SVP, Marketing on team capacity, billability goals of 80–90% per employee, and coverage planning.
• Support international staffing strategy as it relates to paid media capacity and margin improvement.
• Ensure projects are managed in the agency’s project management system and look for ways to streamline work through AI and templating.
• Monitor paused jobs, red reports, change orders, and similar issues and escalate them when needed.
• Champion AI adoption within the paid media team by evaluating and implementing tools that improve workflow.
• Run AI pilots end to end, including scoping, execution, measurement, and sharing results internally.
• Continuously review the AI landscape, including native AI capabilities in Google, Meta, and programmatic platforms.
• Create and maintain AI usage guidelines and best practices for paid media workflows.

Qualifications

This role is designed for a highly experienced performance marketing executive with deep agency or lead-generation experience and a strong strategic point of view.

• 10–12+ years of progressive performance marketing experience, with at least 5 years leading paid media teams.
• Experience managing a paid media book of business worth $50M+ annually.
• Background in multi-step lead-to-sale acquisition environments is required, especially in education, insurance, financial services, D2C, or similar high-volume lead generation categories.
• Higher education experience, especially in adult or online education, is strongly preferred.
• Experience across multiple industries is a plus, especially if the candidate has adapted paid strategies from insurance, financial services, e-commerce, or other lead-gen models.
• Proven ability to build paid media systems, teams, channels, and measurement frameworks from the ground up.
• Strong point of view on attribution, search evolution, and creative strategy in an AI-driven environment.
• Experience leading and developing teams of five or more across multiple levels.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and strategic thinking abilities.
• Comfort working in a player-coach role.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to turn data into actionable plans.
• Success in client-facing or partner-facing roles with a strong service orientation.
• Prior agency leadership experience is preferred.

Additional notes

This position is based in San Diego, California and is an on-site full-time role. The compensation range reflected in the title is $175K to $200K annually. No internship duration is specified, and this is not an internship role. No application deadline, start date, or vacancy count was provided in the source.