Associate Director, Paid Search

Omnicom Media US OMD•Los Angeles, CA

2d•$90,000 - $125,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Associate Director, Paid Search is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day management, optimization, and performance of paid search programs. This role translates client business objectives into strong paid search execution, ensuring campaigns are properly planned, launched, managed, measured, and optimized. The Associate Director partners with Directors and Senior Directors on strategic initiatives while owning tactical implementation, performance analysis, client communication, financial stewardship, and junior team development. A successful candidate will bring strong paid search expertise, analytical rigor, attention to detail, and the ability to turn performance data into clear recommendations. This role requires someone who can manage complexity, lead junior team members, identify growth opportunities, and help clients understand how paid search contributes to broader business and retail performance goals.

Requirements

Relevant post-secondary education, training, or equivalent experience.
5–7 years of relevant paid search experience, preferably with retail, ecommerce, or performance-driven accounts.
2+ years of experience managing, mentoring, or overseeing junior team members.
Strong hands-on experience with Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.
Experience with bid management platforms such as SA360, Skai, Marin, or similar tools.
Experience managing shopping campaigns, Performance Max, AI-powered campaign formats, and product/feed-based search programs.
Strong understanding of paid search campaign management, keyword strategy, match types, bidding, budgets, QA, optimization, and measurement best practices.
Experience with analytics platforms such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, or similar tools.
Ability to analyze data and translate findings into actionable recommendations.
Experience managing budgets, pacing, forecasting, reporting, and performance readouts.
Familiarity with search retargeting, retail media, social, video, and broader digital advertising opportunities.
Experience troubleshooting conversion tracking, site tags, feeds, or platform measurement issues.
Comfort using scripts, automation, or workflow tools to improve account management efficiency.
Strong communication and presentation skills, both written and verbal.
Ability to manage multiple projects, timelines, stakeholders, and priorities in a fast-paced agency environment.
Strong management, mentorship, coaching, and team development skills.
Proactive, detail-oriented, commercially minded, and comfortable making recommendations.
Test, learn, and scale mindset.

Nice To Haves

Google Ads Search Certification
Microsoft Advertising Certification
Google Search Ads 360 Certification
Google Ads Shopping Certification
AI-Powered Shopping Ads Certification
AI-Powered Performance Ads Certification
Google Analytics Certification

Responsibilities

Partner with senior leads to develop paid search plans aligned to client business goals, campaign objectives, retail priorities, and performance KPIs. Translate strategic direction into actionable campaign structures, testing plans, audience approaches, bidding strategies, and budget recommendations.
Oversee day-to-day paid search execution across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, SA360, and other relevant platforms. Ensure campaigns are launched accurately, optimized regularly, and managed against performance goals such as revenue, ROAS, CPA, conversion rate, traffic quality, and customer acquisition.
Manage paid search programs with an understanding of retail and ecommerce dynamics, including promotions, seasonality, product/category performance, inventory signals, shopping campaigns, Performance Max, and feed-based optimization.
Analyze campaign, platform, site, and business performance data to identify trends, risks, and opportunities. Translate reporting into clear insights, explaining what happened, why it happened, what it means, and what should happen next.
Develop and manage test-and-learn agendas across bidding, keywords, match types, creative, shopping formats, landing pages, automation, AI-powered campaign types, and measurement approaches. Evaluate new platform features and betas based on client relevance and business value.
Serve as a key day-to-day client contact for paid search performance, campaign updates, reporting, optimization recommendations, and issue resolution. Present plans, results, insights, and next steps clearly to clients and internal stakeholders.
Manage, mentor, and train junior team members. Assign work, review deliverables, provide feedback, and ensure consistent executional quality across campaign builds, optimizations, reporting, pacing, and QA.
Oversee budget pacing, forecasting, billing inputs, and investment allocation across paid search campaigns. Identify risks related to overspend, underdelivery, inefficiency, or shifting business conditions, and recommend corrective action.
Act as a quality assurance lead for campaign launches, account changes, tracking, reporting, deliverables, and client-facing materials. Ensure work follows platform best practices, client requirements, naming conventions, trafficking standards, and measurement protocols.
Work with broader investment, strategy, analytics, retail media, social, programmatic, creative, and commerce teams to ensure paid search is connected to broader media and business priorities. Contribute to POVs, best practices, platform updates, and client education materials.