Director, Growth & Paid Media

Aura • San Francisco, CA

12d • $220,000 - $250,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Aura was founded by two early Twitter software engineers who wanted to take what they knew about social connections and create a way for families to come together around their best memories. The combination of seamless sharing across a smartphone app and a beautiful digital frame resonated, and Aura is now used by millions of families with more than 1 billion photos shared in 2025 alone. What is known as the best digital picture frame by Wirecutter has always been about something more ambitious: a private, trusted platform for connection with your close loved ones. Aura is now available in thousands of leading retail stores across North America and Europe.

This is a rare opportunity to help build the Aura brand at a pivotal moment, not just run the existing playbook. We're looking for a Director, Growth & Paid Media who will take a fresh look at how we reach people and rewrite our media strategy for what's next. You'll have real ownership over the budget, the team, and the strategic direction of growth at Aura.

You'll report to the VP of Marketing and lead demand generation and demand capture, shaping how Aura shows up across every channel that matters, today's and tomorrow's, and building the team and processes to scale it.

Requirements

• 8+ years in performance marketing or growth, including 3+ years directly leading paid media teams, ideally at a DTC or consumer hardware brand.
• A track record of scaling paid acquisition profitably, with direct ownership of CPA/CAC, ROAS/iROAS, and LTV targets.
• Experience managing $15M+ in annual paid media budgets across search, social, and emerging channels such as audio, podcasts, and YouTube.
• Strong people leadership skills, with experience managing and developing channel specialists or managers.
• Working fluency with attribution, marketing mix modeling, and incrementality testing.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, and a bias toward building process and clarity where none exists yet.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to translate performance data into a clear point of view for executives.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in connected devices, subscription, or gifting-driven business models.
• Experience managing or partnering closely with a partnerships/affiliate function.
• Experience working directly with a VP or C-level marketing leader in a fast-scaling consumer brand.

Responsibilities

• Redefine Aura's media strategy: build out and lead our approach across the entire funnel of paid social (Meta + TikTok), paid search, audio/podcast, YouTube, TV/CTV, programmatic, affiliate, and emerging channels.
• Own paid media strategy and budget end to end, with the autonomy to test new channels and formats that build the brand while driving efficient growth.
• Own our measurement and attribution strategy, building a single source of truth that combines post-purchase survey data, efficiency, and incrementality testing so we make faster and defensible strategic allocation decisions.
• Build a growth strategy that spans DTC and retail, aligning paid media, measurement, and creative with how Aura shows up in retail partners and Amazon.
• Own the technical backbone and adtech: tracking, tagging, pixels, conversion APIs, and integrations across ad platforms and measurement/analytics tools, partnering with engineering and data teams as needed.
• Act as a steward of the Aura brand inside performance channels, making sure creative, channel, and platform choices build brand equity and trust, not just short-term conversions.
• Lead, coach, and develop the performance media and partnerships functions, setting clear goals and growth plans for channel leads.
• Partner with the VP of Marketing on quarterly growth targets, CPA, and budget allocation across channels.
• Build and run a testing roadmap covering creative, audience, and channel experiments, including new brand-building formats like audio and video; turn results into action quickly.
• Own quarterly forecasting of paid spend, and report performance and risks to the executive team.
• Partner cross-functionally with brand, product marketing, retail/e-commerce, and finance to align growth plans with the broader business.
• Support Aura's expansion beyond North America, adapting channel mix, measurement, and testing frameworks for European markets and partnering closely with retail and brand teams already active there.
• Evaluate, select, and manage external agency or vendor partners, including specialists in audio, podcast, and video channels, to extend team capacity.
• Bring structure and clarity to a growing team, establishing planning cadences, reporting, and decision rights where they don't yet exist.
• AI-first mindset with a track record of identifying, building, and deploying AI solutions (agents, workflows, automations, and copilots) that create competitive advantage and operational efficiency.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• employer-sponsored 401(k)
• fully match the first 4% of contributions
• Comprehensive health plans: we pay up to 100% of the premium for employees and ~50% for families
• Generous stock option program, which begins vesting after 1 year at the company
• Flexible time off
• at least 10 days in addition to all company holidays
• A monthly fitness and wellness allowance of up to $150
• Lunch and snacks on us every day in our NYC and SF offices

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed