Paid Media Lead

Rivian•Irvine, CA

4h•Onsite

About The Position

Rivian's Growth Marketing team is responsible for creating and driving demand and conversion across the full customer funnel for our vehicles. The Paid Media Lead owns Rivian's paid media strategy end-to-end and is the primary strategic partner to our media agency of record. This person sets the media agenda, translates business goals into channel strategy and budget allocation, and partners closely with measurement to make sure every dollar is evaluated against a clear read on incrementality - not just platform-reported performance.

Requirements

7+ years in performance/paid media, including experience leading media strategy at a growth-focused company and/or agency.
Direct experience managing a media agency relationship - briefing, budget ownership, and holding an agency accountable to KPIs.
A track record owning full-funnel media strategy, not only bottom-of-funnel performance marketing.
Proven ability to partner across Brand, Creative, and other GTM stakeholders to keep messaging and strategy connected across the funnel.
Working fluency across measurement approaches - incrementality testing, MMM, and attribution - enough to be a sharp, informed partner to a measurement/analytics team. Deep statistical or data-science expertise is not required.
Strong cross-functional operator, comfortable driving alignment without direct authority and operating in ambiguity.

Nice To Haves

Automotive, EV, or considered-purchase category experience is a plus, not a requirement.

Responsibilities

Own the strategic relationship with our media agency: set the media agenda, prioritize briefs, hold the agency accountable to performance and efficiency targets, and run the cadence of QBRs, budget pacing, and testing roadmap.
Lead full-funnel paid media strategy - upper-funnel awareness/consideration through lower-funnel conversion (Demo Drive, Reserve, Order) - across Meta, Google/Search, YouTube/CTV, OOH, programmatic, etc.
Translate business objectives (e.g., reservation and order targets) into channel mix, budget allocation, and a testing agenda, in partnership with the agency.
Serve as the connective tissue for go-to-market across the funnel - partnering closely with Brand and Creative so paid strategy and messaging stay aligned with brand positioning and campaign moments, and with eComm and Lifecycle Marketing so hands from paid into owned channels are seamlessly integrated.
Partner with cross-functional measurement teams to interpret incrementality tests, MMM outputs, and attribution, and translate those findings into media decisions - you don't need to build the models, but you need to be fluent enough to argue with them.
Diagnose performance misses (e.g., a channel underdelivering against a reservation target) and bring a point of view on the fix, not just the diagnosis.
Partner cross-functionally with Brand, Creative, eComm, and Lifecycle Marketing so paid strategy reinforces the rest of the funnel.
Report media performance and strategy to marketing leadership on a regular cadence.