Senior Director, Paid Search and Partner / Affiliate Marketing

GEICO • Chicago, IL

16d • $195,000 - $315,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

GEICO is hiring a Senior Director, Search & Partner Marketing to lead its Performance Marketing function and own end-to-end strategy and execution across paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation. The role manages a significant evergreen media budget and a hybrid organization of in-house practitioners and agency partners. It sets the testing, measurement, and first-party data agenda and represents performance marketing on the Growth & Channel Marketing leadership team and in discussions with senior and executive leaders.

The director will shape the team structure, test-and-learn program, measurement approach, and partnerships with data science, analytics, and IT. The role balances detailed campaign and budget management with translating performance implications and recommendations for business leaders. The position is based in New York, NY; Bethesda, MD; or Chicago, IL, with a hybrid schedule of three days per week in the office.

Requirements

• 15+ years of experience in digital marketing, including significant experience leading performance marketing teams and managing large budgets across search, affiliate, and lead generation channels.
• Experience in a conversion-driven service business such as financial services, insurance, SaaS, or banking, where success depends on acquiring and retaining customers; CPG or physical product marketing experience is not a substitute for this context.
• Experience leading leaders and managing a hybrid model of in-house teams and agency partners.
• Technical depth across major advertising platform algorithms, products, optimization levers, and product roadmaps; expertise in biddable search media and emerging AI-driven search and answer-engine advertising experiences; working knowledge of affiliate, aggregator, and lead generation partner models and the levers that drive lead quality and cost.
• Knowledge of audience development and activation using first-, second-, and third-party data, martech and adtech platforms, analytics solutions, SEM bid management platforms, affiliate and partner tracking platforms, lead management and routing tools, and the data privacy landscape.
• Experience with analytical models such as marketing mix modeling (MMM) and a deep understanding of how to use them to forecast spend and inform attribution.
• Demonstrated ability to present to senior leadership, manage up on performance reads, develop and position points of view, and incorporate feedback to sharpen strategy.
• Hands-on comfort with AI tools such as Claude and Copilot, and AI-driven bidding, targeting, and creative decisioning; a perspective on how these should change performance team operations.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and resources in a fast-paced, growth-oriented organization while leading improvements to emerging cross-functional processes.
• Ability to work at both campaign-detail and executive-strategy levels, explain business implications, and make recommendations.
• Experience running scaled test-and-learn programs and showing how results informed budget allocation.
• Ability to build and lead teams of leaders and develop people into larger roles.
• Ability to use customer acquisition and retention metrics such as CAC, LTV, and incrementality.
• Ability to take feedback, escalate appropriately, maintain a point of view, and hold oneself and the team accountable.
• Ability to communicate complex information simply through workshops, brainstorms, or plain-language readouts.
• Willingness and ability to use AI tools to work faster and improve allocation decisions, and to help the team do the same.

Nice To Haves

• Insurance or other regulated financial services marketing experience.
• Experience managing a multi-product or multi-line portfolio with competing acquisition goals.
• Track record of building first-party data and attribution capabilities in partnership with data science.
• Experience leading an in-housing effort or restructuring an agency model.
• Experience with incrementality testing methods such as geo-holdouts and conversion lift alongside MMM.

Responsibilities

• Set the multi-year performance marketing strategy and roadmap across GEICO's multi-product portfolio, aligned with acquisition, efficiency, and lifetime value objectives.
• Lead in-house practitioners and agency groups in allocating, investing, and optimizing budgets across paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation.
• Build, develop, and mentor an agile, collaborative, high-performing team, including its leaders.
• Drive changes to the go-to-market approach to improve acquisition efficiency and lifetime value.
• Own paid search and AI paid search channel strategy and results, including GEICO's presence in AI-powered search and answer experiences.
• Manage the affiliate, aggregator, and lead generation partner portfolio, including partner selection, commercial terms, lead quality, and cost per acquisition.
• Recommend new strategies and tactics and optimize vendor relationships to improve performance and workflow efficiency.
• Oversee evergreen performance media budgets, channel forecasting, and rapid in-market adjustments based on performance insights.
• Monitor pacing to forecast at-risk results and identify opportunities; balance messaging and brand-building experiments with steady growth and performance.
• Develop segmentation, targeting, personalization, and engagement strategies across search, affiliate, and lead generation channels.
• Create systems for continual testing and optimization of media, affiliates and aggregators, URL mapping, landing page content and copy, and ad copy.
• Build a high-velocity A/B and multivariate testing culture and ensure diligent measurement of scalable results.
• Set the learning agenda and implement measurement plans, including detailed analysis of lifetime value, customer acquisition cost, return on ad spend, and incrementality.
• Partner with data science and analytics to build a first-party data engine supporting tracking, attribution, and optimization across the full funnel.
• Partner with analytics and IT on performance marketing data and technical requirements.
• Collaborate with brand, creative, and analytics teams to share insights and metrics on platforms, placements, creative, and campaign conversion, and share best practices with partners.
• Represent performance marketing with senior and executive leadership by presenting performance reads, points of view, and strategic recommendations.

Benefits

• Market-competitive compensation.
• 401(k) savings plan vested from day one with a 6% match.
• Performance- and recognition-based incentives.
• Tuition assistance.
• Mental healthcare.
• Fertility and adoption assistance.
• GEICO Flex program offering up to four weeks of remote work per year.
• Personalized development programs, industry-leading training, certification, career mentorship, and coaching.

What This Job Offers

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