Director of Paid Media

Role Overview

This role is responsible for the performance, growth, and profitability of a portfolio of creator and brand accounts, with direct revenue accountability for a key book of business.

It is worth being clear about what this role is not. It is not a relationship management role, and it is not the kind of account management role that runs on decks and quarterly business reviews. It is a revenue role for someone who works inside accounts every day, thinks in unit economics, and creates urgency rather than waiting for it to appear.

You will manage accounts end to end. That means buying media daily across both sides of the book, which includes buying on behalf of brands to boost creators as well as buying on behalf of creators to fund their own arbitrage. It means monitoring performance closely enough that you know what needs to happen before anyone asks, translating what you see into direct recommendations, and pushing both brands and creators to act on them. It also means growing spend profitably across your book, developing the strategies and processes that allow the book to scale without breaking, and onboarding new high-priority accounts so they reach scale quickly.

AS DIRECTOR OF PAID MEDIA, YOU WILL OWN:

The health and growth of the portfolio

Your primary success metric is volume of spend at break-even or above.

• You will buy and manage media yourself, working directly in the ad accounts every day rather than reviewing reports that other people have prepared.
• You will monitor campaigns daily so that you can identify what is working, what is breaking, and what needs to change before clients feel the impact.
• You will push brands and creators toward the right whitelisting setups, creative rotations, and spend levels, including in the moments when they would rather not hear it.
• You will coordinate with the internal team on creative approvals, creator and handle access, brand-safety requirements, and spend pacing.
• You will onboard new high-priority accounts quickly and set them up to grow from the first day.

Driving brands and creators to act

The thing that separates this role from traditional account management is initiative, because you will not wait to be asked.

• You will identify whatever is blocking performance, whether that is creative, spend level, the match between a creator and a brand, handle access, or attribution, and you will either fix it yourself or push the client to fix it.
• You will respond within hours rather than days, and you will treat every day of client inaction as a lost dollar.

Building and shaping the team

You will work closely with a small group made up of both full-time and part-time support. Today, that group includes a brand product manager, a creator product marketing manager, operations support, and a media buyer on contract. These are largely collaborative, cross-functional working relationships that you will coordinate rather than a large staff reporting directly to you. In practice, you will often be buying the media, developing the strategy, and designing the processes yourself, especially early on.

Part of the job is identifying the resources and support your area needs in order to scale. We expect you to develop a clear point of view on the roles, mix of full-time and part-time support, and capabilities needed to support the portfolio’s growth—and to partner with leadership in bringing the right people into the organization.

Building the system to run a high-volume book

• You will develop a system for triaging accounts based on key criteria such as revenue at risk, urgency, and relationship health.
• You will establish your own process for staying on top of a high volume of accounts at once.
• You will also track the behavioral service levels, such as response time, contact frequency, and creative acceptance rate, that connect directly to performance.

THIS ROLE IS FOR SOMEONE WHO:

• Is relentless about performance.
• Checks the numbers constantly out of instinct rather than obligation.
• Treats a flat day as a problem to be solved.
• Has genuine hands-on execution experience at scale, having personally bought and managed media in the accounts rather than overseeing reports.
• Has been directly accountable for growing a book of paid social spend.
• Builds their own strategy, processes, and efficiencies instead of waiting to inherit a system.
• Is willing to challenge brands and creators rather than simply accommodate them.
• Is satisfied only when the financial results actually land.

WE LOOK FOR TEAMMATES WHO HAVE:

• 8+ years of relevant experience in paid social, performance marketing, advertiser success, account strategy, partnerships, or a related field.
• Personally managed paid social spend of at least seven figures per month, working directly in the accounts rather than solely directing others who performed the work.
• Been bonused, or otherwise held directly accountable, for the advertiser or brand spend they personally drove. Account management, advertiser success, and partnerships backgrounds all qualify if growing revenue was an explicit part of the role.
• Personally managed a complex portfolio of accounts, with direct responsibility for performance, growth, and profitability.
• An in-depth understanding of auctions, creative testing, and attribution, including bid strategy, creative fatigue cycles, and audience dynamics.
• Demonstrated radical ownership over paid social outcomes, taking responsibility for results and proactively identifying solutions when performance falls short.
• A strong understanding of performance media unit economics, including gross profit, take rates, and customer acquisition cost, and how account-level decisions connect to broader business outcomes.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional stakeholders across areas such as media buying, creative, operations, product, and client services.
• Experience mentoring or directing the work of others and identifying the resources needed to support portfolio growth.
• Experience building processes and operating effectively in a lean, rapidly changing, or otherwise unstructured environment.

BONUS EXPERIENCE:

• You have worked on creator whitelisting, boosting, or Spark and partnership ad workflows across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or other platforms.
• You have worked directly with creators or talent, including managing handle access, creative rights, and creator-native performance.
• You have a background in affiliate marketing, creator commerce, or media buying on your own account for arbitrage.
• You have onboarded new clients and brought accounts to strong performance quickly.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS:

Button’s total compensation package includes a base salary competitive with what is offered by similar companies in major US markets, plus a performance-based gross profit bonus with upside directly tied to the profit you generate across your book. The expected base salary range for this role is $160,000 - $190,000, plus eligibility for the performance-based bonus (compensation is based on a number of factors, including skills and experience relative to the job description listed above). In addition, Button provides employees with a 401(k) plan and automatically contributes 3% of an employee’s salary annually. We also want our employees to be well-rested and live balanced lives–Buttonians enjoy unlimited time off (including birthdays off) and Summer and Winter Breaks which allow the entire company to take a breath and recharge, as well as an employee assistance program. For many of the health, vision, and dental insurance plans offered by Button, the company covers 100% of the premiums for employees and 80% for dependents. Button offers all employees and their dependents complimentary memberships to One Medical as well as a monthly stipend for mobile phone/internet and an annual lifestyle stipend. Button also offers employees in select markets “All Access” memberships to WeWork as well as regular “coworking days” and social events. Most of all, Button offers our employees the opportunity to live our company values–Learn & Grow, Experiment, Adapt, and Deliver–and to be a part of an incredible team of humans working together to build a better internet, fueled by commerce.

Button is committed to being a welcoming and inclusive workplace for everyone, and we are intentional about making sure people feel respected, supported and connected at work—regardless of who you are or where you come from. We value and celebrate our differences and we believe being open about who we are allows us to do the best work of our lives.

Button is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate against qualified applicants or employees on the basis of race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual preference, sexual identity, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, military status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law, rule, or regulation.