Associate Director of Digital Marketing

Company Description

By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world-changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

Why join Harvard Medical School?

Harvard Medical School's mission is to nurture a diverse, inclusive community dedicated to alleviating suffering and improving health and well-being for all through excellence in teaching and learning, discovery and scholarship, and service and leadership.

You’ll be at the heart of biomedical discovery, education, and innovation, working alongside world-renowned faculty and a community dedicated to improving human health. This is more than a job - it’s an opportunity to shape the future of medicine.

About the Office for External Education:

The Office for External Education provides health care professionals, corporations, and lay audiences with broad access to Harvard Medical School’s peerless and constantly expanding body of medical knowledge. Our educational offerings are created in collaboration with members of the school’s almost 12,000-member faculty and reflect firsthand, expert clinical insights based on breakthrough research and best practices. Our portfolio of innovative medical education opportunities is available to learners worldwide and includes live in-person programs, hybrid courses, self-paced online learning, digital products, educational webinars, podcasts, and printed materials.  

Job Description

Harvard Medical School’s Office for External Education (OEE) seeks a strategic, hands-on Associate Director of Digital Marketing to lead performance marketing for a diverse portfolio of professional, corporate, and continuing education offerings. Reporting to the Senior Director of Marketing, this role owns planning, implementation, monitoring, and optimization of search, display, and social campaigns that drive awareness, leads, and enrollments across postgraduate certificates, digital programs, corporate learning, and continuing education.

As part of a collaborative marketing team, the Associate Director partners with program marketing leads, design, social, web, and admissions/enrollment teams to develop and execute integrated, data-driven media strategies. The ideal candidate has deep experience with paid digital media planning and buying (preferably in an agency setting), is fully versed in Google, LinkedIn, and Meta, and brings strong leadership, organizational, and people-management skills. The role will hire, develop, and manage a Digital Marketing Specialist.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategy & Planning
  • Lead end-to-end digital media strategy and execution for OEE programs and courses across search, display, and social to meet lead, enrollment, and revenue goals. Within a 150+ offering portfolio, develop both comprehensive program-specific campaigns and broader portfolio-level initiatives.
  • Develop media plans, including channel mix, budgets, flighting, and forecasting across key platforms.
  • Serve as primary internal expert on paid digital media, advising leadership on performance, risks, and opportunities.
• Campaign Set-Up & Execution
  • Oversee campaign set-up: keyword and audience research, targeting and bid strategies, creative specs, and tracking requirements.
  • Create, test, and optimize ad copy and creative concepts in partnership with marketing team members.
  • Maintain standard operating procedures for planning, set-up, QA, optimization, and reporting.
• Optimization & Performance Management
  • Monitor performance and optimize in real time (bids, budgets, audiences, placements, creative) to improve ROI and cost per lead/enrollment.
  • Translate data and user insights into recommendations for targeting, messaging, landing pages, and funnel optimization.
  • Ensure strong budget stewardship, managing media spend to maximize impact within financial parameters.
• Measurement, Analytics & Reporting
  • Implement and manage conversion tracking, pixels, UTMs, and event configurations for accurate attribution.
  • Oversee Google Tag Manager governance, including approving and publishing tags, triggers, and variables.
  • Build dashboards and recurring reports with clear insights into performance, trends, and opportunities.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Align media strategies with integrated marketing plans, program goals, and timelines.
  • Provide landing page recommendations to improve quality scores, conversion rates, and overall effectiveness.
  • Coordinate with admissions and enrollment to incorporate lead flow, lead quality, and downstream metrics into optimiza