Paid Media Director

Position Title: Paid Media Director

Position Status: Exempt

Work Hours:  Mon–Fri, 8am-5pm. Hours may vary for project needs. Saturdays and secondary holidays may be a scheduled workday. Travel will be required.

Reports To: System Marketing Director

Location: Remote

 

Position Description

 

The Paid Media Director leads Bryant & Stratton College’s paid media strategy across all digital and traditional channels, ensuring investments are efficient, data-driven, and aligned with enrollment and brand objectives. This role provides strategic oversight, accountability, and continuous optimization to maximize impact and return on marketing spend.

 

The Paid Media Director will help shape and execute our performance marketing strategies. You’ll drive growth that increases new student acquisition by optimizing our media mix, testing into new media channels, and running structured experimentation across ads, audiences, and landing experiences to improve conversion and lead quality. This individual will play a key role in advancing our paid media programs by using data and audience insights to drive smarter investment decisions.

 

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical skills with creative problem-solving to plan, launch, and continually improve campaigns across multiple paid channels. They are proficient in digital marketing, ad and marketing technology platforms, measurement frameworks (e.g., attribution, incrementality), and the data integrations required to turn media signals into actionable insights. They are an experienced performance marketer with a successful track record of using paid media to generate qualified leads and drive measurable business outcomes.

 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

 

Paid Media Strategy & Planning

• Develop and lead the paid media strategy and roadmap across paid channels, including SEM, social, PPL, programmatic, traditional media and new channels as applicable.

 

• Partner with System Marketing Director to translate annual paid enrollment targets into actionable media strategies that achieve enrollment funnel goals for each term.

 

• Establish a disciplined test-and-learn roadmap to continually improve media and creative performance and ensure the College is preparing for the changing AI landscape.

 

• Lead media and creative testing (audiences, messaging, formats, and landing pages) to identify what drives performance and apply learnings to future campaign and creative strategy.

 

• Provide guidance, best practices, and as-needed support for the Regional Marketing Director on local media buys funded through the local marketing budget.

 

• Identify and evaluate emerging media opportunities and technologies to maintain a competitive advantage in the higher education landscape.

Budget Ownership, Forecasting & Pacing

• Own forecasting, budget allocation, invoice processing, and in-term pacing across the working media budget.

 

• Partner with the System Marketing Director on annual planning, term forecasting, and scenario analyses that highlight risks, tradeoffs, and opportunities.

 

Performance, Measurement & Attribution

• Continuously evaluate performance through a full-funnel lens, pairing volume KPIs (leads, opportunities, enrollments) with cost-per KPIs (CPL, CPO, CPE). Use retention by source data to identify which channels deliver the strongest downstream outcomes and reallocate spend accordingly.

 

• Partner with Institutional Research and Analytics team, IT, and external partners to ensure reliable tracking and data integrity across the marketing tech stack so media investment decisions are guided by accurate data and insights.

 

• Partner with agency and in-house analytics team to strengthen full-funnel measurement and attribution, so we can clearly see which channels drive results and optimize spend accordingly.

 

Agency & Vendor Management

• Serve as day-to-day contact between Bryant & Stratton College and paid media agency partners, ensuring strategic alignment, strong execution, and measurable results.

 

• Support vendor selection, contract/SOW development, and ongoing performance evaluation to ensure best-in-class results and cost efficiency.

 

• Ensure all media and creative adheres to higher education compliance standards, br