Associate Paid Social & Programmatic Lead

POSITION SUMMARY

The Associate Paid Social & Programmatic Lead owns execution of paid social and programmatic media across the Rocket Clicks client roster. Reporting to the Director of Paid Media, this role consolidates paid social, display, and CTV work that currently sits with search-focused account teams and takes direct ownership of campaign builds, budget pacing, audience design, creative briefing, measurement, and performance analysis on those channels.

This is a channel role, not an account role. Rather than owning a book of clients, you own Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, YouTube, and programmatic display and CTV across every account that runs them. Because these channels are not currently run to a single standard, you are also building the standard.

Strategy is developed in partnership with the Director of Paid Media, who holds final approval. You are expected to bring complete recommendations rather than open questions: the hypothesis, the cost, the expected outcome, how it will be measured, and what you would trade off to fund it.

Required: Advanced Meta Ads expertise, hands-on programmatic experience, a lead generation background, the ability to write creative briefs and direct creative production, and fluency with AI tools and workflow design.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Channel Ownership & Campaign Execution

• Build, launch, manage, and optimize paid social campaigns across Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, and YouTube.
• Own programmatic display and CTV execution in StackAdapt, Simpli.fi, or comparable DSPs, including inventory quality control, domain allow and block lists, made-for-advertising exclusions, and frequency capping.
• Consolidate paid social and programmatic work currently distributed across account teams, and establish one consistent standard for how these channels are built, named, and managed.
• Own channel architecture across accounts: campaign objectives, audience definitions, exclusions, placements, budget structure, and naming conventions.
• Maintain budget pacing across every account and channel you own, and surface pacing risk before it becomes a shortfall.
• Diagnose cost per lead increases, creative fatigue, audience saturation, delivery problems, and lead quality drops. Trace symptoms to root cause across audience, creative, offer, placement, bid strategy, and tracking.
• Direct Paid Media Specialists on social and programmatic execution tasks where delegation makes sense, and review that work before it ships.
• Stay current on platform changes, ad policy shifts, signal loss, and how AI-driven ad products change targeting, creative, and measurement.

Creative Direction & Brief Development

• Write creative briefs that specify the offer, audience, awareness stage, message hierarchy, format and aspect ratio requirements, and testing structure, so designers and editors can execute without a follow-up meeting.
• Plan creative testing: concept volume, variant structure, what makes a test valid, and when a test is finished.
• Review creative before launch for message match, platform compliance, brand alignment, and conversion soundness.
• Distinguish creative problems from targeting, offer, and landing page problems, and route each to the right fix.
• Maintain a creative library and performance record so winning concepts are reused across accounts and losing ones are not repeated.
• Run competitor creative research using Meta Ad Library and equivalent tools, and translate findings into testable concepts.

Landing Page & Conversion Path Input

• Specify what a paid social landing page needs to do, including message match to the ad, offer clarity, form design, mobile experience, and load speed. Web development builds the pages. You own the vision and the QA.
• Review published pages against the brief and flag gaps before traffic is scaled.
• Recommend lead magnet and gated offer structures where they fit the audience and the sales cycle, particularly in B2B accounts.

Measurement, Lead Quality & Reporting

• Own measurement integrity on paid social and programmatic, including Meta Conversions API, event match quality, pixel and server event deduplication, UTM discipline, and reconciliation between platform-reported numbers and GA4.
• Support offline conversion feedback loops so CRM outcomes flow back into the platforms and optimization improves against qualified leads rather than raw form fills.
• Be accountable for cost per qualified lead, not only cost per lead. Work with account teams and client intake data to understand what happened to the leads you generated.
• Apply sound attribution judgment to channels that do not behave like search, including view-through, incrementality, holdout and geo testing, and awareness of when reported conversions are capturing demand that already existed.
• Report clearly on what changed, why it changed, and what action is being taken.

Strategy Recommendation & Planning

• Build channel plans that connect budget, audience, creative, and expected outcome, and bring them forward as complete recommendations rather than open questions.
• Recommend channel and budget mix across accounts based on audience, offer, sales cycle, and past performance.
• Identify where paid social and programmatic should and should not be used, including telling an account team when a channel is a poor fit.
• Plan and run structured tests, document the outcome, and roll winners across the roster.

AI Workflow Development & Process Engineering

• Design and build AI-assisted workflows for paid social and programmatic work, including creative brief generation, competitor creative research, creative performance analysis, audience research, cross-platform pacing, and reporting.
• Develop reusable prompts, skills, and standard operating procedures the team can run repeatedly with consistent quality.
• Identify high-friction, high-volume tasks and replace manual repetition with reliable AI execution paths.
• Test new AI tools, model versions, and integrations, and validate output quality before rolling anything out.
• Document workflows so they are transferable, auditable, and improvable by anyone on the team. Keep human review on anything client-facing.

Collaboration & Channel Enablement

• Partner with account leads and strategists, who own the client relationship and blended account performance, while you own channel execution, channel strategy input, and channel results.
• Raise the floor on social and programmatic competence across the paid media team through documentation, training, and QA.
• Build the Rocket Clicks paid social and programmatic playbook so the channel operates as a system rather than depending on one person.
• Work with creative, content, and web development teams to make sure what ships matches what was specified.
• Participate in sprint planning, take ownership of your tasks, and provide clear updates on progress and blockers.
• This role is not a paid search overflow resource. Paid search execution remains with the account teams so that social and programmatic get dedicated ownership.

EDUCATION:

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, Data Analytics, or a related field preferred.
• Platform certifications are a plus, including Meta Blueprint, Google Ads, Google Analytics 4, LinkedIn Marketing, or DSP-specific credentials.

KEY QUALIFICATIONS:

• 4 to 7 years of professional paid media experience with a primary focus on paid social, preferably in an agency environment.
• Demonstrated ownership of paid social as a primary channel, ideally as the most senior social person in the organization rather than one buyer among several.
• Proven track record improving lead volume, lead quality, and cost per acquisition in lead generation. An ecommerce background is workable when paired with meaningful lead generation experience.
• Advanced hands-on Meta Ads Manager experience across campaign architecture, audience strategy, Advantage+ products, lead forms, creative testing, and Conversions API.
• Hands-on programmatic experience in StackAdapt, Simpli.fi, or comparable DSPs, covering display, native, and CTV. Experience with some of these platforms rather than all of them is acceptable.
• Working experience across LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, or YouTube advertising. Depth in LinkedIn and B2B lead magnet strategy is strongly preferred.
• Experience writing creative briefs and directing designers or video editors. Hands-on production ability in Canva, Figma, or basic video editing is a plus, not a requirement.
• Experience in regulated or considered-purchase categories such as legal, financial services, healthcare, or B2B is strongly preferred.
• Conversion tracking experience including Google Tag Manager, GA4, pixel and Conversions API setup and QA, offline conversion imports, and call tracking.
• Hands-on experience using and building AI workflows in day-to-day paid media work, including prompt design and custom skill or workflow creation.
• Prior agency or multi-client experience preferred, along with comfort presenting channel performance to internal stakeholders.

BENEFITS:

• 10 Paid Vacation Days per year
• 5 Paid Sick Days per year
• Paid Company Holidays
• Maternity Leave
• Paternity Leave
• Bereavement Leave