Paid Media Specialist

STRIDE Management Corp; Calgary; On-site; CAD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee Assistance Program

Health & Wellbeing programs

Career development opportunities

Job summary

Stride is seeking a Paid Media Specialist to lead end-to-end planning, execution, and optimization of paid media campaigns across traditional and digital channels. You will manage Google Ads, Meta Ads, and programmatic buys while coordinating with internal and client teams in a fast-paced environment.

You will set up analytics, tracking, and reporting, ensuring accurate attribution and budget adherence. The role requires strong communication, teamwork, and a growth mindset, in a cost-conscious,

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in paid media or related role.
• 2+ years of experience with GA4 including setup and reporting.
• Experience planning and optimizing paid campaigns on Google Ads and Meta Ads.

Responsibilities

• Plan, coordinate, and optimize paid media campaigns across traditional and digital channels.
• Ensure compliance and manage advertising in a regulated industry across provinces.
• Develop and maintain tracking frameworks, UTMs, and reporting dashboards.
• Analyze results and provide actionable recommendations to improve performance.

Skills

Paid media planning

Digital advertising

Campaign optimization

Analytics & reporting

Audience research

Budget management

Communication

Negotiation

Cross-functional collaboration

A/B testing

Education

Post-secondary education in marketing/communications/business

Tools

Google Ads

Meta Ads

Google Analytics 4

Google Tag Manager

Programmatic/Display networks

Job description

Stride is a full-service lottery and fundraising organization that helps charitable and non-profit organizations generate revenue through professionally managed lottery programs across Canada.

For more than 30 years, Stride has brought together the strategy, marketing, technology, customer service, finance, operations, regulatory expertise, and project management required to plan, launch, and operate successful lottery campaigns. We work with foundations, healthcare organizations, and other mission-driven organizations to generate significant funding for healthcare initiatives, research, and community services.

The Paid Media Specialist is responsible for end-to-end planning, coordination, execution, and optimization of integrated paid media campaigns across traditional and digital channels. This role combines media strategy and buying with hands-on execution, analytics, tracking, testing, and performance reporting and supports both internal and client projects in a high-production environment.

Job Responsibilities

• Coordinate the planning, purchase, and execution of paid media campaigns across traditional and digital channels ensuring the campaigns are delivered accurately efficiently, and on schedule
• Own and manage applications involved in advertising in a regulated industry on multiple channels across multiple provinces ensuring seamless compliance
• Plan and coordinate traditional media buys across channels including television, radio, out-of-home, print, and other emerging or relevant platforms
• Manage the end-to-end strategy and execution of digital advertising campaigns across platforms including but not limited to Google Ads, Meta Ads, Pinterest, Reddit, programmatic/display networks and other digital channels
• Conduct audience, market, media, and competitive research to identify opportunities and inform channel selection, targeting, and channel investment decisions
• Contribute to the development of integrated paid media strategies and plans aligned with campaign objectives, target audiences, budgets, and performance goals.
• Research and evaluate media opportunities, vendors, platforms, placements, and emerging channels to identify opportunities to improve reach, efficiency, and campaign performance
• Coordinate media proposals, rate negotiations, placement details, added-value opportunities, contracts, and campaign requirements with media vendors and partners
• Build, configure, and launch digital campaigns, including campaign structure, audiences, targeting, budgets, bidding, placements, tracking and other platform requirements
• Set up, configure, and maintain Google Analytics and other analytics platforms to support accurate campaign and website performance reporting
• Develop, maintain, and distributed ad trafficking schedules
• Develop and maintain campaign tracking frameworks, including UTM parameters, naming conventions, and other tracking requirements to ensure consistent and reliable attribution
• Coordinate the implementation, testing and validation of conversion tracking, pixels, tags and other measurement requirements
• Analyze test results and translate findings into actional recommendations to continuously improve the media strategy
• Collaborate internally with the marketing team to ensure channel specifications are provided to inform production needs
• Traffic assets to vendors and platforms
• Optimize digital campaigns based on performance data, audience behaviour, conversion results, and campaign objectives
• Track media budgets, commitments, and spends across channels and ensure they are aligned with approved plans and budgets
• Develop campaign reports and performance analyses and translate them into clear insights and recommendations
• Build and maintain strong relationships with media vendors and serve as the primary point of contact
• Collaborate with both internal and external teams to ensure seamless delivery of paid media strategy
• Support other marketing initiatives as needed

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in paid media, digital marketing, media buying, performance marketing, or a related role
• 2+ years of experience in Google Analytics (GA4) including setup, campaign measurement, traffic analysis and reporting
• 2+ years of hands‑on experience planning, building, launching, and optimizing paid digital campaigns, particularly across Google Ads and Meta Ads.
• Post-secondary education in marketing, communications, advertising, business, or a related field
• Strong communication and negotiation skills
• Strong research skills and planning abilities
• Capable of balancing multiple campaigns, deadlines, platforms and stakeholders
• Working knowledge of Google Tag Manager
• Experience developing, executing, evaluating A/B or other structured campaign tests
• High attention to detail
• Collaborative working style and the ability to work effectively with both internal and external teams
• Ability to work independently and exercise good judgment while knowing when to seek input or escalation issues
• Growth‑minded with an interest in testing new approaches and staying current in media, advertising technology, analytics and consumer behavior
• Experience coordinating or purchasing traditional media would be considered an asset
• Agency experience would be considered an asset

Find Your Freedom At Stride

At Stride, we're all about ensuring our team thrives as a valued member, look forward to:

• Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion across the employee career journey,
• An Employee Assistance Program where you can access counselling and coaching sessions,
• Focus on talent management, including career and skills development,
• Health & Wellbeing activities,

Candidates who are offered a position will be required to complete pre-employment checks

We are a 2026 Circle Back Initiative Gold Employer – we commit to respond to every applicant