Head of Paid Media

Lipton Media; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A renowned media agency based in London is seeking an experienced Head of Paid Media to lead their largest department. This hybrid position involves managing a team of over 8 specialists and innovating client strategies across platforms such as Google Ads and Meta. The ideal candidate will have 6+ years in paid media and a proven track record in client relationship management. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future direction of the agency.

Qualifications

• 6+ years’ experience in paid media with strong agency-side exposure.
• Ability to scale campaigns and lead strategy across various platforms.
• Deep understanding of performance marketing metrics and industry trends.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the agency’s paid media department.
• Manage a team of over 8 specialists.
• Own client strategy, partnering with brands to deliver outcomes.

Skills

Campaign scalability

Team management

Client relationship management

Performance marketing metrics understanding

Attribution modelling

Mentoring

Tools

Google Ads

Meta

Taboola

Job description

Head of Paid Media

Hybrid position based in London.

Role Overview

Award winning, independent media agency seeks best in class Head of Paid Media to join their rapidly growing team. This is a senior leadership role with four core pillars: People, Clients, Service Innovation, and Strategic Differentiation. As Head of Paid Media, you’ll lead and grow our client’s largest and most commercially critical department, managing a team of 8+ specialists, fostering a culture of curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement. You’ll be a mentor, a coach, and a champion for delivering best‑in‑class paid media work.

You’ll also take senior ownership of client strategy, partnering with a wide range of brands to drive measurable business outcomes through paid media. This includes shaping and guiding strategy across Google Ads, Meta, programmatic, and native platforms.

You will play a central role in enhancing service and delivery standards, continually evolving how we plan, buy, measure, and optimise media across the full funnel. You’ll lead the charge in developing innovative, insight‑led, and performance‑driven solutions.

Crucially, this is a leadership team position. You won’t just run a department – you’ll have a seat at the table in shaping the structure, services, and future direction of the agency itself.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the agency’s most commercially critical paid media department.
• Manage a team of over 8 specialists, fostering curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Own client strategy, partnering with brands to deliver measurable business outcomes across Google Ads, Meta, programmatic, and native platforms.
• Drive service and delivery standards, evolving planning, buying, measuring, and optimisation processes.
• Develop innovative, insight‑led, performance‑driven solutions across the media funnel.
• Shape the agency’s go‑to‑market proposition and unique paid media point of view at the executive level.

Qualifications

• 6+ years’ experience in paid media with strong agency‑side exposure.
• Demonstrated ability to scale campaigns and lead strategy across Meta, Google, and Taboola.
• Strong team management experience, including mentoring and performance development.
• Proven success in client relationship management and account growth.
• Deep understanding of performance marketing metrics, attribution modelling, and creative testing.
• Understanding of industry trends and a view of the role of agencies in an ever‑changing AI‑impacted world.
• Equally comfortable and experienced managing small media spends £10k/pm up to large paid media budgets £150k/pm.