Associate Media Director

Confidential Careers; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential Careers is seeking an Associate Media Director for a digital creative agency. You’ll strategize, plan, buy and optimize media across Meta, Google Ads and a programmatic DSP, combining brand metrics with direct response in luxury, fashion, hospitality accounts.

You’ll own accounts end-to-end, defend plans to CMOs, lead a small team, and partner with strategy, creative and PM on launches. This hybrid role is based in Chicago.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on paid media buying.
• Deep experience in Meta and Google Ads and at least one DSP.
• Been the lead individual on accounts.
• Strong spreadsheet skills and audience/placement/creative segmentation.
• Ability to explain auction dynamics and attribution without jargon.
• Careful budgeting and reporting.
• Luxury, beauty, hospitality, or fashion experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own accounts end to end: brief, plan, launch, report.
• Build and optimize campaigns yourself in Meta and Google Ads, plus a programmatic DSP.
• Forecast and model plans: channel mix, flighting, budget scenarios.
• QA your own work, and your team's, with tagging and analytics setup.
• Watch pacing daily and fix mid-flight as needed.
• Present to CMOs, founders, and heads of growth; defend your reasoning.
• Review analysts and associates and teach platform mechanics.
• Partner with strategy, creative, and PM on specs and launch dates.
• Help on new business: POVs, RFPs, pitch forecasts.

Skills

Paid media buying

Meta Ads

Google Ads

DSP

Budget management

Data analysis

Team leadership

Executive communication

Tools

Notion

Confluence

Slack

Spreadsheets

Job description

Digital creative agency is seeking a Associate Media Director who strategizes , plans, buys and optimizes media.

That combination is the whole job. You build the plan, defend it to the client, and then you're the one in the platform with your team. Roughly 40% of your week is in-platform execution and analysis. The other 60% is client leadership and reviewing the work around you.

To be clear about the seat: this role stays hands-on. If your goal is to be fully out of the ad platforms within a year, this isn't the right one. We're looking for a hybrid individual.

Our accounts sit in luxury, fashion, hospitality, and prestige beauty, so you'll be weighing brand metrics against direct-response ones on the same account, often in the same conversation.

What you'll do

• Own accounts end to end. Brief, plan, launch, report.
• Build and optimize campaigns yourself in Meta and Google Ads, plus a programmatic DSP.
• Forecast and model plans: channel mix, flighting, budget scenarios.
• QA your own work, as well as your team's. Naming conventions, UTMs, pixel and CAPI setup, attribution windows.
• Watch pacing daily and fix things mid-flight without being asked.
• Present to CMOs, founders, and heads of growth. Explain your reasoning, take the pushback, hold the line when you're right.
• Review the media work of analysts and associates, and teach them the platform mechanics as you go.
• Partner with strategy, creative, and PM on specs and launch dates.
• Help on new business: POVs, RFP responses, pitch forecasts.

What you bring

• 8+ years of hands-on paid media buying, ideally agency-side on premium or DTC brands.
• Real depth in Meta and Google, and working fluency in at least one DSP.
• You've been the lead individual on accounts.
• Comfortable in a spreadsheet. Segmenting by audience, placement, and creative, and knowing when a difference is real.
• The ability to explain auction dynamics and attribution to someone who has never opened an ad platform, without condescending and without hiding behind jargon.
• Careful work on budgets and reporting.
• Luxury, beauty, hospitality, or fashion experience is a plus.

Who thrives here

• Self-directed operators who set their own optimization cadences, hold themselves to weekly performance review rituals, and ship deliverables without project-managed prompts
• Practitioners who view in-platform rigor (QA checklists, naming conventions, taxonomy enforcement, post-launch audits) as a senior-level discipline rather than a junior-level checkbox
• Communicators who write with precision (clear thesis, defensible data, tight prose) and present with confidence under stakeholder scrutiny
• Teammates who actively document SOPs, share platform release notes, mentor analysts and associates on bidder mechanics, and contribute to internal knowledge bases (Notion, Confluence, Slack channels)