Data-Driven Paid Media Associate

HLK; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 42,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

HLK is seeking a Media Associate at its STL Office to support campaign integrity, performance visibility, and data-driven decision-making. You’ll help ensure accurate setup, monitoring, and optimization across paid search, social, and programmatic channels.

This entry-level role offers growth into a Media Buyer or Planner path, emphasizing analytics, reporting, and cross-functional collaboration within a high-performance media team.

Qualifications

• Strong attention to detail and a high standard for accuracy.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to spot trends, inconsistencies, and opportunities.
• Comfort working with data in Excel, dashboards, or reporting tools.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Clear communicator who can translate data into simple takeaways.

Responsibilities

• Execute daily QA across paid search, paid social, and programmatic campaigns to ensure accuracy in setup, pacing, and delivery.
• Monitor performance and proactively flag anomalies, risks, and optimization opportunities to pod leadership.
• Support in-platform maintenance including creative checks, pacing adjustments, and basic optimizations.
• Build and maintain performance reports, dashboards, and weekly summaries that translate data into insight.
• Deliver recurring performance updates that highlight what’s working, what’s not, and what needs attention.
• Support data validation and cleansing to ensure accuracy across reporting outputs.
• Partner with Data Intelligence to troubleshoot dashboards and improve data flow.
• Assist with campaign setup, tagging validation, and QA in collaboration with Buyers and Operations.
• Maintain organized documentation across budgets, pacing, creative assets, and campaign status.
• Support billing and reconciliation processes in partnership with Finance and Operations.
• Act as a force multiplier for Pod Leads, handling foundational execution so strategy can move faster.
• Build working knowledge across platforms (Google, Meta, DV360, LinkedIn) and core performance metrics.
• Actively seek feedback and development opportunities to grow into planning or buying roles.

Skills

Attention to detail

Analytical mindset

Excel

Dashboards

Communication

Organizational skills

Curiosity about media

Tools

GA4

Tableau

Google Ads

Meta

DV360

LinkedIn

Job description

HLK is seeking a Media Associate at its STL Office to support campaign integrity, performance visibility, and data-driven decision-making. You’ll help ensure accurate setup, monitoring, and optimization across paid search, social, and programmatic channels.

This entry-level role offers growth into a Media Buyer or Planner path, emphasizing analytics, reporting, and cross-functional collaboration within a high-performance media team.