Director Paid Media

Sphere Entertainment Co.; New York, Northern (NY, KY); Hybrid; USD 113,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Sphere Entertainment Co. in New York seeks a Director of Paid Media to lead full-funnel strategies across search, social, programmatic, display and video.

You will own media planning, budgeting, optimization, and reporting to deliver ROAS targets. Reporting to the SVP of Marketing, you’ll collaborate with Brand, Creative, CRM, and Ticketing teams, manage agencies, and mentor a high-performing team to accelerate guest acquisition and revenue.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive experience in paid media or performance marketing.
• Experience managing agency relationships and seven-figure budgets.
• Deep platform expertise across paid social, paid search, programmatic/display, and video.
• Strong analytical foundation with attribution modeling, incrementality testing, and MMM tools.
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications.
• Excellent executive communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Build and execute comprehensive, full-funnel paid media strategies aligned to the customer journey.
• Define channel roles and investment priorities across paid social, paid search, programmatic display, video, and specialty/travel platforms.
• Develop audience-first media frameworks mapping targeting strategies, messaging, and channel deployment.
• Identify and evaluate emerging platforms and optimization opportunities to maintain competitive advantage.
• Translate business objectives into clear media objectives with defined KPIs.
• Oversee and optimize media budgets to maximize ROAS and efficiency.
• Mentor and develop marketing team members, fostering accountability and curiosity.
• Serve as day-to-day contact for the media agency of record and ensure accountability for planning, execution, and reporting.
• Identify platform changes and share industry best practices with the team.
• Partner with Brand, Creative, and Content teams to ensure on-brand creative and strategy.
• Align with Product, CRM, and Ticketing teams to integrate first-party data and signals.
• Coordinate with cross-functional stakeholders to amplify go-to-market plans.

Skills

Paid media

Agency mgmt

Budget mgmt

GA/Analytics

Tableau

Media planning

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications

Tools

Tableau

Google Analytics

Job description

Sphere Entertainment Co. is a leader in immersive experiences, technology and media. The Company includes Sphere, an experiential medium powered by advanced technologies. The first Sphere opened in Las Vegas, with a second venue planned for Abu Dhabi. In addition, the Company includes MSG Networks, which operates two regional sports and entertainment networks, MSG Network and MSG Sportsnet, as well as a direct-to-consumer and authenticated streaming product, MSG+, delivering a wide range of live sports content and other programming. More information is available at www.sphereentertainmentco.com .

Who are we hiring?

The Director Paid Media is responsible for building and executing full-funnel media strategies that drive measurable business outcomes. This role oversees media execution, from strategic planning and budget allocation through performance optimization, spend efficiency, and reporting. A core dimension of this position is rigorous oversight of budget pacing, ROAS maximization, and cost-per-acquisition guardrails to ensure media dollars deliver against business objectives.

Reporting into the SVP of Marketing, the Director Paid Media will oversee the development, evolution, and execution of campaign strategies across paid search, paid social, programmatic, display, and video channels. This role owns day-to-day media execution, setting clear expectations for agency partners across planning, execution, optimization, and reporting, and holding them accountable to performance benchmarks and efficiency targets. With a focus on driving efficient customer acquisition, the Director leverages deep knowledge of consumer insights, audience segmentation, media targeting capabilities, and marketing analytics to reach, engage, and convert prospective customers.

This role demands an innovative marketer with deep understanding of the media landscape, including paid search, social, programmatic, OOH, and various DTC, streaming, SVOD, and linear TV business models and products.

What will you do?

• Build and execute comprehensive, full-funnel paid media strategies aligned to the customer journey
• Define channel roles and investment priorities across paid social (Meta, TikTok, Reddit), paid search (Google, Bing), programmatic display, video (YouTube, CTV/OTT), and specialty/travel intent platforms
• Develop audience-first media frameworks that map targeting strategies, creative messaging, and channel deployment to distinct audience segments and behavioral motivations
• Identify and evaluate emerging platforms, ad products, betas, and optimization opportunities to maintain a competitive advantage
• Translate business objectives into clear media objectives with defined KPIs

Budget Management

• Oversee and optimize media budgets, ensuring disciplined allocation/optimization to maximize ROAS and efficiency
• Establish and maintain profitability guardrails, including CPA and cost-per-ticket targets, modeling media cost against media-contributed outcomes to isolate paid media efficiency
• Use Media Mix Modeling (MMM) tools to quantify incremental revenue contribution by channel and inform budget optimization decisions
• Monitor pacing, delivery, and spend efficiency on a weekly basis, proactively reallocating investment toward higher-yield opportunities
• Mentor, manage, and develop marketing team members, fostering a culture of accountability, intellectual curiosity, and continuous improvement
• Serve as the day-to-day contact for the media agency of record, ensuring accountability for media planning, execution, reporting, and optimization while avoiding duplication of effort
• Identify and communicate platform changes and industry best practices, keeping the team current

Data & Analytics

• Partner with cross-functional teams to evaluate attribution models, design incrementality tests, and quantify the true impact of paid media on revenue and ticket sales
• Own the paid media measurement framework, defining leading indicators (website sessions, event detail page visits) and lagging indicators (tickets sold, revenue, CPA)
• Leverage dashboards and reporting tools (e.g., Tableau, platform-native analytics) to monitor performance and surface actionable insights in real time

Cross-Functional Alignment

• Collaborate closely with Brand, Creative, and Content teams to ensure paid media campaigns are fueled by segment-specific, on-brand creative
• Align with Product, CRM, and Ticketing teams to integrate first-party data, CRM audiences, and purchase signals into targeting and retargeting strategies
• Coordinate with integrated marketing stakeholders across earned, owned, and in-venue channels to ensure paid media amplifies broader go-to-market plans
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert on paid media capabilities and performance benchmarks

What do you need to succeed?

• 8+ years of progressive experience in paid media or performance marketing, with demonstrated experience managing agency relationships and large-scale media budgets (seven figures or above) with accountability for ROAS, CPA, and revenue targets
• Deep platform expertise across paid social, paid search, programmatic/display, and video
• Strong analytical foundation with hands-on experience in attribution modeling, incrementality testing, and Media Mix Modeling tools or methodologies
• Proficiency with analytics and reporting platforms such as Tableau, Google Analytics, or equivalent BI tools
• Experience developing audience-first media strategies using behavioral, demographic, psychographic, and geographic segmentation
• Excellent executive communication skills with the ability to distill complex data into concise, insight-driven recommendations
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field
• Provide exceptional experiences for our guests, partners, and team members, including by adhering to our appearance and presentation guidelines while on-site.

Preferred Qualifications

• 3 or more years in a leadership or director-level role
• Experience in entertainment, hospitality, or live events preferred, with familiarity with ticketing ecosystems and event-based customer journeys
• Demonstrated leadership ability with a record of mentoring and developing high-performing teams.
• Exceptional communication and project management skills, with the ability to manage complex initiatives, influence cross-functional partners, and deliver results in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

#LI-Onsite

Pay Range

$113,000 — $220,000 USD

At MSG, we recognize the importance of upskilling employees’ talents and strengths so they can drive their careers forward. We are proud to offer a robust set of tools and resources to help employees understand their interests and purpose, harness their talents and obtain the skills they need to reach the next step in their careers. Growth and longevity for our employees are top priorities here.

We value diversity and are looking for extraordinary employees of all backgrounds! MSG is an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, sexual and reproductive health choices, national origin, citizenship, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. MSG complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination, including considering requests for reasonable accommodations as required.

EEO

We value diversity and welcome employees of all backgrounds. Our Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides equal employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, sexual and reproductive health choices, national origin, citizenship, age, genetic information, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We also strictly prohibit discrimination and harassment on these bases.

At this time, Federal law requires that we maintain a record a record of each employee's sex and race or ethnicity, and that we invite employees to voluntarily self-identify. The company is limited to the categories listed below, and the definitions for each category have been established by the federal government.

Submission of this information voluntary and refusal to provide it will note subject you to any adverse treatment. The information will be kept confidential and only be used in accordance with the provisions of applicable federal laws, including those which require the information to be summarized and reported to the Federal Government for civil rights enforcement purposes.

If you choose not to self-identify your race/ethnicity or gender at this time, the Federal Government requires that we determine the information by visual survey and/or other available information.