Director, Paid Search

PHM; Chicago, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 97,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

401K

Parental and family care leave

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

PHM, a leading health media agency in the US, is seeking a Paid Search Director to lead a high-scale Search team, shape strategic vision, and drive client outcomes across channels. You will partner with executives, manage staffing and budgets, and elevate our approach with documentation and best practices.

The role emphasizes collaboration with internal and vendor stakeholders, delivering POVs, and advancing the Search practice across the agency.

Qualifications

• Enterprise client management and account planning experience.
• Experience leading a team of 7+ people.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, with 10+ years of direct Search campaign management.
• Healthcare industry knowledge a plus.

Responsibilities

• Oversee enterprise-scale Search team, establishing overall strategic vision and driving tactical excellence, innovation and collaboration.
• Deeply understand client leadership stakeholders, priorities, and pain-points, proactively setting goals, sharing perspectives and approach-based solutions.
• Cultivate client leadership relationships both at the brand level and beyond, serving as a trusted advisor for ideation, escalation or action plan creation.
• Represent Search in broader client leadership conversations, actively contributing and/or leading communications.
• Create a culture of transparency, comradery, and accomplishment within their team, setting overarching objectives and celebrating accomplishments.
• Drive team process, financial accountability, training and best practice sharing.
• Establish and document client-level optimization, innovation and planning approaches, creating timelines, templates and scaled resources.
• Support career growth of those responsible for career growth of others, setting clear and consistent expectations by level across the team.
• Determine new ways to partner across Channels and integrate beyond Search.
• Represent capability in deliverable and fee scoping workstreams, advocating and rationalizing team's staffing needs and partnering across stakeholders to address
• Leader in establishing and documenting POVs and product updates, proactively identifying opportunities to up-level our approach
• Identify Practice-wide needs or gaps, lead workstreams and/or goal committees to evolve the Search Practice
• Develop top-to-top relationship with key vendor partners to ensure shared priorities and client-facing messaging are clear

Skills

Search tools & platforms

Search strategy & POVs

Digital media knowledge

Team leadership

Client relationship management

Vendor relationship management

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

POV documentation

Job description

Company description

PHM is the leading health media agency in the US, built for the modern healthcare experience. Here, industry depth meets media scale, where data becomes direction, where creativity and storytelling bring truth to life, and where orchestration replaces fragmentation.

Dedicated to making brands discovered, PHM redefines what media can do through data, content, and creativity. Because in modern healthcare, the brands that are found are the ones that lead. And when brands lead, advantage follows. Go deeper. Be found.

Overview

The Paid Search Director provides functional management and leadership to a team of experienced paid search marketers. The Director is responsible for staffing, revenue projections, process development, leading client search programs, providing strong cross-functional contribution and business development. The goal of this role is to manage their client and team as a book of business, ensuring a clear vision for the future, deep collaboration across internal and vendor stakeholders and scaling impact agency-wide through point of view documentation, process refinement and contribution to practice-wide operational approach.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee enterprise-scale Search team, establishing overall strategic vision and driving tactical excellence, innovation and collaboration
• Deeply understand client leadership stakeholders, priorities, and pain-points, proactively setting goals, sharing perspectives and approach-based solutions
• Cultivate client leadership relationships both at the brand level and beyond, serving as a trusted advisor for ideation, escalation or action plan creation
• Represent Search in broader client leadership conversations, actively contributing and/or leading communications
• Create a culture of transparency, comradery, and accomplishment within their team, setting overarching objectives and celebrating accomplishments
• Drive team process, financial accountability, training and best practice sharing
• Establish and document client-level optimization, innovation and planning approaches, creating timelines, templates and scaled resources
• Support career growth of those responsible for career growth of others, setting clear and consistent expectations by level across the team
• Determine new ways to partner across Channels and integrate beyond Search
• Represent capability in deliverable and fee scoping workstreams, advocating and rationalizing team's staffing needs and partnering across stakeholders to address
• Leader in establishing and documenting POVs and product updates, proactively identifying opportunities to up-level our approach
• Identify Practice-wide needs or gaps, lead workstreams and/or goal committees to evolve the Search Practice
• Develop top-to-top relationship with key vendor partners to ensure shared priorities and client-facing messaging are clear

Knowledge

• Expert understanding of Search buying tools, platforms and new/evolving product offerings
• Strong perspective on hot topics within the Search landscape, creating documentation to answer questions make these updates actionable for brands
• Strong perspective on what best in class execution and workflow looks like, and has a vision for the future of the industry
• Expert understanding of connection between Search and the broader media mix
• Broad knowledge of digital landscape and agency capabilities (planning, SEO, online and offline Media, technology, etc)
• Deep understanding of the expectations and skillsets needed to be successful across levels, applying this knowledge to coach up Search team, reassess responsibilities and apply within the Talent Acquisition efforts.
• Firm understanding of connection between Search and the broader media mix
• Expert ability to link brand goals search campaign organizing and execution
• Leverage visual storytelling to simplify the complex and accelerate client understanding

Requirements

• Ability to multi-task and manage one’s time, demonstrating personal organization and meet deadlines while maintaining attention to detail
• Ability to take and/or set initial direction, proactively provide proposed solutions and status updates
• Ability to anticipate problems before they happen and creatively problem solve
• Enterprise client management and account planning experience
• Exhibits integrity, trust and investment in self-development
• Adherence to agency procedures (timesheets, required trainings, 360 feedback, etc)
• Proven ability to lead people and projects
• Experience managing a team of 7+
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, with 10+ years of direct Search campaign management
• Healthcare industry knowledge a plus

Additional information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger.

It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization.

We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive.

Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact [e-mail].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Compensation Range: USD $97,375.00 - USD $139,965.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 8/16/2026.