Paid Media Manager

narrativestrategies; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Narrative is seeking a mid-level Paid Media Manager to translate client goals into smart media strategy across programmatic, paid social, and other digital channels. You will work with client teams and buyers to plan, launch, and optimize multi-channel campaigns, balancing timelines, budgets, and performance.

Ideal candidates have 3–5 years of hands-on experience, strong collaboration skills, and the ability to move fast in dynamic environments while surfacing ideas that improve campaigns.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of hands-on paid media experience across planning, management and reporting.
• Experience across programmatic and paid social channels.
• Strong ability to connect paid tactics to broader campaign goals.

Responsibilities

• Partner with account teams to develop media plans and budgets reflecting goals and resources.
• Connect broad strategic picture to tactical execution and reporting.
• Translate client objectives into actionable paid media recommendations with channel selection and budgets.
• Launch and traffic campaigns with media buyers, ensuring on-time delivery.
• Monitor pacing and performance across channels and communicate optimizations.
• Identify opportunities to enhance paid media using data and platform trends.
• Produce performance reports with data-driven insights for future planning.
• Manage multiple campaigns and workflows across channels.
• Serve as a reliable point of contact for internal teams, clients, and partners.
• Support process improvement and best practices for the paid team.

Skills

Paid media planning

Campaign management

Performance reporting

Strategic thinking

Client communication

Collaboration

Job description

Role Description

Paid Media Managers are the interpreters between Narrative’s client teams and its paid media function. They bring strategic perspective to every interaction; translating client goals into smart media strategy, connecting tactical requests to broader campaign objectives, and ensuring that paid media is always working in service of the larger communications effort.

This mid-level role typically requires 3-5 years of hands-on experience planning, managing, and reporting on multi-channel paid campaigns. Managers oversee the strategic and operational execution of campaigns across programmatic, paid social, and other digital channels — coordinating with buyers, managing timelines, and keeping performance optimized and aligned with campaign goals.

The ideal candidate is a natural collaborator who thrives in a dynamic environment, knows how to get things moving in the early stages of a campaign when the details are still coming into focus, and brings both curiosity and discipline to the work. They are additive — looking for opportunities to strengthen paid strategy, educate clients on what’s possible, and proactively surface ideas that serve the campaign. Strong organizational instincts and the ability to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously are essential. Experience across programmatic, paid social (Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others), and public affairs or political campaigns is strongly preferred.

Typical Responsibilities

• Partner with account teams to develop media plans and budgets that reflect campaign goals, audience priorities, and available resources.

• Help connect a broad strategic picture to tactical execution and reporting.

• Translate client objectives into actionable paid media recommendations by identifying appropriate channels, budgets, and tactics, using audience data and platform insights to guide planning.

• Launch and traffic campaigns in coordination with media buyers and partners, ensuring on-time delivery and alignment with budget and schedule.

• Monitor pacing and performance across all channels, identifying in-flight optimizations and communicating them clearly to account teams and clients.

• Identify and share opportunities to enhance paid media by suggesting new tactics or channels based on campaign data and platform trends.

• Produce performance reports with data-driven insights that tell a clear story and guide future planning.

• Manage campaign workflows efficiently — knowing what to own, what to coordinate through buyers, and how to keep multiple workstreams running cleanly at once.

• Serve as a knowledgeable, reliable point of contact for internal teams, clients, and media partners.

• Support process improvement, documentation, and best practices that make the paid team faster and smarter over time.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of hands-on paid media experience, including planning, campaign management, and performance reporting.

• Experience across multiple channels and tactics, including programmatic and paid social (Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter/X).

• Strong strategic instincts and the ability to connect paid media tactics to broader campaign goals.

• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where priorities evolve and good judgment matters as much as process.

• Excellent organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously without losing the thread on any of them.

• Clear and confident communicator, able to break down paid media concepts into straightforward, actionable information for clients and internal teams.

• Public affairs, advocacy, or political campaign experience is strongly preferred.

About Narrative

Narrative is a strategic communications firm solving today’s most demanding reputational and public affairs challenges. We leverage best practices in business, politics, and journalism to manage multi-faceted communications campaigns. Narrative’s differentiating strength is its team and culture. Our bipartisan team of professionals operates in a highly collaborative environment where we support and value our clients and each other.
Narrative has been recognized four years in a row as one of PR Week’s Best Places to Work and as one of PRNews’ Agency Elite Top 100. Narrative offers a competitive 401k matching program and work-from-home flexibility on Fridays and around major holidays.