Paid Media Specialist

Upstream Digital Marketing; Franklin (TN); Hybrid; USD 50,000 - 60,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

IRA match

QSEHRA health reimbursement

3 weeks paid vacation + 11 holidays

Flexible hours

Job summary

Upstream Digital Marketing in Brentwood, TN is seeking a hands-on Paid Media Specialist to manage campaigns end-to-end across Google Ads, Meta Ads, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn, with conversion tracking and reporting.

You will build, QA, optimize campaigns, maintain UTMs and tracking, and collaborate with a small pod and the design team. The Sr. Paid Media Specialist will provide strategy, while you execute with speed and precision.

Qualifications

• 1–3 years of hands-on paid media experience in Google Ads and/or Meta Ads.
• Ability to build campaigns from a brief without errors.
• Comfortable in Looker Studio and GA4

Responsibilities

• Plan, build, and QA campaigns primarily in Google Ads and Meta Ads; also YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn for select clients.
• Handle day-to-day optimization, identify underperforming elements, test fixes, and document outcomes.
• Maintain clean accounts with Upstream naming conventions, UTMs, pixels, and conversion tracking.
• Pull Looker Studio and GA4 reports for clients who can read them and want to read them.
• Collaborate with the creative team on briefs and ideas to ensure end-user-focused ads.
• Join client calls, add context, and close out action items.
• Leverage AI tools for first-pass copy and angles, then verify before shipping.

Skills

Paid media

Google Ads

Meta Ads

Looker Studio

GA4

Tools

Looker Studio

GA4

Job description

Paid Media Specialist

Upstream Digital Marketing | Brentwood, TN (Hybrid)

Who We Are

At Upstream Digital Marketing, we help small and mid‑sized businesses compete with the big guys and win. We're a performance‑driven digital advertising agency based in Brentwood, TN, specializing in lead generation campaigns using paid search, paid social, and YouTube advertising.

We're a small but growing team that operates without bureaucracy (seriously). Everyone here owns their work, pushes the craft forward, and genuinely cares about the clients they serve. If that sounds like your kind of place, keep reading.

The Role

We need someone who can take a campaign brief and turn it into a clean and live campaign with conversion tracking implemented in Google or Meta Ads without error.

You’ll keep the accounts running day‑to‑day: building, QA’ing, optimizing, reporting, and catching small problems before a client does.

You’ll work directly with a small team (we call them pods) to support the ad accounts of 10‑15 clients. This team consists of a Sr. Paid Media Specialist, yourself, and the Upstream design team.. The Sr. Paid Media Specialist owns the client relationship and sets the strategy, which frees you up to focus on executing it well. They’ll pull you into client calls, walk you through the why behind the strategy, and hand you more as fast as you can take it!

In short, this is a hands‑on role where your work is live in real accounts every day.

What You’ll Do

• Plan, build, and QA campaigns primarily in Google Ads and Meta Ads. Additionally, you’ll also work on YouTube TikTok, and LinkedIn campaigns for select clients.
• Handle day‑to‑day optimization: find what’s underperforming, propose a fix, run the test, document what happened.
• Keep accounts clean: Using Upstream approved naming conventions, UTMs, pixels setups & conversion tracking.
• Check budget pacing daily to ensure the clients budget is correctly utilized. Pull and maintain Looker Studio and GA4 reports that a client can actually read & wants to read.
• Work with our creative team on briefs and creative ideas so ads go live and are created with the end user in mind.
• Join client calls, add context where it's useful, and close out your action items
• Use AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) for first‑pass ad copy, angles, and routine work. Then always check it yourself before anything ships.
  

A Day in the Life

No two days look exactly the same here, but here's a realistic picture of what your week might look like:

Monday — You start the week with a weekly team standup. You then review weekend performance and budget pacing across the pod’s accounts. One account is running hot, so you pull the daily budget to meet the monthly targets. A Meta ad set for another client has frequency creeping up and CTR sliding. You pull the numbers, have a quick discussion within your pod about what you’re seeing and the creative swap you’d recommend, and get the go‑ahead to launch the two new variations that came in last week.

Tuesday — You join two client calls in a supporting role. For the first, you’ve prepped the Looker Studio dashboard and flagged the three things worth talking about. You leave the second with two action items: a new audience test and a landing page tracking check. Both are done within 24 hours of the call.

Wednesday — Deep work day. You’re focused on a new Google Search campaign that you discussed within your pod or a client moving into a new market. You build the structure, write the ad copy, set up conversion tracking, and QA the whole thing against our checklist before sending it up for a final look.

Thursday — You’re working with the creative team on ideas for an upcoming Meta launch, making sure every placement has the right asset size. That afternoon you spot a pacing issue on one account, fix it, and give your senior a heads‑up before the client ever sees it.

Friday — Weekly reporting. You update dashboards across the pod’s accounts, write short performance summaries in plain English, and prep notes for next week’s calls.

What We’re Looking For

• 1–3 years of hands‑on paid media experience in Google Ads and/or Meta Ads. Agency experience is a plus, but not required.
• You can build a Meta or Google campaign from a brief without errors. You’re past the point of needing help on every build
• You can explain ROAS, CPA, CPM, CTR, CVR, and frequency in plain English, and you know what to do when one of them moves
• Comfortable in Looker Studio and GA4
• You know ad platform specs cold and don’t launch campaigns with assets that break the end user experience
• You’ve found and shipped optimizations that moved a campaignExperience using AI tools to move faster on everyday work
• You ask for help before a deadline slips, not after. You take feedback well and apply it the next day
• You’re a great teammate. We’re not looking for the aloof genius; we’re looking for someone interested in working with their coworkers to solve problems, serve our clients well, and have fun along the way

What You’ll Get

• $50,000–$60,000 base salary (commensurate with experience)
• Hybrid work model — 1 day/week in our Brentwood, TN office
• Flexible hours within a 7 am–6 pm window (Monday–Friday), capped at 40 hours/week
• 3% company match Simple IRA plan
• QSEHRA health reimbursement
• 3 weeks paid vacation + 11 paid holidays (yes, including your birthday)