VP Paid Media

Role Description

The Vice President, Paid Media, is the senior-most Paid Media leader at Kanahoma, responsible for the strategic direction, performance, and continuous evolution of the agency’s Paid Media practice. Reporting directly to the SVP, Marketing, the VP, Paid Media fully owns the Paid Media product, from strategy and team leadership to execution quality and partner outcomes.

This leader, who will define what Kanahoma's paid media product and team become, bringing a strong point of view on will define what it becomes, bringing a strong point of view on attribution, the future of search, and creative strategy in a world where paid media will look fundamentally different in five years. This individual directly manages the Paid Media team, drives year-over-year enrollment growth across the partner portfolio, actively contributes to agency operations and new business development, and leads the integration of AI tools and emerging technologies to keep Kanahoma at the forefront of performance marketing.

Role Responsibilities

• Own Paid Media as a Product
• Serve as the Paid Media product owner, defining and evolving product strategy, standards, and vision in collaboration with the SVP, Marketing
• Translate agency-level strategy into actionable paid media frameworks, processes, and playbooks, leveraging AI tools to accelerate development and improve consistency
• Partner with the Accounts team on upsells and partner renewals, identifying and championing opportunities to expand Paid Media scope
• Represent the Paid Media team in partner pitches and AOR conversations
• Collaborate with the SVP, Marketing on SOW development, resource planning, and new business pipeline

• Build & Lead A Best-in-Class Paid Media Team
• Directly manage Sr. Directors and Directors of Paid Media, serving as the primary leadership layer for the full Paid Media team
• Lead by example; take ownership and execute with a sense of urgency
• “Yes, but” Culture — always presenting solutions when tasked with an opportunity
• Recruit, develop, and retain top paid media talent; actively support hiring and onboarding across all levels of the team
• Champion AI fluency across the team, ensuring all Paid Media team members are trained on and actively utilizing approved AI tools in their day-to-day workflows
• Conduct weekly one-on-ones with direct reports
• Hold quarterly skip-level meetings with all Paid Media team members who are not direct reports
• Set, track, and evaluate direct reports’ annual and bi-annual goals, aligned with performance reviews
• Execute bi-annual performance reviews for all direct reports
• Escalate team concerns to the SVP, Marketing or through L10 discussions

• Own Paid Media Performance
• Meet or exceed partner inquiry, application, and start goals across all Paid Media books of business
• Ensure all Paid Media campaigns come within 5% of planned spend goals
• Maintain a thorough understanding of partner portfolio performance for L10 weekly meetings, including budget pacing and performance metrics
• Identify and implement AI-powered optimization strategies to improve campaign performance, reduce inefficiencies, and drive stronger partner outcomes
• Ensure all deadlines are delivered on time; communicate early and often when delays arise
• Serve as the senior escalation point for all Paid Media account service interruptions, ensuring timely resolution and proactive partner communication

• Own Kanahoma’s Forward-Looking Paid Media POV
• Serve as Kanahoma’s primary voice on where paid media is headed, across attribution, search evolution, and creative strategy, and translate that POV into a concrete roadmap for the practice
• Bring a strong perspective on cross-channel attribution: what’s working, what’s broken, and how to build measurement frameworks that reflect real business outcomes in a multi-step acquisition model
• Maintain an informed, opinionated view on the future of paid search—including AI-driven bidding, the evolution of match types, and the shift in how intent is captured and monetized
• Drive creative strategy thinking across the paid team, with a clear POV on how creative will evolve as generative AI matures and platform automation increases
• Regularly share POV with agency leadership and partners; represent Kanahoma’s perspective in industry conversations and new business contexts

• Develop, own and execute a recurring Paid Media Testing process
• Drive a culture of innovation across the Paid Media team, ensuring Kanahoma remains a leader in the performance marketing landscape
• Own the annual and quarterly paid media testing roadmap; oversee performance readouts shared with partners and internal teams
• Identify and evaluate new channels, platforms, and ad units to test across the portfolio, including AI-native and AI-enhanced media opportunities
• Work with existing vendors to identify new ad units and AI-powered targeting or bidding capabilities to test
• Build and standardize the creative testing process; leverage AI tools to accelerate creative iteration and analysis
• Own landing page testing as a core component of the paid media testing program; partner closely with the Web team on conversion rate optimization (CRO) initiatives to ensure a cohesive experience from ad click to lead generation and applications
• Ensure quarterly creative refresh requests are made for every partner based on prior quarter testing results
• Deliver quarterly creative performance results to the Creative Services team

• Own Paid Media Performance Reporting and Planning
• Partner with key accounts to define client reporting metrics and cadence; ensure deliverables meet or exceed partner expectations
• Collaborate with the Data and Analytics team to ensure Daily Trackers and performance reports leverage partner CRM and platform data accurately
• Identify opportunities to leverage AI for automated reporting, anomaly detection, and predictive insights that improve decision-making speed and accuracy
• Own Paid Media data accuracy and reporting integrity across the full portfolio
• Own the annual, quarterly, and monthly Paid Media planning process, including:
• Overall strategy
• Forecasting
• Plan execution

• Support Agency Operations
• Actively participate in the agency’s EOS process, including weekly L10 meetings and quarterly right person right seat (RPRS) exercises as directed by the SVP, Marketing
• Collaborate with the SVP, Marketing to manage Paid Media team resource allocation, billability targets (80–90% per employee), and coverage planning
• Support the agency’s international staffing strategy as it relates to Paid Media capacity and margin improvement
• Ensure all Paid Media projects are properly managed within the agency project management system; identify opportunities to leverage AI to streamline workflows and expand templated processes
• Track and escalate paused jobs, red reports, change orders, and other flags to the SVP, Marketing as needed

• Lead Paid Media AI Enablement
• Serve as the Paid Media team’s primary champion for AI adoption, working closely with the SVP, Marketing and external consultants to identify, evaluate, and implement AI tools that create meaningful workflow improvements
• Lead successful AI pilots within Paid Media, including scoping, execution, performance measurement, and socialization of results across the agency
• Continuously assess the AI tool landscape — including platform-native AI features across Google, Meta, and programmatic channels — to ensure Kanahoma is leveraging best-in-class capabilities
• Develop and maintain AI usage guidelines and best practices specific to Paid Media workflows, ensuring responsible, effective, and consistent adoption across the team
• Conduct weekly one-on-ones with direct reports
• Hold quarterly skip-level meetings with all Paid Media team members who are not direct reports
• Set, track, and evaluate direct reports’ annual and bi-annual goals, aligned with performance reviews
• Execute bi-annual performance reviews for all direct reports
• Escalate team concerns to the SVP, Marketing or through L10 discussions

 Role Qualifications

• 10–12+ years of progressive performance marketing experience, including 5+ years managing Paid Media teams
• Proven experience managing a paid book of business of $50M+ annually
• Proven experience in a multi-step, lead-to-sale acquisition environment is required, industries such as education, insurance, financial services, considered D2C, or other high-volume lead-gen categories. Higher-ed experience, ideally in the adult/online segment, is strongly preferred.
• Cross-industry experience is a strong plus, we’re especially interested in candidates who can bring proven paid strategies from outside higher ed (e.g., insurance, financial services, e-commerce, or other lead-gen-driven categories) and adapt them to our multi-step acquisition model.
• We’re looking for someone who has built paid media solutions from the ground up, not just optimized a polished big-agency machine. Experience standing up teams, processes, channel strategies, and measurement frameworks in environments that didn’t have them is a meaningful differentiator.
• A strong, opinionated POV on the future of paid media, including where attribution is headed, how search is evolving, and what creative strategy looks like as AI and automation reshape the channel mix.
• Demonstrated experience building, managing, and developing teams of 5 or more across multiple levels
• Exceptional communication, leadership, and strategic thinking skills
• Comfort in a player-coach role, balancing team leadership with senior-level Paid Media contribution
• Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate data into actionable strategy
• Demonstrated success in partner-facing roles with a customer service focus
• Previous leadership experience in an agency environment preferred

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Location: San Diego, San Diego, California, United States