Paid
Strategist

Hours and location

This is a full-time role based in Leeds, UK. We offer hybrid working and flexible hours to everyone in the team, but this is not a fully remote opportunity. The role will require you to work from our office in Leeds for at least 3 days each week.

Benefits package

As part of our commitment to making Engage a great place to work, we’ve built a comprehensive benefits package that fuels our thriving culture and delivers an exceptional, well-rounded employee experience. Some of our most popular perks are:

• We’re employee owned
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays (rising after 5 years)
• Company performance linked bonus scheme
• Comprehensive private health insurance
• 5% company pension scheme
• Access to your own financial coach
• Free on-site gym
• Hybrid working
• An award-winning office
• Your birthday off
• Regular socials and summer conference

What we’re looking for

As a Paid Strategist, you will lead the strategic direction of Paid advertising campaigns across a wide range of clients and sectors. The role will help drive innovation within the Paid team, exploring new channels, and enhancing the team’s performance. You will work closely with the Head of Paid to alleviate their operational workload, enabling them to focus on broader business growth and client acquisition.

You will help identify and implement opportunities by splitting your time between strategy and execution, expanding and refining the Paid offering to ensure the team stays at the forefront of industry trends.

Duties & responsibilities

Strategic Direction

• Own the strategic development and direction of Paid accounts, ensuring innovative and effective campaign strategies.
• Collaborate with the Head of Paid to work on new business opportunities with the new business team and identify potential opportunities, contributing to pitches and client onboarding.
• Research and implement emerging channels and technologies to keep the Paid team at the cutting edge of digital advertising.
• Develop and execute multi-channel Paid strategies aligned with overall performance marketing goals.
• Lead strategic reviews of client performance, delivering actionable insights and recommendations for improvement.

Innovation and development

• Identify and test new Paid channels and techniques, evaluating their potential to enhance client performance.
• Help the team set up and optimise new channels, ensuring these are implemented correctly and efficiently.
• Refine and improve internal processes for campaign planning, execution, and reporting to maximise efficiency.
• Stay ahead of industry trends, bringing forward new ideas and innovations to maintain a competitive edge.

Client and team support

• Serve as the main strategic contact for dedicated clients, offering insight and guidance to maximise campaign performance.
• Help support the Head of Paid and Senior Paid Manager by developing Paid Managers and Executives through mentoring and skills enhancement.
• Provide training on advanced Paid strategies and tools to support both clients and internal teams.

Collaboration

• Work with other Performance Marketing departments to ensure a cohesive approach that integrates Paid strategies with SEO, CRO, and CRM efforts.
• Partner with the Head of Paid to define strategic priorities for the team, addressing gaps and enhancing overall performance.

Tracking and implementation

• Produce comprehensive reports that provide a clear narrative on campaign performance and future opportunities.
• Use insights from GA4 and relevant paid platforms to refine Paid strategies and inform client recommendations.
• Have a good understanding of tracking requirements through Google Tag Manager and support the team configuring if required.
• Create dataLayer specifications for technical teams to implement, ensuring advanced custom tracking can be implemented.
• Work with cross-functional teams to ensure tracking and reporting align with client objectives and KPIs.

This role requires you to be proactive around internal, client and new business work streams.

As part of the role you will be advised to review internal processes, suggest new tools and platforms to provide greater insight and efficiencies for the team and agency.

Client Retention / Growth

As part of client retention, you will be responsible for:

• Creating strong client relationships
• Become a senior figure on the Paid accounts
• Implement strategies for clients working towards KPIs and objectives, ensuring the team is delivering against these.
• Support the team to resolve any client issues

For client growth, you will be responsible for:

• Supporting the new business development team with new business opportunities, proposals, and pitches.
• Provide a Paid approach for new business opportunities, working collaboratively with other departments where necessary.
• Work with the new business development team to develop outbound responses and opportunities.

Authority

Within this role you will be responsible for key decisions on clients and strategies, advising around targets, forecasts and budget.

You will be responsible for the decisions the team makes on your accounts and handle any issues the client may have along with the Account Directors. In more extreme cases the Head of Paid / Performance Marketing Director should be consulted to help swiftly resolve the issue.

Due to the seniority of the role, you need to be good at problem solving and communicating the solution clearly and concisely.

A bit about us

Established in 2007, we’ve earned a reputation for consistently delivering world-class digital products and strategies. We call this Attention to digital™

We also have a strong sense of wanting to do the right thing - not just in digital, but our impact on the world too. That’s why we became employee owned in 2024 and are proud to be a Certified B Corporation™

Want to get to know us a little better? Why not take a tour of our office, meet the team or browse some of our work and case studies?