Associate Director, Paid Search / Paid Media in Nottingham

Impression Digital is a multi-award winning, high growth digital marketing agency based in Nottingham, London and Manchester. Our agency wouldn’t be what it is today without our incredible people. Our diverse team encompasses expertise across the digital landscape which enables us to accelerate change and results, driving business growth faster. Our collaborative, creative and inclusive culture helps build our reputation as a leading digital employer and we are committed to nurturing and developing people to their full potential.

We are seeking an ambitious, enthusiastic, and highly experienced Paid Search leader to join our multi-award-winning agency. This pivotal role is a direct support to the Head of PPC and is responsible for a portfolio of flagship client accounts. You will actively lead the strategy for larger or more complex, typically top-tier accounts, while contributing significantly to the continued development and growth of Impression’s Paid Search offering.

Given the senior nature of this role, we are looking for candidates who can demonstrate established team leadership experience focused on strategic guidance and inspiration. To be considered for the Associate Director, Paid Search role, you will need to demonstrate:

• Innovation: You proactively challenge established best practices and legacy processes, designing new, evidence-based methodologies that unlock performance gains where standard tactics have plateaued.
• Commercial Storytelling: You go beyond simply defining strategy; you expertly structure complex data and multi-channel insights into a persuasive story that links technical execution directly to the client's bottom line.
• Adaptive Resilience: You apply adaptive thinking strategically across team and client challenges, acting as a steadying influence to guide teams through complex circumstances with calm, focus, and clarity.
• Cross-Channel Fluency: You can speak to how other Paid Media channels contribute to meeting overall client goals.
• Ownership and accountability: You demonstrate accountability over the quality and performance of complex media accounts, acting as the definitive problem solver.

The Associate Director is the escalation point for all clients within their portfolio. You will act as the "Guardian of Quality" for the team, ensuring that every piece of work is treated with deep professional care.

What will you be doing?

• Account Leadership: Assume full accountability for flagship client partnerships, navigating conflicting stakeholder priorities to secure long-term retention and investment.
• Performance Ownership: You will take full accountability for the commercial performance and trajectory of your portfolio.
• Integrated Solutions: Work collaboratively with other channel owners (Paid Social, SEO, Programmatic) to produce cohesive and experimentation-led recommendations to improve performance across the Paid Media spectrum.
• Risk Management: Proactively identify "unspoken" risks or stagnation points in a client’s strategy, approaching them with pre-formatted solutions that require cross-service integration or technical innovation.
• New Business: Contribute to the new business phase, including understanding briefs, producing pitch materials, and presenting to prospects to win new business.

Technical Innovation & Thought Leadership

• Challenging the Status Quo: Proactively challenge existing methodologies and "best practices" to elevate the standard of strategic output.
• Future-Proofing: Apply forward-thinking consistently to anticipate industry trends, platform changes, and emerging risks.
• Internal Thought Leadership: Showcase Impression’s prowess as an industry leader by transforming your innovative solutions into case studies or new service products.

Leadership & People

• Coaching & Development: Adopt a coaching-first mindset for your team, guiding them to solve complex problems independently rather than providing answers.
• Strategic Proofing: Provide high-level strategic proofing on complex accounts and hold the wider team to account on technical execution.
• Operational Support: Support the department with responsibilities including resourcing, recruitment, process improvement, and training.

Starting salary from: £50,900 (plus £6k for those living in the Greater London area).

What makes us different?

• Flexible, hybrid working options - as per ways of working charter.
• 4.5 day working week.
• Private medical insurance with access to EAP.
• Impression funded specialist therapy sessions, up to 6 sessions where Impression funds 50% of the cost.
• Enhanced sick pay.
• Access to OpenUp, a virtual therapy platform.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• 28 days annual leave, plus bank holiday.
• Life leave – when something unexpected happens in your life and you need some paid leave.
• Pregnancy loss and parental bereavement leave.
• Compassionate leave.
• Eye-care vouchers.
• Opportunity to save on and spread the cost of new tech through Techscheme.
• Travel to work scheme.
• Railcard salary sacrifice scheme.
• Budget for books, tools and software.
• A full social calendar.
• Summer and Christmas party (off-site).
• Chance to attend national and international conferences.
• Top Apple equipment to use at work.
• Savings on bikes and accessories through Cyclescheme.
• Contributory pension scheme.
• The usual agency stuff – office dogs, drinks fridge, ping pong and foosball, tea and coffee and office snacks.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

We’re committed to embracing diversity and promoting equal opportunities, both within our teams and through the services we provide. We pledge to promote equal opportunities and, as per the Equality Act 2010, will not tolerate discrimination on the grounds of gender, gender identity, marital status, sexual orientation, race, colour, nationality, religion, age, disability, caring responsibilities or beliefs.