Head of Paid Search in London

Overview

Paid Search is one of four disciplines sitting under the digital activation umbrella, alongside SEO, Paid Social and Programmatic. The team is currently c. 80 FTEs, split between the UK, India and Colombia. Our client roster includes household name brands in FMCG, technology, fashion, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, hospitality and consumer electronics. The Head of Paid Search reports into the Head of Digital Activation.

You will lead the day to day running of the Zenith International Paid Search Department, ensuring consistent delivery of excellent work, exceptional client service, best in class product and achievement of revenue and profitability targets.

Responsibilities

• Commercial Leadership & Revenue Growth
  • Revenue ownership: Ensure channel revenue targets are met and forecasted accurately
  • Cost management: Track, manage, and report on team structure, resourcing, and costs
  • Commercial growth: Identify and develop opportunities for incremental revenue through expanded services, increased scope, and additional investment
  • New business: Support agency new business efforts by shaping the programmatic offering, contributing to pitches, and developing innovative solutions beyond existing scopes of work
  • Revenue diversification: Champion profitability through the adoption and growth of bespoke in-house tools and products
  • Forecasting: Own regular revenue and FTE forecasting for the channel, maintaining an accurate and up-to-date view of performance
• Operational Excellence & Quality Control
  • Brilliant basics: Ensure robust QA processes, accurate planning, and ongoing optimisation are embedded across all campaigns and regularly updated in line with platform and industry changes
  • Error prevention: Proactively prevent errors by enforcing QA standards across the team, with a zero-tolerance approach to avoidable mistakes
  • Finance excellence: Maintain absolute financial accuracy and adherence to agency processes, including PO management, query resolution, SLA compliance, bookings, audits, and invoice clearance within required timelines
  • Governance & access: Own access administration, Publicis ID compliance, and governance processes, including forecasting tools and internal platforms
  • Best-in-class output: Develop, maintain, and evolve best-practice guidelines and training materials covering planning through to optimisation
  • Innovation & product development: Partner with senior performance leadership to test, adopt, and scale new products, tools, and approaches that drive efficiency and quality
• Client Performance, Leadership & Growth
  • Client satisfaction: Oversee the development and delivery of client performance roadmaps, ensuring clear goals, accountability, and outcomes
  • Strategic leadership: Act as the senior paid search lead across the client portfolio, influencing strategy and decision‐making at a senior level
  • Innovation & testing: Develop and deliver quarterly channel roadmaps and test‐and‐learn plans to drive innovation, performance, and growth
  • Relationship management: Build strong, trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders and internal planning teams
  • Growth delivery: Ensure paid search strategy, activation, and tactics consistently drive performance, growth, and client satisfaction across all accounts
  • Opportunity identification: Support teams in identifying growth opportunities, improving strategy, and expanding use of platforms, first‐party data and proprietary tools
• Team Leadership, Resource Management & Culture
  • Visible leadership: Deliver consistent, responsive, and proactive leadership across the team, providing timely support to clients, planning teams, and internal stakeholders
  • Resource management: Allocate resources efficiently to maximise output and ensure workloads are balanced and sustainable
  • Hiring & retention: Build and maintain a high‐performing, well‐staffed team aligned to business priorities, with oversight from senior leadership
  • Development & progression: Set clear objectives and career pathways by level, supported by structured development plans and performance management
  • Training & certification: Build and deploy annual training and certification plans across platforms and vendors, ensuring full compliance across the team
  • Onboarding: Own and oversee onboarding processes to ensure a consistent, high‐quality experience for all new starters
  • Succession planning: Maintain clear succession and promotion roadmaps to support long‐term team stability and growth
  • Team engagement: Host regular team meetings to onboard new members, share knowledge, strengthen culture, and improve engagement
• Department & External Profile
  • Media owner partnerships: Develop strong relationships with key partners and media owners, including joint business planning, training, and access to support and innovation
  • Profile building: Surface and celebrate great work from the team by developing case studies and sharing success internally and externally
  • Awards & recognition: Lead the submission of industry award entries to showcase excellence within the paid search discipline

Qualifications

• Strong line management capabilities
• Proactive mindset and excellent problem‐solving skills
• Exceptional knowledge of the paid search landscape, platform evolution and user behaviours
• Operational excellence, evidence of driving efficiency through improved operations
• Gravitas required to build relationships with senior clients and colleagues
• Experience managing a P&L for a department or business unit
• Strong organisational skills
• Diplomacy, particularly in terms of managing conflict
• A keen eye for detail
• A solid understanding of emerging technologies, in particular LLMs and AI

Additional information

• WORK YOUR WORLD opportunity to work anywhere in the world, where there is a Publicis office, for up to 6 weeks a year.
• REFLECTION DAYS - Two additional days of paid leave to step away from your usual day‐to‐day work and create time to focus on your well‐being and self‐care.
• HELP@HAND BENEFITS 24/7 helpline to support you on a personal and professional level. Access to remote GPs, mental health support and CBT. Wellbeing content and lifestyle coaching.
• FAMILY FRIENDLY POLICIES We provide 26 weeks of full pay for the following family milestones: Maternity, Adoption, Surrogacy and Shared Parental Leave.
• FLEXIBLE WORKING, BANK HOLIDAY SWAP & BIRTHDAY DAY OFF You are entitled to an additional day off for your birthday, from your first day of employment.
• GREAT LOCAL DISCOUNTS This includes membership discounts with Soho Friends, local restaurants and retailers in Westfield White City and Television Centre.
• Full details of our benefits will be shared when you join us!

Publicis Groupe operates a hybrid working pattern with full‐time employees being office‐based three days during the working week. We are supportive of all candidates and are committed to providing a fair assessment process. If you have any circumstances (such as neurodiversity, physical or mental impairments or a medical condition) that may affect your assessment, please inform your Talent Acquisition Partner. We will discuss possible adjustments to ensure fairness. Rest assured, disclosing this information will not impact your treatment in our process.

Please make sure you check out the Publicis Career Page which showcases our Inclusive Benefits and our EAG's (Employee Action Groups).