Paid Media (Senior) Account Director

PHA is an earned-first integrated communications agency with offices in London, Manchester, Leeds, and Boston (US). We believe communication can make the world a better place. It matters. But with constant disruption, fragmentation and growing complexity, earning attention and inspiring action is harder than ever. PHA is built to solve for this.

We nurture, grow and protect brands & reputations for a portfolio of consumer, corporate, technology, B2B, and health clients in the UK and internationally. We bring clarity to a fast, chaotic, complex world, challenging convention and delivering fresh thinking. Our agile multidisciplined teams create dynamic campaigns across earned, social, digital and paid media - engaging audiences wherever they are, always.

We lead with strategy and deliver a full suite of creative services and production capabilities, generating impact at every step of the audience journey from awareness through to conversion. Working as one to solve any client challenge, we bring the best of PHA to drive impact that multiplies. When unboxed minds meet unboxed ambition communications don’t blend in – they break out. We’re built to make it matter.

Introduction to the role

As a Paid Media Account Director, you are a senior strategic leader responsible for delivering integrated paid media strategies across Search, Paid Social, and the wider digital paid ecosystem. We are looking for someone who is passionate about the development and evolution of the agency’s paid media frameworks and integrated offering.

You are expected to operate beyond channel silos – combining intent capture, demand generation, and audience activation across platforms to drive measurable commercial impact for both B2C and B2B business models.

The successful candidate will:

• Have experience across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube
• Possess working knowledge of programmatic buying environments (e.g. DV360, The Trade Desk), display networks, content syndication, and direct publisher placements
• Understand full-funnel media strategy, including audience development, creative testing frameworks, landing page optimisation, and measurement methodologies
• Be able to translate performance data into commercially meaningful insight across acquisition, retention, and lifetime value

Core Responsibilities

• Identify the decision makers within your clients’ organisation, and work to develop and maintain positive relationships with client teams as the senior account lead.
• Exceptional client management with detailed, clear communication, counsel, and regular strategic recommendations.
• Successfully lead a portfolio of client accounts, including strong delivery on activity and exceeding KPIs.
• Ownership of ongoing strategy and campaign development across search, social, display, programmatic, and direct buys.
• Ideation to keep client activity fresh and engaging, including testing frameworks, creative direction, and audience strategy.
• Ensure consistent quality control across your account portfolio, embedding best practice standards.
• Confidently manage and optimise client budgets, ensuring pacing, efficiency, and profitability.
• Lead evaluation and reporting processes that clearly demonstrate commercial impact and long-term value.
• Ownership of contract renewals to achieve a high client retention rate.
• Take the lead on evaluating and demonstrating impact, reporting on meaningful metrics for the client and showcasing value.
• Link paid media activity to revenue, margin, customer acquisition, and incrementality.
• Identify opportunities to expand channel mix, introduce new placements, and strengthen client partnerships.
• Find ways to ‘surprise and delight’ clients to provide added value outside of the day-to-day activity, and maintain long‑term client partnerships.

Stay Curious

• Complete proactive analysis, using relevant tools to spot trends, challenges, and opportunities to benefit clients, the team, and the wider company.
• Maintain a sophisticated, in-depth knowledge of paid media technologies, automation tools, attribution models, and privacy changes for the benefit of clients and the team.
• Stay ahead of developments in AI‑driven bidding, audience modelling, creative automation, and media buying platforms.
• Become known both internally and in the industry as a strategic thinker and expert in integrated paid media, sharing knowledge within the agency and representing it at external events.
• Attend role‑specific training and participate in agencywide activities and initiatives to build relationships with colleagues.
• Use AI tools responsibly to support creativity, efficiency, insight, and high‑quality output, applying professional judgment to ensure all work remains accurate, ethical, and aligned with client and company standards.

Stay Human

• Take on line management responsibilities for junior colleagues, working with your SVP/EVP to lead the quarterly appraisals process, help to set objectives, and provide regular guidance and mentoring for your report(s).
• Identify opportunities to nurture junior talent within your specialism and across account teams.
• Own delivery across your account portfolio, effectively managing team resource.
• Demonstrate consistent upward management skills to senior colleagues/EVP, share successes, regularly provide feedback on junior team members, identify and elevate performance issues, and offer effective solutions.
• Host at least one training session for junior colleagues.

Stay Ahead

• Work to agreed fee income targets for your client portfolio as set by your SVP/EVP, with an agreed percentage responsibility of the specialism fee income under your management, and agreed percentage growth expected on this amount year‑on‑year.
• Start to, then confidently manage and own new business development campaigns, identifying areas for expansion to increase commercial results month‑to‑month and using integrated working to manage inbound new business leads by bringing together the most relevant skills in the agency.
• Work on a plan that details sectors that can be targeted for growth, including research, insight, and target suggestions for joint new business campaigns with the Sales & Marketing function, and start to identify potential sector(s) for you to own within the practice/specialism.
• Source and attend networking opportunities to develop industry, partner, talent, and new business contacts.

Benefits

• Hybrid working policy, enabling you to work flexibly from home and one of our offices – minimum requirement of 12 office days per month
• Flexible start and finish times; 8am‑5pm / 8:30am‑5:30pm / 9am‑6pm, as well as an early finish on Fridays between 3:30pm and 4:30pm
• Healthcare cashback scheme (inc. for partner/children) worth up to £2,000 annually for dental, optical, physio, chiro, osteo, and GP charges
• £30 monthly phone allowance
• Weekly Wellness Hour, annual Wellness Day, and accompanying Wellness voucher
• Annual Development Day for volunteering/charity work, and Birthday leave
• 25 days’ annual leave which increases by one day every year from your second anniversary (capped at 31 days)
• 10% new business bonus and £500 recruitment referral bonus
• £1,000 voucher for reaching 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. years’ service
• Monthly companywide awards with a chance to win £50 or £100 for outstanding work
• Enhanced parental leave options; 26 weeks’ full maternity pay, up to 26 weeks’ full adoption pay (depending on the child’s age), and 6 weeks’ full paternity pay
• Option to take a sabbatical for up to 5 months after 5 years’ service
• Employee Assistance Programme with access to six virtual or face‑to‑face counselling sessions as well as ad hoc mental health, financial, and legal support
• Dedicated Culture Committee responsible for arranging a number of activities and initiatives across sport, social, wellness, sustainability, charity, and EDI, as well as a monthly Culture Club
• Dedicated training team responsible for developing employees at all levels across the business through an extensive programme of external trainers, internal specialists, and industry experts, complimented by the PHA Aspire Mentoring Programme