Director, Paid Search – YouTube

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Act as Rains' senior subject matter expert on the evolving landscape of paid search, YouTube, and search-adjacent media, providing a clear perspective on automation, AI-driven search experiences, algorithmic bidding, commerce media, product feeds, measurement changes, audience signals, and emerging opportunities.

• Formulate paid search strategies that align with client business objectives, focusing beyond mere keyword coverage or platform tactics; capable of linking media investments to growth, efficiency, customer acquisition, revenue, lead quality, brand health, and measurable business impacts.

• Specify the roles of paid search and YouTube within integrated omnichannel media plans, ensuring that search is integrated into broader channel strategies encompassing social, programmatic, retail media, CTV, affiliate, shopping, and full-funnel media ecosystems.

• Lead, mentor, and motivate a team of paid search specialists, fostering a culture of curiosity, accountability, continuous learning, quality assurance discipline, and pride in strategic thinking and executional excellence.

• Contribute to Rains' thought leadership, new business initiatives, and paid search product development, including pitches, points of view, playbooks, case studies, vendor relationships, platform partnerships, and the articulation of Rains' unique approach to paid search and YouTube.

• Establish trusted relationships with senior marketing leaders and client stakeholders, serving as a strategic advisor who translates complex dynamics of search, shopping, and YouTube into clear, confident recommendations.

• Deliver executive-level presentations with clarity, credibility, and conviction, covering performance readouts, strategic roadmaps, testing plans, growth opportunities, search landscape perspectives, and navigating challenging discussions when performance, investment, or direction needs adjustment.

• Shift the focus from media metrics to business outcomes, assisting clients in understanding how paid search contributes to customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), incrementality, revenue growth, lead quality, audience development, demand capture, and long-term brand value.

• Collaborate effectively across multiple accounts and cross-functional teams, partnering with Client Service, Analytics, Creative, Integrated Planning, Media Investment, AdOps, and Project Management to ensure robust communication, sound recommendations, and disciplined execution.

• Engage deeply in the work and remain close to execution to diagnose, guide, and enhance performance, including campaign structure, bidding, budgeting, keyword strategy, query analysis, audience signals, shopping feeds, creative assets, landing page considerations, measurement, and reporting.

• Establish and maintain best-in-class activation standards across the paid search team, ensuring that every account follows disciplined quality assurance, smart testing frameworks, clean trafficking, clear optimization priorities, strong performance narratives, and consistent adherence to internal processes.

• Employ a performance marketing mindset in daily and weekly campaign management, monitoring pacing, key performance indicators (KPIs), budget allocation, shifts in search demand, algorithmic learning periods, and optimization opportunities with a focus on both short-term efficiency and long-term business growth.

• Develop and maintain a strong command of the tools that facilitate paid search excellence, including Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Search Ads 360, Apple Search Ads, shopping and product feed platforms, reporting tools, and relevant third-party search management technologies.

• Provide strategic leadership in YouTube planning and activation, encompassing campaign planning, audience strategy, creative considerations, tracking, trafficking, optimization, and identifying how YouTube can support both brand and performance objectives.

• Grasp the increasing intersection of search, commerce, and retail behavior, including shopping feeds, product data quality, Amazon Ads, affiliate considerations, and commerce platforms like Shopify and Squarespace, and their impact on paid search performance.

• Collaborate closely with creative, analytics, and planning teams to enhance the overall performance system, recognizing that paid search outcomes are influenced by more than bids and keywords; they are shaped by messaging, landing pages, offers, audience demand, measurement design, and cross-channel media pressure.

• Challenge conventional thinking as necessary, assisting clients and internal teams in understanding how paid search is evolving with AI, automation, marketplace behavior, YouTube, and retail media reshaping consumer discovery, comparison, and conversion.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in advertising, marketing, business, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 7-9 years of paid search experience, featuring a balanced mix of hands-on expertise and managerial skills.

• Experience in an advertising agency is required, demonstrating the ability to lead across multiple accounts simultaneously.

• Managerial experience is essential, with a strong interest in mentoring, developing, and effectively delegating tasks within a team.

• Extensive experience with Google Ads and Microsoft Ads; certifications are highly preferred.

• Familiarity with Search Ads 360 and third-party search management platforms such as Marin, Kenshoo, or Adobe is a bonus.

• 3+ years of YouTube experience is advantageous; experience with YouTube Select is a significant plus.

• Experience with shopping feeds, product companies, commerce platforms, Amazon Ads, affiliate programs, or direct-to-consumer brands is highly valued.

• Proficiency in measurement, trafficking, reporting, and the development of campaign performance insights through data evaluation.

• Capability to review performance data sets, identify critical narratives, and communicate them effectively both internally and externally.

• Effective application of a performance marketing mindset, with the capacity to analyze data, diagnose performance variables, and craft strategic approaches for ongoing optimization.

• A strong interest in ad technology, digital trends, search innovation, AI-driven media, automation, commerce, and the shifting landscape of consumer discovery.

• Foundational understanding of how search intent, automation, creative, landing page experience, feed quality, measurement, and cross-channel signals collaborate to drive business outcomes.

• Exceptional project management skills, high attention to detail, and a commitment to maintaining the highest quality assurance standards.

• A collaborative spirit, creative problem-solving mindset, and a willingness to exceed client needs when the work demands it.

• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office, with robust skills in Excel and PowerPoint.

• Appreciation of our agency's Core Values.

🏝️ Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance

• Quarterly profit-sharing program

• 401(K) plan with employer match (and immediate eligibility)

• 4-6 weeks PTO

• 12 paid holidays

• 12-18 weeks fully-paid Family and Medical Leave

• Monthly Work-From-Home allowance