A Display/Paid Social Lead is a senior digital marketing professional who orchestrates and optimizes a company's advertising across visual and social media channels. This strategic role sits at the intersection of data analytics, creative execution, and team leadership, focused on driving scalable customer acquisition and brand growth. Professionals in these jobs are responsible for managing substantial advertising budgets to deliver measurable business outcomes, making them pivotal to modern performance marketing teams. Typically, the core responsibility of a Display/Paid Social Lead is to develop and own the overarching strategy for display advertising networks (like Google Display Network) and paid social media platforms (such as Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest). They balance prospecting for new customers with retargeting campaigns to re-engage existing audiences. A significant part of the role involves hands-on platform management, including campaign structure, audience segmentation, bid strategy, and budget allocation. They establish key performance indicators (KPIs) like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), Cost per Acquisition (CPA), and Gross Profit, ensuring all activities align with business guardrails. Leadership is a fundamental component. These leads often manage a small team of specialists, setting performance standards, coaching for excellence, and building efficient workflows. They act as a bridge between execution and strategy, collaborating closely with other departments like Creative/Design, Product, Business Intelligence, and Revenue. Communicating results, providing concise updates, and conducting post-mortem analyses are daily routines to foster data-led decision-making across the organization. In terms of skills, deep, platform-specific expertise is non-negotiable. Candidates for these jobs must possess advanced knowledge of the major ad platforms' buying interfaces, tracking methodologies, and optimization levers. A strong analytical mindset is crucial, with proficiency in analytics tools (e.g., Tableau, Looker) to derive insights and prove incrementality. Creativity is equally important; they must guide a testing roadmap for ad creatives and copy, often leveraging dynamic product ads and AI-powered tools for content iteration and production. Familiarity with marketing technology stacks, including tracking platforms and CRM integrations, is common. The modern professional in this field is also expected to be adept with AI and automation tools to streamline workflows, from generating briefs to executing bulk campaign changes. Ultimately, a successful Display/Paid Social Lead combines strategic vision with operational rigor, team leadership with hands-on keyboard skills, and creative curiosity with relentless analytical focus to capture demand and fuel business growth.
