Paid Social Manager
Location: Bethesda, MD (Onsite)
Our team is partnering with a leading organization in the retail industry to identify a highly experienced Manager, Paid Social, to join their growing marketing organization. This is a high-impact, leadership-focused role with strong visibility and long-term growth potential. The position is onsite in Bethesda, MD, with some flexibility in daily hours.
Role Overview
This Paid Social leadership role has been open for an extended period, as the hiring team is being highly selective following a prior mis-hire. The focus is on securing a candidate with strong people leadership, accountability, and long-term fit, rather than prioritizing speed.
The broader goal for this position is to develop the right individual into a future successor for senior marketing leadership, reflecting a flat organizational structure with meaningful exposure to decision-makers and significant growth potential.
Additionally, the organization is in the process of bringing paid social work in-house. Candidates with agency-side experience are viewed as particularly valuable for bringing operational rigor, scalability, and performance discipline into an internal retail marketing environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Own and execute paid social strategy across platforms, including Meta (Facebook & Instagram), Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, and others.
- Manage paid social performance at scale, with full ownership of budget allocation, pacing, and ROI.
- Oversee execution and optimization of product catalogs to support dynamic and personalized advertising.
- Partner closely with creative teams to develop, test, and refine ad creative and copy.
- Lead multiple concurrent campaigns and initiatives, ensuring timely execution and measurable results.
- Monitor KPIs, evaluate campaign effectiveness, and make data-driven recommendations for continuous improvement.
- Adjust strategy on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to ensure top-line performance goals are met.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with analytics, insights, and broader marketing teams on reporting and optimization.
- Identify growth opportunities through testing, experimentation, and market research.
- Participate in platform beta programs and test new features to stay ahead of industry trends.
- Manage, coach, and develop junior team members, fostering accountability, performance ownership, and career growth.
Requirements
Leadership
- Proven experience managing and developing junior team members
- Demonstrated ability to coach, hold teams accountable, and own performance outcomes
- Strong people leadership is critical; prior lack of leadership capability was a key reason for a previous mis-hire
Paid Social / Performance Marketing
- Hands-on experience managing paid social programs at scale
- Strong command of:
- ROI and performance measurement
- Budget ownership and allocation (experience managing $8M+ budgets strongly preferred)
- Platform optimization, testing frameworks, and audience strategy
Experience Level
- Minimum of 5–7 years of paid social or performance marketing experience
- Senior-level capability is required; the hiring team is already stretched at this experience level
On-Site Presence
- Onsite in Bethesda, MD, 5 days per week
Preffered skills
- Agency background
- Retail industry experience
- Comfort working cross-functionally with:
- Digital analytics teams
- Broader marketing and performance organizations
- Strong analytics literacy — ability to interpret insights and performance trends, not just pull reports
