Are you a media expert with a knack for high-impact strategy and a passion for creative integration? Cactus is on the hunt for an Associate Media Director to elevate our media capabilities and expand our growing media team. You'll be at the forefront of developing insightful, data-driven media plans that seamlessly connect with compelling creative, ultimately delivering powerful campaigns that resonate and drive measurable outcomes for our clients. This is a full time position, with a hybrid in-office / work from home schedule. 

The Associate Media Director is responsible for the development, execution and overall paid media leadership for key agency accounts. You will be driving media strategy development, partnering with our Channel leads to develop recommendations and implement campaigns, and ensuring media is delivering on client goals through cross-channel reporting. In addition to this client-facing function, the AMD may also be asked to take on management duties in relation to specific departmental functions; finance + billing, research + planning, and digital. 

The Associate Media Director will also operate as a leader within the Comms and Media department - expected to assist the Media Director in their efforts to continually refine the overall quality of strategic and tactical thinking that shapes the department's work while encouraging a positive and efficient working environment. 

Duties

• Serve as the day-to-day leader of specific accounts within the Comms and Media team. 
• Collaborate closely with Account, Creative, and Strategy teams to deliver innovative and inspiring strategic recommendations, and to ensure work across all functions is strategically aligned and on-brief. 
• Work with internal Subject Matter Expert teams to develop strategic media recommendations, including both traditional and digital tactics, that are built to achieve client-specific business goals. 
• Ensure the correct allocation of resources, both human and technical, to ensure activity is delivered for optimum ROI (for client)
• Evaluate and recommend new media technologies / partnerships
• Develop measurement plans for all paid media campaigns, and partner with Analytics leads to implement necessary reporting tools and build reporting outputs like dashboards and clear/concise reporting decks.
• Participate in the Creative Review Meeting process across the clients you are actively managing to ensure media thinking is infused into the creative product, and proactively bring creative media opportunities to the team. 
• Manage multiple direct-reports, working across multiple clients, working closely with them to develop inspiring goals, achieve exceptional results and grow as both professionals and people. 
• Participate in agency new business initiatives, bringing innovative media thinking, clear and impactful recommendations, and collaborating closely across agency departments within pitches
• Assisting the Media Director in the day-to-day management of specific departmental functions:
• Department leadership - Actively participate in the development of and subsequent achievement of department-specific goals, aligned with overall agency objectives, that will benefit the team, the agency and our client partners. 
• Finance & Billing – Functions as the departmental lead on issues relating to departmental finances, including client billing and departmental contracts
• Research & Planning – Responsible for the investigation and development of research and planning resources for the paid media department
• Digital – Leads the team in the ongoing evaluation and recommendation of digital related strategies and tactics. 
• Thought Leadership - Serve as a steady source of industry trends and author impactful points of view for the department, our client partners and Cactus marketing efforts. 

Skills

• 8+ years media agency / department experience, with a minimum of 4 years in a supervisory or management position
• Capable of understanding and executing strategies and complex campaign concepts across multi-channel environments, including digital, print, OOH and broadcast media
• Experience working across multiple media objectives, from broad awareness to lead generation to ROAS/LTV-focused ecommerce campaigns. 
• Proven experience in the development and presentation of paid media strategies and tactical recommendations with significant budgets ($10MM+)
• A proven ability to lead multiple projects / deadlines and provide clear direction and mentorship in a fast paced environment
• Experience with research resources and analytics tools like Kantar/MediaRadar, MRI, Resonate, media mix modeling, multi-touch attribution tools, Looker Studio, GA4, etc. Experience with media buying software (i.e., STRATA) and digital management software (i.e., Google Campaign Manager) is a must. 
• A mix of both strong digital and broadcast media experience, with a deep understanding of broadcast planning, buying, measurement and advanced measurement solutions like MMM, spike analysis, etc. 
• Clear ability to provide clear strategic recommendations based on industry research and analytically based insights
• Strong interpersonal and teamwork abilities, management and organizational skills 
• Excellent oral and written presentation skills
• BA/BS degree or higher