Head of Paid Media & Performance Marketing | High-Growth eCommerce
Huddersfield – 2 days in office
Salary £65-85k plus bonus - DOE
The Opportunity
I'm partnering with a high-growth eCommerce retailer that's looking for an exceptional Head of Paid Media & Performance Marketing to join their Senior Leadership Team.
This business operates at genuine scale – think multi-million-pound paid media budgets, a 6,000+ product catalogue, and customers making considered, high-intent purchasing decisions. This isn't about quick wins or chasing volume through Performance Max. It's about building sustainable, profitable growth engines that influence the right customers in the right way across the full buying journey.
Reporting directly to the MD, you'll have complete ownership of paid acquisition strategy and execution, managing budgets at scale with full accountability for profitability, efficiency and commercial outcomes. This is a rare opportunity to operate at a truly strategic level while staying close enough to performance to make things happen.
The Role
This is a hands-on leadership position for someone who can set direction, build high-performing operating rhythms, and still get into the detail when it matters. You'll own strategy and delivery across Paid Search, Paid Social and adjacent channels, working with agency partners but with the capability and confidence to challenge, steer and improve outcomes yourself.
What you'll be doing:
- Taking complete ownership of paid media strategy with full accountability for commercial results, translating business objectives into actionable plans with clear targets and budgets
- Ensuring strategies are activated and delivered, not just designed – establishing strong trading cadence and intervening decisively when performance deviates from plan
- Owning Paid Search and Shopping performance across Google and Microsoft Ads, including account structure, bidding strategies, product feed optimisation and competitive positioning
- Leading full-funnel Paid Social strategy across Meta, TikTok and Pinterest, driving creative strategy and ensuring consistent testing and iteration
- Building and maintaining the performance reporting framework, providing clear commercial narratives to senior stakeholders focused on insights and actions
- Leading an in-house team with scope to grow, while owning agency relationships end-to-end and holding partners accountable for delivery
- Working cross-functionally to ensure paid media is fully integrated into the wider growth plan and trading priorities
What You'll Bring
Essential Experience:
- Proven track record owning end-to-end paid media strategy, activation and results at scale
- Experience managing substantial budgets (ideally seven figures) with full accountability for forecasting and performance outcomes
- Deep expertise in Paid Search and Shopping across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, including hands-on Performance Max experience
- Strong product feed strategy knowledge including structure, optimisation, custom labels and diagnostics
- Paid Social ownership across Meta, TikTok and/or Pinterest with full-funnel thinking
- Experience leading creative briefing, testing and iteration to drive performance
- Commercial and trading mindset with experience in seasonal, promotion-led or trading-heavy environments
- Strong measurement and reporting capabilities including GA4, dashboards and performance frameworks
- Line management or coaching experience with ability to set standards and drive accountability
- Agency management experience with track record of holding partners accountable and challenging outputs
- Ability to operate at pace in fast-moving trading environments while maintaining high standards
What Makes You Stand Out:
- Owner mentality – you take responsibility for outcomes end-to-end
- Commercially sharp – you understand margin, trade-offs and how to scale profitably
- Strong operator – you create pace, process and high-performing cadence
- Curious tester – you run structured experiments with clear learning loops, not random tests
- High standards – you push for better creative, better data and better execution
- Calm under pressure – you make steady decisions in fast-moving environments
- Bias to action – you're comfortable making decisions with imperfect information and fixing issues rather than waiting for reports
What's On Offer
- Highly competitive salary reflecting the seniority and scope of the role
- Performance-based bonus structure
- Senior Leadership Team position with genuine strategic influence
- Ownership of substantial budgets and high-impact decision-making
- Opportunity to shape and scale paid acquisition at a business operating at genuine scale
- Collaborative, growth-focused culture that values expertise and accountability
- Flexibility around remote/hybrid working arrangements
Why This Role?
This is an outstanding opportunity to step into a genuine Head of Paid Media position at a business that understands performance marketing and gives you the autonomy, budget and backing to make bold decisions. You'll have real ownership, direct access to leadership, and the platform to demonstrate what world-class paid media performance looks like.
If you're ready for a role where your strategic vision and commercial acumen will directly impact business growth, and where you'll be measured on outcomes not just activity, I'd love to hear from you.
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