Senior Paid Media Manager

Overview Senior Paid Media Manager, Department: Marketing, Employment Type: Full Time, Location: London, Compensation: GBP 52,000 - GBP 61,000 / year Go City is transforming the way people see and experience the worlds greatest destinations. We give our customers total flexibility to choose the experiences, tours and activities they want to visit at incredible savings. Go City is backed by Exponent and headquartered in Covent Garden, London. The business is profitable with 3+ million customers globally and plans to leverage these capabilities to drive growth. For more information and to explore our products, visit Gocity.com. Key Responsibilities Were looking for a sharp, commercially minded Paid Media Manager to own our paid media activity across the full consumer funnel—from mid-funnel display, paid social and retargeting through to top-of-funnel brand and awareness investment. This is a hands-on role: you will build and traffic campaigns yourself, analyze data, and translate findings into strategic recommendations that shape media allocation and the consumer journey. Currently, the primary focus is mid-funnel—driving consideration, engagement and conversion efficiency across paid social, display and retargeting. As the business grows, there will be opportunities to scale top-of-funnel investment across multi-channel brand activity (video, audio, connected TV and beyond) and take on that capability. You will sit at the intersection of executional excellence and analytical rigour—capable of setting up a DV360 campaign or trafficking a DCO creative, as well as building a full-funnel investment framework and justifying new brand channel tests. What You’ll Do Campaign Execution & Trafficking * Plan, build, traffic and optimise campaigns end-to-end across mid-funnel and top-of-funnel channels including DV360, Meta Ads Manager, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and programmatic DSPs. * Own all tagging, pixel setup, UTM management and campaign QA to ensure data integrity from day one. * Set up and manage dynamic creative (DCO), audience segments and retargeting pools using CDPs, CRMs and clean room data where available. * Manage trafficking workflows with creative teams and ad servers (e.g. Campaign Manager 360), ensuring flawless delivery against go-live dates. * Monitor campaign performance daily, making real-time bid, budget and creative optimisation decisions to hit efficiency and volume targets across the funnel. * As top-of-funnel investment scales, take ownership of brand and awareness campaign delivery across video (YouTube, CTV), audio and high-impact display formats. Analytics & Performance Measurement * Own the performance reporting framework across mid- and top-of-funnel activity: from dashboard build to weekly stakeholder read-outs. * Apply the right measurement lens by funnel stage - efficiency metrics (CPM, CPC, CPA, ROAS) for mid-funnel; brand and reach metrics (reach, frequency, CPP, brand lift, search uplift) for top-of-funnel. * Design and interpret incrementality tests, A/B experiments and holdout studies to separate true lift from noise - including brand lift studies for awareness campaigns. * Work closely with data and analytics teams on attribution modelling, MMM inputs and audience overlap analysis across the full funnel. * Build financial models and scenario plans to evaluate channel investment decisions and forecast outcomes at both funnel stages. Strategy & Planning * Lead full-funnel paid media planning - defining how mid-funnel and top-of-funnel channels work together, how audiences flow between stages, and how budgets should be allocated to drive both short-term efficiency and longer-term brand growth. * Build the strategic case for top-of-funnel investment as the business scales: sizing opportunity, modelling expected outcomes and defining the measurement approach before a penny is spent. * Identify emerging platforms, formats and targeting capabilities - from CTV and audio to retail media and creator partnerships - and bring a structured view on where they fit in the funnel mix. * Bring a hypothesis-led approach to campaign planning - defining what you\re testing, why, and how you\ll know if it worked, whether that\s a conversion rate or a brand health metric. * Partner with brand, creative and CRM teams to ensure audience architecture and messaging is coherent across the full consumer journey. Stakeholder & Agency Management * Act as the day-to-day contact for media agency partners, holding them to high standards on delivery, transparency and insight quality across both performance and brand activity. * Present performance clearly to non-technical stakeholders, translating data into commercial implications and recommendations - including how to frame top-of-funnel investment to a performance-oriented audience. * Collaborate cross-functionally with creative, CRM, product and brand teams to align on campaigns and audience strategy. What Success Looks Like * In your first 90 days: o Youve audited the existing campaign setup and trafficking processes across mid-funnel channels, and produced a clear view of whats working, what isnt, and your recommended priorities. o Youve taken full ownership of at least one live campaign cycle end-to-end, with no dependency on agency or previous team members. o Youve established your reporting rhythm and built or improved the core performance dashboard - covering both efficiency and upper-funnel metrics. * By six months: o Mid-funnel efficiency metrics are trending in the right direction, with clear evidence of your optimisation decisions driving improvement. o Youve run at least one structured test (audience, creative or channel) and presented findings with a clear recommendation. o Youve started to develop a point of view on how top-of-funnel investment should be structured when the budget arrives - and stakeholders are already asking for your input. o Stakeholders trust your numbers, your commercial judgement and your read of what\s driving performance across the funnel. This role suits someone who finds the operational side of paid media genuinely satisfying - not a stepping stone away from it. You take pride in a clean campaign build and a watertight tagging setup. At the same time, you\re frustrated when you can\t connect your work to a bigger commercial outcome, and you actively want to influence how budget gets allocated and strategy gets set. Youre excited by the prospect of expanding into brand and awareness investment as the business grows - and you can already articulate how performance and brand work together, not in opposition. Youre confident enough to push back when something doesnt make sense, and rigorous enough to back it up. Skills, Knowledge and Expertise Essential Experience * 3-6 years of hands-on paid media experience, with significant focus on display and/or paid social - youve done the trafficking, not just overseen it. * Proven expertise across key platforms: Meta Ads Manager, DV360, Campaign Manager 360; additional platforms (TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, programmatic DSPs, CTV) a strong plus. * Solid understanding of retargeting mechanics: pixel-based, CRM-matched, contextual and sequential audience strategies. * Some exposure to top-of-funnel or brand campaign planning - even if in a supporting capacity - and genuine curiosity about how brand and performance channels interact. * Experience working with ad servers, tagging solutions (GTM, Floodlight) and brand safety/verification tools (IAS, DoubleVerify). * A track record of managing meaningful budgets (GBP 500k+ annually) and delivering against performance KPIs, with an understanding of how brand investment creates longer-term returns. Mathematical & Analytical Mindset * Comfortable with numbers at a level beyond most marketers: you can model a media plan, sense-check a CPM, build a break-even analysis and spot when a stat doesn\t add up. * Fluent in Excel or Google Sheets for financial modelling and data manipulation; SQL or Python for data querying is a genuine bonus. * Familiarity with statistical concepts relevant to marketing: confidence intervals, significance testing, regression basics, incrementality. * You naturally ask \is this causation or correlation?\ and know how to design tests that give you an honest answer. Curiosity & Intellectual Drive * You read ad tech news because you want to, not because you have to. Youre across signal loss, privacy changes, cookie deprecation and what they mean for your campaigns. * You ask \why\ before \what\ - curious about consumer behaviour, auction dynamics, creative performance and the mechanics driving results. * Youre energised by ambiguity and enjoy figuring things out rather than waiting to be told. * You bring fresh thinking and are comfortable challenging convention when the data supports it. Strategic Capability * You can think across the full funnel - understanding how awareness activity builds the audiences that mid-funnel campaigns convert, and how to argue for investment at each stage on its own terms. * You can build a compelling narrative around a channel recommendation, grounding it in data, consumer insight and commercial logic - including making the case for top-of-funnel spend to stakeholders who are primarily performance-oriented. * You understand the difference between media efficiency and media effectiveness, and can articulate when each matters and how to measure both. * Youre thinking about what this role looks like in two years - and excited by the prospect of owning a larger, more complex multi-channel media remit as the business scales. Tools & Platforms You should be confident across most of the following: * DSPs & Social - DV360, Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads, YouTube/Google Ads, Pinterest Ads, The Trade Desk * Emerging / TOF -Connected TV (e.g. Magnite, FreeWheel), audio (Spotify, DAX), high-impact display * Ad Servers - Campaign Manager 360, Sizmek * Measurement - GA4, brand lift tools (Nielsen, Kantar), MMM familiarity, MTA platforms * Tag Management - Google Tag Manager, Floodlight * Verification - Integral Ad Science (IAS), DoubleVerify * Data & Reporting - Looker Studio, Tableau or Power BI; Excel/Sheets advanced * Bonus - SQL, Python (Pandas), Snowflake or similar data warehouse exposure Benefits * Annual Go City Explorer Pass allowance * Enhanced pension contributions. (5% employer) * Life assurance: 4x your base salary * Time off: o Annual leave: 25 days + bank holidays o Option to buy additional 5 days annual leave per year o Upgraded Family Leave o 1x Community day. Take a day off to give back to the community o Work from Anywhere for up to 4 weeks per year * Health care cash plan * Personal Learning Budget & dedicated time for development * EAP providing access to counselling, finance support, etc. * Cycle to Work Scheme J-18808-Ljbffr