Manager, Emerging Media

Accountabilities

Manage paid media and lead generation partnerships: Oversee assigned pay-per-lead (PPL) partners and campaigns, from planning and execution to performance monitoring, optimization, and ongoing relationship management.
Optimize campaign performance: Work with partners to improve lead quality, conversion rates, cost efficiency, and overall campaign effectiveness while ensuring accountability for agreed-upon objectives and deliverables.
Identify emerging media opportunities: Research and evaluate new media channels, platforms, partnerships, placements, and campaign formats that can complement existing demand capture initiatives.
Develop and execute tests: Design structured experiments and pilot campaigns to assess new media opportunities, targeting approaches, audience segments, and data sources, determining their potential for optimization and scale.
Drive audience strategy: Collaborate with media platforms and external partners to identify incremental audience opportunities, analyze performance trends, and recommend new targeting strategies.
Oversee campaign execution: Coordinate campaign assets, tracking, timelines, deliverables, stakeholder communications, and optimization activities in partnership with creative, web, analytics, and other internal teams.
Monitor performance and budgets: Track key performance indicators, including lead volume, lead quality, conversion, and efficiency. Work with finance and analytics teams on budget management, forecasting, and reporting.
Translate insights into action: Present performance findings and actionable recommendations to marketing leadership, identifying where investment should be increased, adjusted, or discontinued.
Support strategic growth: Share insights from partner campaigns, emerging media experiments, and audience tests to inform broader demand capture strategy and future investment decisions.
Provide team leadership as needed: Offer guidance, coaching, and performance management to direct reports as the team evolves and supervisory responsibilities develop.
Requirements
Education: Bachelor's degree in advertising, communications, marketing, management, or a related field.
Professional experience: At least five years of experience in paid media, digital marketing, performance marketing, demand capture, or a related discipline.
Partner management: Demonstrated experience managing external media or lead generation partners, including performance-based and pay-per-lead campaigns.
Campaign optimization: Proven ability to manage and optimize paid media campaigns against lead generation, conversion, and efficiency objectives.
Testing and innovation: Experience evaluating new media opportunities, emerging digital channels, audience segments, and targeting strategies through structured testing.
Digital media knowledge: Working knowledge of paid search, paid social, display, video, programmatic advertising, and other digital media channels. Hands-on experience across every channel is not required.
Audience and analytics expertise: Experience with audience segmentation, targeting, campaign measurement, performance analysis, and data-driven decision-making.
Project management: Ability to lead projects, coordinate cross-functional stakeholders, manage competing priorities, and deliver campaigns on time.
Strategic and analytical thinking: Strong understanding of paid media and demand capture principles, including lead generation, audience targeting, performance-based media models, lead quality, conversion optimization, and multi-channel strategy.
Communication and collaboration: Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal, and partner management skills, with the ability to translate complex performance data into clear, actionable recommendations.
Adaptability and innovation: A curious, test-and-learn mindset and the ability to balance ongoing campaign performance with experimentation in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities.
Technical proficiency: Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and the ability to learn and adapt to new tools, platforms, systems, and technologies.
Preferred qualifications: Experience in higher education marketing is an advantage. Previous experience managing direct reports is also preferred.
Work arrangements: Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a remote environment. Occasional travel may be required.
Benefits
Competitive compensation: Annual salary ranging from $70,092 to $94,622, depending on qualifications, experience, skills, and competencies. Offers are generally made within the advertised range, subject to applicable requirements and exceptional circumstances.
Comprehensive benefits: Access to a holistic benefits package designed to support employee well-being and the needs of their families.
Remote-first flexibility: Remote work arrangements for eligible employees based in the United States.
Professional growth: Opportunities for career development, learning, and advancement.
Employee well-being: A focus on supporting employees' professional development, personal well-being, and work-life balance.
Meaningful impact: The opportunity to contribute to educational access and help prospective students discover learning opportunities.
Collaborative environment: Work alongside cross-functional teams and external partners in a mission-driven, innovation-focused setting.