Director of Paid Media

Busch Gardens Williamsburg seeks a Director, Paid Media to lead strategy, planning, and execution of multi-channel campaigns that drive park attendance, ticket sales, and brand awareness. This role oversees paid search, social, programmatic, display, and video, optimizing performance to hit revenue and ROI goals. The director will manage agencies and internal partners, allocate budgets, analyze performance data, and translate insights into clear actions. Collaborating with marketing, creative, and analytics teams, this leader ensures campaigns reflect our guest-focused culture and support seasonal events and year-round initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead paid media strategy across search, social, programmatic, display, and video to drive attendance and revenue.
• Plan, allocate, and manage paid media budgets to maximize ROI and meet performance targets.
• Oversee day-to-day campaign execution, optimization, and trafficking with internal teams and external agencies.
• Analyze campaign performance, create dashboards and reports, and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
• Partner with brand, creative, and content teams to align messaging, offers, and creative assets with campaign goals.
• Support seasonal events, product launches, and promotions with integrated paid media plans.
• Test and implement new platforms, ad formats, and targeting strategies to drive continuous improvement.
• Ensure accurate tracking, attribution, and tag implementation in collaboration with analytics and web teams.
• Manage vendor and platform relationships, negotiating rates and ensuring best practices are followed.
• Provide leadership, coaching, and direction to staff supporting paid media efforts.

Required Skills

• Paid media strategy
• Media buying and planning
• Search engine marketing (SEM)
• Paid social advertising
• Programmatic advertising
• Marketing analytics and reporting
• Budget management
• A/B testing and optimization
• Campaign management tools (e.g., Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager)
• Team and vendor management