Senior Director, Paid Media

Role Overview

MediaAlpha (NYSE: MAX) operates the world’s largest insurance advertising marketplace, connecting leading carriers and agents with high-intent insurance shoppers at scale. Our owned-and-operated media properties are a cornerstone of our business, and we’re building the paid media function that will drive transformational growth.

We’re looking for a Senior Director of Paid Media to lead that effort. Reporting into the VP of Growth Marketing, this is a high-impact, high-ownership role: you’ll set the strategy, own the budget, and build the team. You are first and foremost a paid social expert - specifically Meta - but you think like an investment manager across every channel you touch. You know how creative drives downstream lead quality, not just click-through rate, and you’re excited about using AI to produce and test creative at a scale most teams only dream about.

This role isn’t about managing agency relationships or reporting on what happened last week. It’s about building a best-in-class paid media capability from the ground up, inside the company that powers more insurance advertising than anyone else on the planet.

Responsibilities

• Own the full paid media strategy across social, search, native, display, and retargeting, with Meta as your primary channel and proving ground
• Set channel-level investment strategies, budget allocation frameworks, scaling criteria, and ROI guardrails across the portfolio
• Define the strategic direction for paid media, aligning it with MediaAlpha’s broader growth strategy
• Ensure positive ROI across all paid media investment; own performance accountability end-to-end
• Hire, lead, coach, and develop a team of channel-specific analysts (paid social, paid search, native/display, etc.)
• Translate campaign performance into clear, executive-ready narratives that connect channel metrics to business outcomes: cost per lead, revenue per lead, GP contribution, and margin
• Partner directly with cross-functional leadership, extending your influence beyond the paid media team
• Leverage AI tooling (both off-the-shelf and custom-built) to accelerate creative production and UGC video at scale
• Build and run a high-velocity creative testing engine across static, video, and UGC formats, with a clear methodology for learning and scaling winners
• Understand how ad creative affects downstream quality and conversion, and use that lens to guide every creative and targeting decision
• Ensure all paid media activity complies with applicable laws, regulations, and platform policies — including TCPA and state-specific advertising requirements relevant to the insurance vertical

Requirements

• You have personally managed $1M+ per month in Meta ad spend.  This is a hard floor, not a preference; you’ve done this hands-on, not just at a strategic level
• A proven track record running profitable, ROI-positive paid media in the lead generation space. eCommerce or brand-building backgrounds are not the right fit for this role
• Experience working in a performance-first environment where every dollar of spend is expected to earn its place
• A genuine command of what makes paid social work: creative diagnosis, audience strategy, bidding mechanics, and the ability to distinguish a creative problem from a targeting problem from a measurement problem
• Experience running ads across search, display, native, and retargeting platforms - even if Meta is your primary channel
• Experience building or scaling a paid media team, including hiring and developing junior channel specialists
• Genuine enthusiasm for using AI tools to accelerate creative production at scale
• A strong understanding of how ad creative, landing page experience, and lead intent interact to drive downstream quality, not just top-of-funnel volume
• Experience in the insurance vertical or adjacent regulated categories (financial services, health, legal) is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with lead gen compliance requirements, including TCPA, state-level advertising rules, and platform-specific policy constraints is strongly preferred

Compensation & Benefits

We are excited to offer a competitive base pay range of $156,000 - $220,000 per year for this position, based on experience and qualifications. But that's not all - as a valued member of our team, you will also have access to an array of top-notch benefits, including:

• Annual bonus program and participation in our Restricted Stock Unit program
• 100% Employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance for you, your dependents, and spouse or registered domestic partner
• 100% employer-paid long-term disability and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with matching contributions to help you plan for your future
• Open Paid Time Off policy with a birthday day off, 13 holidays, and 5 Recharge days
• Professional development reimbursement
• Cell Phone, Wellness, and Internet expense reimbursement, along with a subscription to the Calm App
• 100% fully paid parental leave for team members up to 22 weeks for the primary caregiver and 12 weeks for the secondary caregiver 
• Dog-friendly offices (LA and AZ) along with a $300 pet adoption reimbursement