Business Director, Paid Social

623 - Business Director - Paid Social

WPP Media: Social Business Director

About WPP Media

WPP is the creative transformation company, using the power of creativity to build better futures for people, planet, clients, and communities. WPP Media is WPP’s global media collective, uniting the best platforms, people, and partners to create growth. Built for the new communications economy, we combine analytics, data, technology, creativity, and diverse expertise to help clients navigate modern marketing and unlock breakthroughs.

Role Summary and Impact

The Paid Social Business Director is the senior lead for paid social across designated clients and campaigns, responsible for delivering category‑defining work across all biddable channels with a strong emphasis on paid social. The role requires strategic leadership, operational excellence, and senior‑level client partnership, overseeing a multi‑market team based primarily in the UK and supported by the WPP Global Operations Centre in India.

You will shape multi‑market paid social strategy, lead activation excellence, drive innovation, and ensure that paid social plays a critical role within broader integrated marketing plans. Success requires deep expertise in social platforms, mastery of performance and measurement frameworks, strong commercial acumen, and the ability to operate as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Lead the development and delivery of sophisticated, multi‑market paid social strategies aligned to client business objectives.
• Translate complex paid social and cross‑channel concepts into clear business outcomes for senior clients.
• Integrate Paid, Owned, Earned, and Shared strategies, using organic, influencer, and creator insights to strengthen paid performance.
• Champion a culture of structured experimentation, test‑and‑learn, and continuous optimisation to keep clients at the forefront of social innovation.

Operational Excellence

• Provide effective oversight of all paid social campaigns, ensuring quality, consistency, and operational integrity across markets.
• Support the Media Activation Practice Lead with capacity planning and resource management.
• Architect and operationalize a scalable activation model across EMEA, balancing local market needs with the efficiency of global operations centres.
• Embed operational controls and best‑practice frameworks across channels, ensuring consistency with global guidelines.

Innovation & Technology

• Champion emerging social technologies, AI solutions, data‑driven optimisation tools, and next‑generation measurement approaches.
• Evaluate platforms, partners (e.g., Smartly), and ad‑tech solutions using a rigorous framework for strategic fit, efficiency, and commercial return.
• Maintain a strong POV on platform trends, consumer behavior shifts, and innovation opportunities to ensure clients stay ahead of the industry.

Measurement, Analytics & Performance

• Establish and enforce robust measurement and attribution frameworks using first‑party data, incrementality testing, and advanced analytics.
• Provide clear, data‑driven narratives to demonstrate impact and inform strategic recommendations.
• Ensure KPIs are met or exceeded across diverse industries and campaign types.

Stakeholder Management & Collaboration

• Act as the primary point of contact for key stakeholders across the Media Activation team, the client, and platform partners.
• Develop strong senior‑level client relationships, offering proactive insight and strategic guidance even beyond social remit.
• Manage and grow relationships with platforms and vendors, ensuring clients benefit from innovation, beta opportunities, and high‑quality support.

Commercial Leadership

• Drive revenue growth and identify new opportunities within the client portfolio.
• Articulate WPP Media’s differentiated social offering, demonstrating value and innovation to strengthen ongoing investment.
• Maintain commercial robustness and ensure the account is “pitch‑ready” through strong performance narratives and future‑looking strategic planning.

Risk, Governance & Compliance

• Implement media assurance protocols, risk mitigation strategies, and crisis‑management readiness to protect campaign integrity.
• Monitor and respond proactively to external risks including platform changes, regulatory shifts (e.g., GDPR), consumer behavior trends, and global events.
• Ensure brand safety, data privacy, and compliance standards are upheld across all markets and channels.

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and mentor a team of social specialists, ensuring development, coaching, and progression.
• Foster a culture that aligns with WPP & WPP Media’s core values:
• Be Extraordinary: Inspire creative and strategic excellence
• Create an Open Environment: Build trust and balance people and client experience
• Lead Optimistically: Champion growth and empower teams
• Oversee delivery quality, providing periodic performance updates across owned workstreams.

Skills and Experience

• Proven experience as an Activation Director or equivalent within digital media or advertising, including P&L linked responsibilities.
• Strong leadership and project management experience across multi‑market teams.
• Deep experience planning and executing large‑scale paid social across Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, X, and LinkedIn (direct and via third‑party tools).
• Strong understanding of media planning fundamentals: reach, frequency, formats, cross‑channel integration, and media sufficiency.
• Demonstrated success managing platform and vendor relationships.
• Experience managing and growing senior regional client relationships, with exceptional strategic communication and presentation skills.
• Working knowledge of influencer strategy, creator partnerships, and organic/earned insights that inform paid optimisation.
• Advanced analytics capability, with the ability to extract insights and build compelling data narratives.
• Experience with tools such as Google Analytics (certifications desirable), Smartly, social management platforms, and third‑party tracking solutions.
• Understanding of broader digital channels including search, programmatic display, and reservation‑based buying (desirable).
• Strong command of media governance, brand safety, risk mitigation, and privacy regulations such as GDPR.
• Experience developing crisis‑management frameworks for media incidents.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days.  

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.
We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please note this is a UK based role and requires individuals to have the right to work in this location

Please read our Privacy Notice (https://www.wppmedia.com/pages/privacy-policy) for more information on how we process the information you provide.

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