SYNERGISTIC
VP, Media Operations and Client Strategy at Synergistic
About Synergistic
Every business hits friction — stalled growth, misaligned teams, mixed messages, or marketing that just doesn’t get anywhere. That’s where we come in. By intuitively integrating your brand, strategy, and media into one powerful system, we turn complexity into clarity and challenges into catalysts. The result? Not just movement — momentum. Forward, focused, and built to last. When your marketing works together, your whole business moves with purpose.
No silos. Just synergy.
Position Description
We are seeking an experienced, results-driven Head of Paid Media Activation to lead and elevate our media activation team. This leader will be accountable for the full spectrum of paid media execution across digital and traditional channels, including campaign setup, trafficking, optimization, reporting, and performance delivery, while ensuring flawless accuracy, process consistency, and measurable client impact.
Beyond overseeing day-to-day execution, this role is responsible for building the systems that power it: driving process improvements, holding the team accountable for precision and efficiency, and championing operational excellence. The Head of Paid Media Activation will also evaluate and implement emerging technologies, ensuring Synergistic stays ahead in an ever-changing media landscape.
A critical part of this role includes close collaboration with our Controller and CFO to maintain financial accuracy and discipline. This leader will ensure media accruals, pacing and delivery, and media plan updates or revisions are properly tracked, reconciled, and reflected across all financial documentation, providing clients and internal stakeholders with confidence in both performance and fiscal integrity.
Partnering closely with the VP of Media & Client Strategy, this leader will transform strategy into scalable activation, bringing together innovation, accountability, and agility to deliver best-in-class results for our clients.
Key Responsibilities
Team Leadership & Operations
Design, implement, and continuously refine processes, tools, and quality-control measures that drive efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence.
Collaborate seamlessly with internal teams to ensure flawless campaign activation, on-time delivery, and alignment with client objectives.
Provide clear direction, timely feedback, and consistent coaching, holding team members accountable to the highest standards of accuracy, growth, and performance.
Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of paid media activation specialists across digital and traditional channels, fostering cross-training to enhance flexibility, workflow balance, and team bandwidth.
Media Activation, Optimization, & Measurement
Oversee end-to-end paid media campaign implementation (digital display, paid social, search, programmatic, video, audio, OOH, broadcast, etc.).
Ensure proper campaign setup, trafficking, QA, pacing, and optimization against KPIs.
Design and deploy measurement frameworks and attribution models that directly tie campaign performance to business goals.
Guide the team in analyzing data, uncovering opportunities, and implementing optimizations that maximize performance.
Drive accountability for campaign performance, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.
Champion digital media best practices across all activations, ensuring accurate execution, leading to measurable business impact.
Own paid media tech stack, tools, and partnerships, ensuring the team is leveraging the best solutions for efficiency and performance.
Oversee media reporting/dashboards, analytics, and visualization, ensuring accuracy and clarity that drive actionable client insights.
Identify and implement innovations in automation, AI, and measurement to maintain a competitive edge.
Media Delivery & Financial Accruals
Maintain accountability for media budgets, forecasting, and pacing for our clients and agency partners.
Oversee holistic fulfillment of media contracts, ensuring the team accurately manages campaign pacing and delivery in full to achieve revenue forecasting for the organization.
Own monthly/quarterly reconciliation of client invoicing to contract pacing, planning and billing.
Own monthly vendor invoice approval and reconciliation to contract and planning documents.
Own monthly accruals of WIP for current media contracts.
Report to Finance overall monthly, quarterly, and yearly performance of all contracted campaigns.
Responsible for the financial P&L for direct costs of all paid media campaigns.
Evaluate and work with Finance to negotiate vendor contracts and vendor pricing to suit client campaign needs, quality and optimization, as well as obtain overall best volume pricing and payment terms for Synergistic.
Client Success & Collaboration
Serve as a senior point of contact for activation performance and reporting insights.
Coach the team to translate complex media results into clear, client-ready narratives with actionable recommendations.
Collaborate closely with Media Strategy & Planning, Creative, Web Development, and Systems Integration teams to ensure campaigns are fully integrated and drive measurable impact.
Qualifications
10+ years of experience in paid media activation, ad operations, or performance marketing; agency background preferred.
Proven leadership experience managing multi-disciplinary media teams.
Deep expertise in digital platforms (Meta, Google Ads, YouTube, TikTok, Programmatic, Retail Media) and familiarity with traditional channels, as well as experience implementing a technology roadmap to scale an organization.
Strong command of campaign analytics, performance optimization, and data visualization.
Demonstrated success in building scalable processes and driving efficiency across teams.
Knowledge of marketing technology, ad serving, and measurement solutions (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CM360, The Trade Desk, DSPs, GA4, etc.).
Proven ability to evaluate, select and implement back-office infrastructure to seamlessly integrate all measurement tools from planning, activation, optimization, vendor reconciliation to client invoicing.
Excellent communicator with the ability to simplify complex performance insights for clients and stakeholders.
Must be located in Cincinnati or willing to relocate to Cincinnati.
Why Join Synergistic?
Be part of a fast-growing agency redefining the modern marketing model.
Lead a high-performing team with the autonomy to innovate and improve processes.
Collaborate with brilliant cross-functional peers across strategy, creative, shopper marketing, ecommerce, and tech.
Shape the future of paid media activation in a culture that values agility, creativity, and measurable impact.
Seniority level
Executive
Employment type
Full-time
Job function
Marketing and Sales
Industries
Advertising Services
#J-18808-Ljbffr
Every business hits friction — stalled growth, misaligned teams, mixed messages, or marketing that just doesn’t get anywhere. That’s where we come in. By intuitively integrating your brand, strategy, and media into one powerful system, we turn complexity into clarity and challenges into catalysts. The result? Not just movement — momentum. Forward, focused, and built to last. When your marketing works together, your whole business moves with purpose.
No silos. Just synergy.
Position Description
We are seeking an experienced, results-driven Head of Paid Media Activation to lead and elevate our media activation team. This leader will be accountable for the full spectrum of paid media execution across digital and traditional channels, including campaign setup, trafficking, optimization, reporting, and performance delivery, while ensuring flawless accuracy, process consistency, and measurable client impact.
Beyond overseeing day-to-day execution, this role is responsible for building the systems that power it: driving process improvements, holding the team accountable for precision and efficiency, and championing operational excellence. The Head of Paid Media Activation will also evaluate and implement emerging technologies, ensuring Synergistic stays ahead in an ever-changing media landscape.
A critical part of this role includes close collaboration with our Controller and CFO to maintain financial accuracy and discipline. This leader will ensure media accruals, pacing and delivery, and media plan updates or revisions are properly tracked, reconciled, and reflected across all financial documentation, providing clients and internal stakeholders with confidence in both performance and fiscal integrity.
Partnering closely with the VP of Media & Client Strategy, this leader will transform strategy into scalable activation, bringing together innovation, accountability, and agility to deliver best-in-class results for our clients.
Key Responsibilities
Team Leadership & Operations
Design, implement, and continuously refine processes, tools, and quality-control measures that drive efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence.
Collaborate seamlessly with internal teams to ensure flawless campaign activation, on-time delivery, and alignment with client objectives.
Provide clear direction, timely feedback, and consistent coaching, holding team members accountable to the highest standards of accuracy, growth, and performance.
Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of paid media activation specialists across digital and traditional channels, fostering cross-training to enhance flexibility, workflow balance, and team bandwidth.
Media Activation, Optimization, & Measurement
Oversee end-to-end paid media campaign implementation (digital display, paid social, search, programmatic, video, audio, OOH, broadcast, etc.).
Ensure proper campaign setup, trafficking, QA, pacing, and optimization against KPIs.
Design and deploy measurement frameworks and attribution models that directly tie campaign performance to business goals.
Guide the team in analyzing data, uncovering opportunities, and implementing optimizations that maximize performance.
Drive accountability for campaign performance, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.
Champion digital media best practices across all activations, ensuring accurate execution, leading to measurable business impact.
Own paid media tech stack, tools, and partnerships, ensuring the team is leveraging the best solutions for efficiency and performance.
Oversee media reporting/dashboards, analytics, and visualization, ensuring accuracy and clarity that drive actionable client insights.
Identify and implement innovations in automation, AI, and measurement to maintain a competitive edge.
Media Delivery & Financial Accruals
Maintain accountability for media budgets, forecasting, and pacing for our clients and agency partners.
Oversee holistic fulfillment of media contracts, ensuring the team accurately manages campaign pacing and delivery in full to achieve revenue forecasting for the organization.
Own monthly/quarterly reconciliation of client invoicing to contract pacing, planning and billing.
Own monthly vendor invoice approval and reconciliation to contract and planning documents.
Own monthly accruals of WIP for current media contracts.
Report to Finance overall monthly, quarterly, and yearly performance of all contracted campaigns.
Responsible for the financial P&L for direct costs of all paid media campaigns.
Evaluate and work with Finance to negotiate vendor contracts and vendor pricing to suit client campaign needs, quality and optimization, as well as obtain overall best volume pricing and payment terms for Synergistic.
Client Success & Collaboration
Serve as a senior point of contact for activation performance and reporting insights.
Coach the team to translate complex media results into clear, client-ready narratives with actionable recommendations.
Collaborate closely with Media Strategy & Planning, Creative, Web Development, and Systems Integration teams to ensure campaigns are fully integrated and drive measurable impact.
Qualifications
10+ years of experience in paid media activation, ad operations, or performance marketing; agency background preferred.
Proven leadership experience managing multi-disciplinary media teams.
Deep expertise in digital platforms (Meta, Google Ads, YouTube, TikTok, Programmatic, Retail Media) and familiarity with traditional channels, as well as experience implementing a technology roadmap to scale an organization.
Strong command of campaign analytics, performance optimization, and data visualization.
Demonstrated success in building scalable processes and driving efficiency across teams.
Knowledge of marketing technology, ad serving, and measurement solutions (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CM360, The Trade Desk, DSPs, GA4, etc.).
Proven ability to evaluate, select and implement back-office infrastructure to seamlessly integrate all measurement tools from planning, activation, optimization, vendor reconciliation to client invoicing.
Excellent communicator with the ability to simplify complex performance insights for clients and stakeholders.
Must be located in Cincinnati or willing to relocate to Cincinnati.
Why Join Synergistic?
Be part of a fast-growing agency redefining the modern marketing model.
Lead a high-performing team with the autonomy to innovate and improve processes.
Collaborate with brilliant cross-functional peers across strategy, creative, shopper marketing, ecommerce, and tech.
Shape the future of paid media activation in a culture that values agility, creativity, and measurable impact.
Seniority level
Executive
Employment type
Full-time
Job function
Marketing and Sales
Industries
Advertising Services
#J-18808-Ljbffr