Director, Paid Media & Search Strategy

The Director, Paid Media & Search Strategy serves as Gartner Conference Marketing's internal authority on paid media strategy, audience development, search strategy, channel planning, measurement, and platform best practices across search, social, video, display, programmatic, and emerging channels.

This role bridges marketing strategy, agency partnership, and campaign execution by translating business objectives into effective media strategies, guiding audience and channel decisions, evaluating agency recommendations, driving innovation, and ensuring paid media investments deliver measurable business impact.

This role owns the expertise, judgment, and strategic guidance that informs how paid media and search are leveraged to drive audience engagement, registration growth, and business outcomes.

• Develop paid media strategies aligned with business objectives, marketing goals, and growth priorities.
• Define channel recommendations across Google Search, Google Display Network, You Tube, Performance Max, Microsoft Ads, Linked In, programmatic media, and emerging platforms.
• Guide investment strategies, budget allocation decisions, and optimization priorities across channels, audiences, and campaign objectives.
• Lead test-and-learn initiatives designed to improve campaign effectiveness and uncover new opportunities.

• Own audience strategy across paid media programs, translating ICPs, sales priorities, and marketing objectives into actionable targeting and segmentation approaches.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing leadership to refine audience prioritization and optimize performance across customer, prospect, account, industry, and buying group segments.

• Serve as Gartner Conference Marketing's internal subject matter expert across paid media platforms and advertising technologies.
• Establish governance, best practices, measurement standards, and strategic guidance while educating stakeholders on platform capabilities, limitations, and emerging trends.
• Partner closely with Marketing Operations to ensure campaign execution aligns with strategic intent, audience strategy, measurement standards, and established best practices.
• Evaluate new platform capabilities and opportunities that can improve marketing performance and efficiency.

• Provide strategic leadership across organic search, paid search, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and emerging AI-driven search experiences.
• Partner with SEO resources to develop search visibility strategies that align with business objectives and audience priorities.
• Ensure alignment between SEO, paid search, content, and audience targeting strategies.
• Evaluate how evolving search behavior and AI-driven discovery impact Gartner's acquisition strategy.

• Evaluate, challenge, approve, or reject agency and vendor recommendations based on business objectives and industry best practices.
• Serve as the organization's internal authority for assessing external recommendations and strategic direction.
• Hold agencies and partners accountable for strategic quality, innovation, operational excellence, and performance outcomes.

• Manage and develop the SEO function, providing strategic direction, coaching, and professional development.
• Foster collaboration across Paid Media, SEO, Marketing Operations, Analytics, Sales, and Marketing teams while building organizational expertise in acquisition strategy and emerging search channels.

• Define measurement frameworks, KPIs, dashboards, and reporting requirements in partnership with Analytics teams.
• Partner with Analytics, CRM, and Marketing Operations teams to improve attribution, audience targeting, performance visibility, and measurement approaches.
• Analyze performance trends and translate insights into strategic recommendations related to audience refinement, channel optimization, and budget allocation.
• Drive continuous testing, optimization, and periodic reviews of campaign structure, targeting, measurement frameworks, and reporting approaches.

• Evaluate emerging platforms, technologies, and acquisition opportunities, including Meta, AEO, AI-driven search experiences, and future advertising innovations.
• Lead testing strategies and drive adoption of opportunities that improve performance and organizational capability.
• Lead regular reviews with Gartner…