Washington Post

Senior Paid Media Specialist

Washington Post$74K — $111K *
Media
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years experience in digital marketing with a focus on paid media campaigns.
  • Hands-on expertise with major social and search advertising platforms like Meta, Google, and LinkedIn.
  • Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, journalism, or related field.
  • Strong analytical skills with proficiency in Tableau and Google Sheets for data insights.
  • Proven track record in building and managing audiences via social media.
  • Experience with multi-channel marketing strategies and campaign optimization.
  • Ability to interpret data and make informed decisions to drive marketing performance.

Responsibilities

  • Analyze data to inform and optimize digital marketing campaigns.
  • Develop innovative paid media strategies to expand audience growth.
  • Mentor team members and oversee execution of paid media initiatives.
  • Collaborate with various teams to align marketing efforts with organizational goals.
  • Create campaigns that build habitual engagement among readers.
  • Provide weekly performance updates to stakeholders and suggest strategies for improvement.
  • Stay informed on industry trends to integrate emerging technologies in marketing.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
  • Company-paid pension and 401(k) matching program.
  • Generous vacation and paid sick leave policies.
  • Paid parental leave for up to 20 weeks.
  • Mental health resources and caregiver services.
  • Gender affirming services and pet insurance.
  • Free digital subscription to The Washington Post.
Full Job Description

The Washington Post is seeking a senior digital marketing specialist to join our subscriptions marketing team. The senior specialist will be expected to vigorously analyze data, brainstorm innovative strategic approaches to paid media to drive audience growth, and mentor team members. The ideal candidate has a deep working knowledge of digital marketing and paid media; is a citizen of social media and can explain the landscape and its evolving nature; has an understanding of politics and its key players; and can foster meaningful relationships with key stakeholders, including senior leadership, platform reps, brand marketing, editorial, and acquisition.

This role requires the core capabilities of paid media strategy, project management, peer mentorship, and creative, all rooted in digital marketing. The job will be to strategize and foster the execution of paid media campaigns, ensuring innovative creative output by guiding, informing, and testing creative production. To be successful, the position requires attention to detail, regular monitoring of data and performance, an eye for news readers’ behaviors, and the ability to optimize the paid media budget in order to drive overall subscription growth. Our team is looking for people who are excited to think about news content differently.

What Motivates You

  • A passion for and understanding of news, The Washington Post brand, our readers and potential subscribers.

  • An interest and awareness of domestic and global current affairs.

  • A highly collaborative team player who can manage urgent deliverables across multiple stakeholders.

  • Be curious, data literate and digital first.

How You'll Support the Mission

The Skills and Experience You Bring

  • Regular collaboration with acquisition, engagement & retention, analytics, finance, engineering, and brand marketing teams to identify synergies for paid media support and scale growth opportunities against our key goals.

  • Develop and execute full-funnel paid media strategies, driving reach and consideration across potential new subscribers to subscriber retention and re-engagement, ensuring a seamless journey from acquisition to long-term loyalty.

  • Create and test paid media initiatives aimed at increasing habit-building behaviors among subscribers, driving repeat engagement with The Washington Post’s content and features.

  • Further develop and own the paid media subscriber acquisition strategy, leveraging data-driven insights to optimize campaigns across channels, maximize efficiencies, reduce churn, and drive net subscriber growth.

  • Stay up to date on industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies in the paid media space to integrate new strategies and tactics.

  • Guide team members in executing paid media campaigns that nurture reader habits, encouraging sustained interactions with The Washington Post to improve retention.

  • Provide a weekly performance update to internal teams and key stakeholders, identifying opportunities to scale efforts or refine strategy for better acquisition outcomes.

  • Partner with editorial and newsroom audience strategy teams to implement content strategies that engage high quality audiences and build relationships at each touchpoint through their customer journey.

  • Leverage key data insights to inform Paid Media sale and non-sale strategy through always on Direct Response campaigns.

  • Exercise a thorough knowledge of the brand and an ability to balance paid media goals with broader company objectives, ensuring a strong connection between marketing efforts and audience loyalty.

Qualifications

  • Must have both strategy/planning and hands-on-keyboard campaign management experience - ideally across both Social and Search advertising platforms, such as Meta, Reddit, Microsoft Bing, Apple Search, LinkedIn, Google (Search), and YouTube. Experience in app campaigns is a plus.

  • A bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, journalism, political science, english or communications or a related discipline.

  • 4-5 years experience working in digital marketing, advertising, media or publishing.

  • Experience leveraging data to make informed decisions is a must. Experience setting up in-platform events and tracking or partnering closely with Ad Ops teams to execute tracking is a plus.

  • Experience managing paid marketing campaigns to achieve multiple marketing objectives.

  • Demonstrated success with building an audience through social networks.

  • Expert in using Tableau and Google Sheets to analyze data.

  Collaboration makes us stronger. That’s why our offices are designed with open layouts, modern technology, and easy access to transportation. With certain exceptions for newsgathering and business travel, we work on-site five days a week.

Compensation and Benefits

Wherever you are in your life or career, The Washington Post offers comprehensive and inclusive benefits for every step of your journey:

  • Competitive medical, dental and vision coverage

  • Company-paid pension and 401(k) match

  • Three weeks of vacation and up to three weeks of paid sick leave

  • Nine paid holidays and two personal days

  • 20 weeks paid parental leave for any new parent

  • Robust mental health resources

  • Backup care and caregiver concierge services

  • Gender affirming services

  • Pet insurance

  • Free Post digital subscription

  • Leadership and career development programs

Benefits may vary based on the job, full-time or part-time schedule, location, and collectively bargained status.

The salary range for this position is:

$74,000 - $111,000 Annual

The actual salary within this range will depend on individual skills, experience, and qualifications as they relate to specific job requirements. This position may be eligible for a bonus or incentive program, and a member of the Talent Acquisition team will discuss bonus payment terms and conditions during the interview process.

About Washington Post

The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most-widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large international audience. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize 65 times for its work, the second-most of any publication. It is considered a newspaper of record in the U.S. Post journalists have also received 18 Nieman Fellowships and 368 White House News Photographers Association awards. The paper is well known for its political reporting and is one of the few remaining American newspapers to operate foreign bureaus. The Post was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham, who bought out several rival publications. The Post's 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Subsequently, in the best-known episode in the newspaper's history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal, which resulted in the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon. The advent of the internet expanded the Post's national and international reach. In October 2013, the Graham family sold the newspaper to Nash Holdings, a holding company owned by Jeff Bezos, for $250 million.
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