Senior Paid Media Specialist

Senior Paid Media Specialist

First Focus · Auckland, New Zealand (Hybrid) · Full-time · Posted 2026-11-06

Salary: unknown currency 100,000–130,000

Workplace: hybrid

Department: Growth

Description

Are you a paid media specialist who knows the difference between a lead and an actual sales opportunity?

Excellent. We should talk.

First Focus is looking for a Senior Paid Media Specialist who knows their way around Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Campaign Manager, but more importantly, knows when to ignore their enthusiastic recommendations.

Because, as lovely as the advertising platforms are, their definition of success doesn't always match ours. They tend to like clicks, impressions and spending our money. We're rather more interested in generating genuine sales opportunities.

This is a senior, hands-on role where you'll take ownership of paid media campaigns across New Zealand, Australia and the United States, managing approximately NZ$50,000 to NZ$100,000 in monthly advertising spend.

You'll work closely with our Director of Demand Generation, combining deep platform expertise with commercial thinking, healthy scepticism and the confidence to challenge assumptions.

If you enjoy building campaigns, understanding complex B2B buying journeys and proving that marketing can contribute to actual revenue, rather than just producing attractive dashboards, you'll probably enjoy this.

About First Focus

First Focus is one of Australasia's leading managed IT service providers, helping businesses make technology work better.

We've spent more than 15 years growing a business built around exceptional service, clever people and a genuine commitment to doing things properly.

With a team approaching 500 people across Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, we're large enough to offer interesting challenges, international opportunities and serious professional development, but still small enough that good ideas don't need to survive seventeen committees before anyone can act on them.

We believe talented people do their best work when they're informed, aligned, supported and rewarded for their performance.

We also believe in trusting people to use their brains. Revolutionary stuff, apparently.

Our values aren't just decorative words on an office wall. They're part of how we work, make decisions and support each other.

You can learn more about us and our values at https://www.firstfocus.com.au/about-us/.

Why you'll love this role

This isn't a position where you'll spend your days forwarding agency reports or watching automated campaigns enthusiastically spend money.

You'll be the person actually making things happen.

• Real ownership: Build, manage and optimise campaigns yourself, with the autonomy to make informed decisions.
• Meaningful budgets: Work with substantial monthly media investment across multiple channels and markets.
• International exposure: Run campaigns targeting businesses across New Zealand, Australia and the United States.
• Commercial influence: Work directly with the Director of Demand Generation and help shape how we approach paid media.
• Room to challenge: We want someone who questions assumptions, spots opportunities and isn't afraid to suggest a better approach.
• Proper B2B marketing: Work with complex buying journeys, high-value services and decision-makers who generally don't purchase managed IT services because they saw one particularly convincing banner ad.

Our value Be the Solution is especially relevant here.

We want someone who doesn't simply identify that a campaign isn't working, but investigates why, recommends what to change and takes ownership of improving the result.

Of course, sometimes the right solution is to stop a campaign altogether. We're comfortable with that too.

Requirements

What you'll be doing

You'll take responsibility for the hands-on execution and ongoing improvement of our paid media activity across multiple markets.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Building, managing and optimising campaigns across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube and retargeting channels.
• Translating demand generation priorities into effective campaign structures, audiences, messaging and landing-page recommendations.
• Analysing search terms, keyword performance, placements, audience quality, form submissions and conversion behaviour.
• Identifying which campaigns generate genuine buying interest and which are simply very good at generating activity.
• Understanding how paid search, social advertising, video and retargeting work together across longer B2B buying journeys.
• Developing and managing target-account audiences to support account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns.
• Working with sales teams to understand lead quality, improve targeting and identify commercially relevant opportunities.
• Collaborating with marketing operations to improve tracking, measurement and attribution.
• Providing constructive recommendations to the Director of Demand Generation, including challenging existing assumptions when the evidence supports it.
• Making sensible investment decisions when attribution is incomplete, conversion volumes are limited or the data isn't quite as cooperative as we'd like.

Ultimately, your job is to help generate more sales-qualified leads (SQLs), stronger pipeline and better-quality inbound opportunities.

We also recognise that not every valuable marketing interaction results in an immediate enquiry.

Building awareness, familiarity and future demand matters too. You'll understand how those activities contribute to the wider buying journey without losing sight of the commercial outcomes we're trying to achieve.

What we're looking for

We're looking for an experienced paid media specialist who combines technical expertise with sound commercial judgement.

Ideally, you'll bring:

• At least five years of hands-on paid media experience, with a strong track record of managing and improving campaigns.
• Expert knowledge of Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
• Strong working knowledge of Meta, YouTube, Reddit, retargeting and audience management.
• Experience managing significant monthly advertising budgets.
• Experience running campaigns across multiple regions, platforms and budgets.
• A solid understanding of high-consideration B2B marketing, particularly services involving long buying cycles and high-value recurring contracts.
• The ability to distinguish between marketing leads, sales-qualified opportunities and genuine pipeline.
• Confidence analysing campaign performance and making commercially sound decisions when the data is incomplete.
• The ability to understand the target buyer, their business challenges and what might motivate them to change providers.
• Strong communication skills and the confidence to challenge recommendations constructively.

Experience in managed IT services, technology or professional services would be particularly valuable.

You don't need a formal qualification for this role.

We're much more interested in what you've done, how you think and whether you can explain why a campaign worked (or didn't) without hiding behind an impressive collection of acronyms.

How we'll measure success

We're not going to judge your contribution purely on clicks, impressions or how beautifully organised your Google Ads account happens to be.

Although a beautifully organised account certainly won't hurt.

The primary measures of success will be:

• The volume and quality of sales-qualified leads.
• Sales acceptance of inbound opportunities.
• Cost per SQL and cost per acquisition.
• Contribution to genuine sales pipeline.

We'll also consider how effectively campaigns build awareness, engage relevant accounts and create future demand.

The important thing is understanding what's working, why it's working and whether it's helping the business grow.

Benefits

What's in it for you?

At First Focus, we believe great people deserve more than the occasional motivational email.

Here's what you can look forward to:

• Meaningful ownership: A senior specialist role where your expertise and recommendations genuinely matter.
• Hybrid working: A balance of collaboration and focused working time.
• International exposure: Opportunities to work across three different markets and a broad mix of paid media channels.
• Professional growth: Opportunities to build your expertise through challenging work, collaboration and ongoing learning.
• Supportive leadership: Work directly with a Director of Demand Generation who values constructive discussion and informed decisions.
• A collaborative culture: Work with capable people who share ideas, communicate openly and help each other succeed.
• A growing business: Be part of an established technology services company with a long-term commitment to its people and customers.

We take our Never Stop Growing and Win Together values seriously, which means sharing knowledge, learning from each other and recognising that great results rarely happen in isolation.

Sound like your kind of challenge?

If you're a senior paid media specialist who enjoys getting into the detail, challenging conventional thinking and connecting marketing activity to real commercial outcomes, we'd love to hear from you.

We're particularly interested in people who can explain not just what they've achieved, but why their decisions made a difference.

Tell us about the campaigns you've built, the budgets you've managed and the improvements you've delivered.

Bonus points if you've ever confidently told an advertising platform that its latest automated recommendation wasn't particularly helpful.

We suspect you'll fit right in.

Apply now and help us turn smarter paid media investment into meaningful business growth.

Neurodiversity

Neurodiversity: First Focus welcomes applications from Neurodiverse candidates. We recommend & appreciate disclosure along with the application so that a copy of our Neurodiversity Statement can be provided outlining the flexible options we can offer to best showcase your skills.

AI in Recruitment

AI in Recruitment: We use AI-assisted recruitment tools to support our recruitment process. These tools do not make hiring decisions. Applications are reviewed by our recruitment team, and candidate information is handled in accordance with applicable New Zealand privacy law.

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