Head of Paid Media

About the Role

We're hiring a Head of Paid Media to own subscriber acquisition for StudyFetch. You'll direct $500K+ in monthly paid spend and a creator program running hundreds of creators, and you'll be accountable for opening the new channels we need to hit our goals. That means paid media across TikTok, Meta, Instagram, YouTube, Google, and emerging platforms, and it also means the strategy behind the creator program that produces most of our best-performing ads.

We build AI products and we run marketing the same way. You should work with AI daily at an expert level: prototyping creative concepts before briefing them, automating the reporting nobody should be doing by hand, and building internal tools when the team needs something that doesn't exist yet. Manual work that a tool could handle should make you impatient.

Student acquisition is seasonal and unforgiving. Back-to-school and exam cycles compress the year into a few windows where the spend has to be right, and we need someone who plans for that curve and holds a CAC target through it.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the subscriber acquisition strategy for StudyFetch end to end, covering paid media, the creator program, and any new channel that can deliver subscribers at target CAC
• Own paid acquisition across TikTok, Meta, Instagram, YouTube, Google (Search, App, and YouTube campaigns), and emerging platforms
• Direct $500K+ in monthly paid spend, including the channel mix and allocation model: where we spend, against which student segments, at what CAC and ROAS.
• Own the strategy behind the creator program, including which concepts, formats, hooks, and creator profiles we invest in.
• Decide which creator content gets promoted into paid.
• Design the creator program's operating model for high-volume periods
• Identify, test, and open new acquisition channels, with a clear framework for what earns more budget and what gets cut
• Own the creative testing engine inside paid: how much new creative goes live each week, how fast losers get cut, and what the read-out threshold is
• Stay hands-on enough in the accounts to be credible, covering campaign structure, bidding, audience and signal strategy, and budget pacing
• Direct contractors and cross-functional partners on tactical execution, including creator communications, campaign building, scouting, and engineering support for testing infrastructure
• Own tracking and measurement integrity: pixels and SDK events, server-side and CAPI setup, SKAN and privacy-driven changes, UTM discipline, and consistency between platform-reported numbers and Mixpanel
• Deliver the weekly acquisition readout plus the CAC and payback forecast the company plans against, and manage the paid budget alongside marketing leadership
• Use AI across the full workflow, from creative iteration and briefing to campaign analysis, anomaly detection, and reporting

What We're Looking For

• 6+ years in paid media or growth with direct ownership of six-figure monthly budgets
• Expert understanding of what's going viral on social media now and why it's performing well organically
• A strategist who can still execute. You write down a plan clear enough for someone else to run, and you can open the ad account and fix it yourself when you need to
• Deep, hands-on expertise in at least two of TikTok Ads, Meta Ads, Google Ads and App campaigns, and YouTube, with strategic command of the rest. You have personally built and optimized campaigns, not just managed people who did
• Consumer subscription or mobile app growth experience
• Experience with creator programs and UGC content at scale. You've briefed creators, run UGC at volume, and orchestrated strategy for hundreds of creators.
• A track record of opening a new acquisition channel from zero and scaling it, not only optimizing channels that were already working
• Experience directing contractors, agencies, or cross-functional partners to do the tactical work
• You work with AI daily at a near-expert level and can build automations or internal tools when something needs to exist (vibe coding counts)
• Analytical independence. You pull and interrogate your own data in Mixpanel or an equivalent product analytics tool
• Fluent in how Gen Z discovers apps. You know what reads as native versus corporate on TikTok, and you've marketed to a young audience before
• High agency. We care more about what you built with limited resources than the size of the logo you built it at
• Edtech, education, or student-market experience is a plus, as is international paid expansion into high-volume student markets
• Based in Los Angeles and excited to build in-office with a collaborative, fast-moving team

What We Offer

• $130,000 - $160,000 base salary
• Equity
• 100% employer paid Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 75% dependent coverage
• 401(k) with employer match
• ClassPass wellness membership, company-paid
• Daily team dinner provided in-office
• A high-growth, mission-driven team focused on transforming how students learn