Overview
You manage paid social campaigns for CPG brands selling products to moms, parents, and women's wellness customers. You're running Meta ads, TikTok campaigns, and testing new social channels. You work directly with clients, report on performance weekly, and manage budgets ranging from $10K to $100K+ per month depending on the brand.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Senior Paid Media Strategist (Client-facing) |
| Primary Focus | Social-first paid advertising (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest) |
| Client Load | 3-5 active clients typically |
| Budget Management | $10K-$100K+/month per client |
| Team Structure | Building/leading paid team (likely 1-2 reports) |
| Reporting | Weekly client calls + monthly performance reviews |
Company Context
Stage: Bootstrapped indie agency
Size: 17 employees
Growth: Actively hiring, focused on fem-wellness and parenting/baby/mom CPG niche
Market Position: Small specialized agency competing against larger full-service agencies and in-house teams
Agency Reality
Client Acquisition:
- Likely referral-heavy at this size
- Some inbound from their niche positioning
- You may need to help pitch new business occasionally
Your Client Base:
- DTC CPG brands (think: period products, pregnancy supplements, baby gear, postpartum recovery)
- Brands doing $1M-$20M in revenue (typical for 17-person agency)
- Mix of retainer and project work
Scope Creep Alert:
- Small agency means wearing multiple hats
- "Senior" here likely means you're THE paid expert, not one of many
- Expect to do some execution yourself, not just strategy
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Campaign Management (40%) | Client Communication (25%) | Reporting/Analysis (20%) | Team Building (15%)
Key Activities
- Campaign Setup & Optimization: Building ad sets, testing creative, adjusting bids, scaling winners. You're in Ads Manager daily making micro-decisions on budget allocation.
- Creative Briefing: Working with their UGC team and organic social folks to get ad creative produced. You write briefs, give feedback, test hooks and formats.
- Client Calls: Weekly syncs where you walk through performance, explain what's working/not working, manage expectations when ROAS drops, and push back on bad ideas.
- Reporting: Building dashboards, pulling attribution data, explaining why iOS 14.5 makes tracking messy, defending channel mix decisions.
- Team Development: Hiring and training junior paid media people. Writing processes. Becoming the "paid media authority" internally.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Platform Volatility: Meta changes the algorithm constantly. TikTok ads that worked last month stop working. You're always chasing the next thing.
- Client Education: Many CPG founders don't understand paid social. You'll explain why their ad copy is bad, why they can't track everything, and why CPA went up (even though you did everything right).
- Small Agency Chaos: Less infrastructure than big agencies. You might be building your own reporting templates. Processes are "figure it out as you go."
- Attribution Mess: iOS privacy updates mean tracking is broken. You'll spend time defending results that are hard to prove.
- Wearing Multiple Hats: "Senior Strategist" also means you're doing execution, client service, and building a team from scratch.
What Success Looks Like
- Clients renew and increase budgets quarter over quarter
- You hit ROAS targets (probably 3-5x for DTC CPG depending on margins)
- You build a paid team that can handle more clients
- You develop playbooks that work consistently in the fem-wellness/parenting niche
Who You're Selling To (Internal Client Context)
Typical Clients:
- Founder-led CPG brands (often female founders)
- Marketing Directors at slightly larger brands
- People who care deeply about their mission/product
What They Care About:
- ROAS and profitability (these are product businesses with real margins)
- Brand voice staying authentic (can't just run generic DTC ads)
- Understanding their customer deeply (moms, pregnant women, people with periods)
- Balancing performance with brand-building
Requirements
- 4+ years running paid social campaigns (Meta/TikTok required)
- Experience in fem-wellness, parenting, baby, or mom CPG verticals specifically
- Proven track record managing $50K+/month in ad spend
- Client-facing experience (you need to explain things clearly, not just execute)
- Team leadership or mentorship experience (you're building this function)
- Comfort with ambiguity and fast-moving agency environment