Leiter (m/w/d) Paid Media und Social Media

Job Description

We are looking for an experienced Head of Paid Media and Social Media to lead customer acquisition, social media strategy, content strategy and conversion optimisation across our group of brands.

The role will be primarily focused on Ecotalk, with additional support across Ecotricity Domestic, Skydiamond, Dale Vince campaigning and other group brands as required.

This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who combines strategic thinking, high creativity, commercial judgement and strong paid social platform expertise. You will turn brand plans and commercial priorities into effective paid media, social media, content and conversion activity that delivers measurable results.

You will lead a team setting the standard for best-in-class digital channel customer acquisition, with a dominant focus on paid and organic social media strategy and execution. You will also bring experience across broader paid media, content strategy and conversion optimisation, working closely with direct reports, Brand Marketing Managers, Dale Vince's campaign team, creative teams, PR and relevant business stakeholders.

You will not own the complete marketing or commercial strategy for each brand, own the customer proposition, brand positioning or total brand budget. Your role is to provide specialist leadership and hands-on execution across acquisition, primarily for Ecotalk through paid social media platforms, while providing social media leadership across group brands and team leadership across other paid media channels, content and conversion. You will ensure activity is joined up, audience-led and commercially effective.

Core Responsibilities

Lead Paid Media and Acquisition

You will directly lead paid media and customer acquisition strategy for Ecotalk, and then provide direction across agreed group brands. You will have experience of paid search, price comparison websites, referrals, affiliates and other acquisition channels.

You will:

• Turn brand and commercial objectives into clear channel plans, budgets, forecasts and performance targets.
• Lead the planning, delivery and optimisation of acquisition campaigns.
• Ensure investment decisions are based on customer acquisition cost, customer quality, conversion and lifetime value.
• Develop structured testing across audiences, creative, messaging, bidding, channels and landing pages.
• Identify opportunities to improve channel mix, efficiency and commercial return.
• Lead internal specialists and agency partners to deliver high-quality, accountable activity.
• Use platform automation and appropriate AI tools to support planning, audience development, creative testing, optimisation and analysis, while maintaining clear human oversight and commercial control.

Shape Social Media and Content Strategy

You will own integrated social media and content strategy across agreed brands and channels, delivered through the Content Manager and Social and Content Editor, and in close partnership with Dale Vinces campaign team. Your focus will be to develop activity that supports brand awareness, audience growth, engagement, customer education, acquisition, conversion and campaigning.

You will:

• Ensure paid and organic social media work together effectively.
• Develop platform-specific social and content plans.
• Use audience insight, search behaviour, social listening and performance data to identify opportunities.
• Improve the way content is adapted, repurposed and amplified across paid, owned and social channels.
• Ensure content supports paid campaigns, search visibility, landing pages and customer journeys.
• Keep the team responsive to changes in platforms, audience behaviour and content formats.
• Measure activity against clear brand, audience and commercial objectives.
• Use AI and other appropriate tools to support research, trend identification, content planning, briefing, repurposing and analysis, while ensuring final output remains accurate, distinctive, brand-appropriate and guided by strong editorial judgement.

Improve Conversion

You will own conversion strategy and CRO testing across paid media, landing pages and relevant acquisition journeys.

You will work with product, UX, technology, data and commercial teams to identify barriers to conversion and prioritise improvements.

This will include:

• Developing a structured programme of conversion tests.
• Creating clear hypotheses, measurement plans and commercial rationale.
• Improving landing pages, forms, switching journeys and campaign journeys.
• Using customer behaviour and performance data to identify opportunities.
• Sharing test results and applying successful approaches across future activity.

Manage Performance and Investment

You will take responsibility for the commercial performance of the channels and activity within your remit.

You will manage relevant budgets, maintain clear visibility of planned and actual spend, and provide straightforward reporting and recommendations to all stakeholders.

You will:

• Monitor performance against KPIs, forecasts, budgets and commercial objectives.
• Identify underperformance, risks and opportunities early.
• Recommend changes to investment based on evidence and commercial priorities.
• Explain not only what happened, but why it happened and what action should follow.
• Use performance insight to improve targeting, creative, content, conversion and budget allocation.
• Ensure media and agency expenditure is transparent, controlled, and actively optimised.

For this role, you'll need to be based within a reasonable distance and able to travel to our office in Stroud, Gloucestershire, as the role requires weekly office presence.

About You

You will be commercially focused, analytical and confident using data to make decisions. You will understand what makes creative and content effective, while remaining focused on customer behaviour, conversion and return on investment.

You will be curious about new technology and willing to test better ways of working, without losing the human judgement, creativity and brand sensitivity that strong marketing requires.

You will be collaborative, organised and comfortable working through complexity. Most importantly, you will share our belief in the power of green energy, nature and sustainable business to change markets for the better.

You will have significant experience across paid social media, acquisition marketing, social media, content strategy, performance marketing and conversion optimisation.

Essential Skills

• Strong knowledge of paid search, media planning, targeting and campaign optimisation.
• Experience developing social media strategies across multiple platforms.
• Experience creating content strategies that support brand, search, social, acquisition and conversion.
• A strong understanding of acquisition economics, including customer acquisition cost, conversion, customer quality and lifetime value.
• Experience planning or managing CRO and digital journey improvements.
• Strong analytical and numerical skills, with the ability to turn data into clear decisions.
• Experience managing meaningful media or campaign budgets.
• Experience leading teams and delivering through colleagues, agencies and specialist partners.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• The ability to work across multiple brands, competing priorities and different areas of the business.
• A practical, hands-on approach and a willingness to work at both strategic and operational levels.
• Experience using AI and automation to improve planning, analysis, optimisation, content development or reporting.
• Sound judgement around accuracy, data protection, copyright, brand safety and responsible AI use.

It would be an advantage if you have

• Experience in energy, utilities, telecoms, subscriptions, financial services or another regulated sector.
• Experience working across several brands or business units.
• Knowledge of price comparison websites, referral programmes or affiliate acquisition.
• Experience with sustainability-led brands or campaigning organisations.
• Experience using analytics, attribution and campaign reporting tools.
• An understanding of SEO, AI-supported search discovery and organic content visibility.

What's in it for you...

• Healthcare plan, life assurance and generous pension contribution
• Volunteering Day
• Hybrid Working
• Various company discounts (including shops, gyms, days out and events)
• Holiday of 25 days (plus bank holidays) & ability to buy/sell days
• Cycle to work scheme, car-pooling and onsite parking available

As a valued member of the team, you will be supporting the Group Environmental Policy and its associated sustainability objectives and targets.

The fast moving nature of the business means that from time to time you may be asked to perform duties or tasks outside of your original job description on an ad hoc basis. This allows the company to utilise our people in the best possible way at all times and helps our colleagues to make the best contribution in a changing environment.

Ecotricity is Britain's overall greenest energy company- it's more than just green energy - the breadth and depth of our work on green issues is unmatched. When we started back in 1995, we were the first company in the world to provide a new kind of electricity - the green kind.

Our mission was, and remains, to change the way energy is made and used in Britain - by replacing fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy.

We don't just supply green energy, we use the money from our customers' bills to make it ourselves too - we have built windmills and sun parks in Britain. We call this turning 'bills into mills'.

We don't just focus on energy though- we built the Electric Highway, Britain's leading network of electric vehicle charging points; we helped Forest Green Rovers become the greenest football club in the world; and we launched Britain's greenest mobile phone service, Ecotalk, where they use the money from their customers' bills to protect and regenerate Britain's lost rainforests.

Ecotricity is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to providing equality for all.