Role Description
Harvard Medical School’s Office for External Education (OEE) seeks a strategic, hands-on Associate Director of Digital Marketing to lead performance marketing for a diverse portfolio of professional, corporate, and continuing education offerings. Reporting to the Senior Director of Marketing, this role owns planning, implementation, monitoring, and optimization of search, display, and social campaigns that drive awareness, leads, and enrollments across postgraduate certificates, digital programs, corporate learning, and continuing education.
As part of a collaborative marketing team, the Associate Director partners with program marketing leads, design, social, web, and admissions/enrollment teams to develop and execute integrated, data-driven media strategies. The ideal candidate has deep experience with paid digital media planning and buying (preferably in an agency setting), is fully versed in Google, LinkedIn, and Meta, and brings strong leadership, organizational, and people-management skills. The role will hire, develop, and manage a Digital Marketing Specialist.
Key Responsibilities
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Strategy & Planning:
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Lead end-to-end digital media strategy and execution for OEE programs and courses across search, display, and social to meet lead, enrollment, and revenue goals.
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Develop both comprehensive program-specific campaigns and broader portfolio-level initiatives within a 150+ offering portfolio.
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Develop media plans, including channel mix, budgets, flighting, and forecasting across key platforms.
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Serve as primary internal expert on paid digital media, advising leadership on performance, risks, and opportunities.
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Campaign Set-Up & Execution:
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Oversee campaign set-up: keyword and audience research, targeting and bid strategies, creative specs, and tracking requirements.
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Create, test, and optimize ad copy and creative concepts in partnership with marketing team members.
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Maintain standard operating procedures for planning, set-up, QA, optimization, and reporting.
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Optimization & Performance Management:
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Monitor performance and optimize in real time (bids, budgets, audiences, placements, creative) to improve ROI and cost per lead/enrollment.
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Translate data and user insights into recommendations for targeting, messaging, landing pages, and funnel optimization.
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Ensure strong budget stewardship, managing media spend to maximize impact within financial parameters.
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Measurement, Analytics & Reporting:
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Implement and manage conversion tracking, pixels, UTMs, and event configurations for accurate attribution.
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Oversee Google Tag Manager governance, including approving and publishing tags, triggers, and variables.
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Build dashboards and recurring reports with clear insights into performance, trends, and opportunities.
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Cross-Functional Collaboration:
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Align media strategies with integrated marketing plans, program goals, and timelines.
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Provide landing page recommendations to improve quality scores, conversion rates, and overall effectiveness.
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Coordinate with admissions and enrollment to incorporate lead flow, lead quality, and downstream metrics into optimizations.
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Partner with finance to ensure accurate coding, reconciliation, and timely payment of advertising invoices.
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Leadership, Management & Innovation:
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Hire, train, and manage a Digital Marketing Specialist, providing goals, coaching, and feedback.
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Stay current on platform capabilities, privacy changes, and best practices; pilot and scale new features.
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Bring forward-thinking ideas on using AI and automation to enhance targeting, creative, optimization, and reporting.
Qualifications
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Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, related field, or equivalent work experience required.
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7+ years of hands-on experience in digital marketing with a strong focus on paid search, display, social, or related transferable experience.
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Prior agency experience strongly preferred.
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Advanced degree a plus.
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Proven track record in planning and managing multi-channel media campaigns (Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and Bing) to lead/enrollment or revenue goals.
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Strong analytical skills with experience in performance reporting, dashboards, and data-driven optimization (e.g., Google Analytics, Looker Studio, Tableau, or similar tools).
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Deep knowledge of platform features, targeting options, bidding strategies, and optimization techniques across major ad platforms.
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Demonstrated experience managing and mentoring staff or junior team members.
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Excellent collaboration, communication, and project management skills; ability to coordinate across multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
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Professional certifications in major ad platforms (e.g., Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Meta Blueprint) strongly preferred.
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Proficiency with Google Tag Manager, including experience configuring, testing, and publishing tags for complex multi-campaign environments.
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Demonstrated project management skills using Monday.com or similar project management tools to manage timelines, tasks, and cross-functional workflows.
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Experience in higher education, professional education, or related industries preferred.
Requirements
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35 hours per week.
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Harvard University is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position.
Benefits
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Generous paid time off including parental leave.
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Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one.
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Retirement plans with university contributions.
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Wellbeing and mental health resources.
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Support for families and caregivers.
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Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement.
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Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks.
