Senior Media Director, B2B

About Ars X Machina

As a 2026 AdAge Best Places to Work company, Ars X Machina (AXM) is a full-service media planning, buying, and analytics agency headquartered in San Francisco, with a remote team distributed across the U.S. We craft omnichannel, data-driven media strategies that span the entire paid media landscape. From audience development and strategic planning to budget forecasting, execution, optimization, and reporting, we manage the full media lifecycle end-to-end. Our experience spans both B2B and B2C, supporting brand-building and performance-driven campaigns.

What sets AXM apart? Our agility, strategic leadership, and innovative mindset, all rooted in a collaborative, people-first culture where both clients and team members thrive.

SUMMARY: The Senior Media Director develops and executes strategic media plans for global B2B clients that align with clients’ business objectives, drive brand awareness, and generate high-quality leads. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in media planning and buying, deep knowledge of B2B marketing strategies, and a proven track record of driving successful media campaigns. In addition to leading planning efforts, the Sr. Media Director will serve as a primary point of contact for B2B client(s) and must have excellent client service skills. In this role, the Senior Media Director will also collaborate across departments, implement, and where needed, develop processes to effectively manage workload, and serve on the Account Leadership Team (ALT) for key client(s).

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• B2B Media Strategy Development: Oversee and support the development of comprehensive B2B brand, brandgen, and demand gen media strategies that reach target audiences, drive engagement, and achieve business goals. This requires a deep understanding of client-specific needs (based on industry, target audience, current business analysis, and competitive landscape). Ensure that full-funnel plans are being developed holistically and identify strategic opportunities to connect upper, mid, and lower-funnel media tactics.

• Global Brand, Demand, and ABM Media Planning: Oversee and aid in the planning process, driving innovation and process improvement of global campaigns. Partner with investment team leads (e.g., Programmatic, Social, Search, etc.) to drive collaboration and accountability for strategic media recommendations for enterprise, mid-market, and SMB audiences. Identify the need for and aid in the development of well-supported, articulate POVs for clients. The Senior Media Director is accountable for ensuring that we are bringing new thinking, new partners, and/or test opportunities to the client within every media recommendation.

• Media Buying: Oversee, and where necessary, aid in the buying of digital direct, offline, and content syndication buys, including negotiation and execution of media buys, ensuring optimal placement and cost-effectiveness. Must have in-depth knowledge and experience working with ABM tactics and partners and lead generation platforms. Partner with investment team leads (e.g., Programmatic, Social and Search) to provide oversight of in-platform media buys. Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with media partners, publishers, and vendors to negotiate favorable terms and secure premium placements. Partner with clients and vendors to monitor lead quality, job-level and company-level fit, geographic eligibility, and downstream progression.

• Campaign Management: Assume ultimate oversight responsibilities for end-to-end management of B2B media campaigns, from concept development to post-campaign analysis, ensuring campaigns are delivered on time and within budget.

• Audience Targeting: Partner with Sr. Analytics Leads to provide input on strategic audience targets and collaborate on identifying innovative and strategic solutions for finding and reaching key targets. Build audience strategies around accounts and buying groups, C-suites, technical decision-makers, practitioners, procurement teams, and internal influencers. Make targeting recommendations based on first-party customer and prospect data, intent signals, site engagement, account tiers, suppression lists, and look-alike modeling while accounting for match rates and addressable scale.

• Performance Optimization: Partner with Analytics and Investment Leads to ensure development of insightful reporting that includes business-level results and honest, unbiased assessment of media performance by tactic/channel, partner, creative, etc.

• Client Leadership: Act as a senior point of contact for clients and internal/external partners. This includes developing deep, trusted relationships with key day-to-day and senior-level clients, setting realistic client expectations, making every effort to exceed them, taking ultimate accountability for the quality of work delivered to the client, and ensuring the team is taking a proactive approach to the client business, anticipating needs and questions that enable AXM to provide the highest quality client service. The Senior Media Director is responsible for escalating client issues to agency leadership and ensuring prompt attention to client concerns and needs. This includes, but is not limited to, bandwidth and/or staffing concerns, upskilling and/or net new resources needed to properly service clients, opportunities for organic growth, etc.

• Account Management: Oversee team management of client budgets and billing, share out of trends and industry news with clients and internal team, and adhere to AXM and client processes and timelines. Partner with department heads in the development of quarterly/annual SOWs.

• Team Leadership: Manage and mentor a team of media professionals, providing guidance, support, and professional development opportunities to foster growth and excellence. Identify coaching and training needs and ensure cohesive team dynamics and strong collaboration and communication across team members and departments.

• Market Research: Stay informed about industry trends, competitive landscape, and emerging technologies in B2B media, leveraging insights to inform strategic decision-making and innovation.

• Agency Support: Help pitch new B2B business in order to help build agency profitability and market strength, leverage local market relationships by attending industry events to promote AXM as a premium media planning and buying agency.

• AI-Enabled Media Leadership: Apply AI tools to improve media planning, strategy, research, analysis, and team workflows; identify opportunities to utilize more advanced capabilities such as custom GPTs, automations, or AI agents to improve the quality, speed, and effectiveness of the work.

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Advertising, Business, or related field
• Minimum 8+ years of experience in media planning and buying, with a focus on B2B marketing. B2C experience is a plus.
• Proven track record of developing and executing successful B2B media strategies that drive brand awareness and lead generation.
• Deep understanding of B2B marketing tactics, including account-based marketing (ABM), content marketing, and lead nurturing. Familiarity with Enterprise and SMB marketing tactics.
• Experience managing global campaigns
• Experience with ABM, intent, and lead-management platforms such as 6sense, Demandbase, Bombora, and Integrate, plus working knowledge of CRM and marketing-automation environments such as Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot, or comparable systems.
• Fluency in B2B funnel and revenue metrics, including account engagement, MQL, MQA, SAL, SQL, opportunity, pipeline value, win rate, etc
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data, draw actionable insights, and optimize campaign performance.
• Excellent negotiation, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Strategic thinker with a creative mindset and the ability to think outside the box to develop innovative media solutions.
• Proficiency in media planning and buying tools, Microsoft Office Suite, and analytics platforms.
• Leadership experience, with a demonstrated ability to inspire and lead a team to achieve goals and deliver results in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated experience using generative AI in media planning, buying, or marketing workflows, with strong prompting skills. Experience building or configuring custom GPTs, automations, agents, or similar AI-enabled workflows is preferred.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required of personnel so classified.