Digital Paid Media & Performance Marketing Specialist

Description

Digital Paid Media & Performance Marketing Specialist, Illinois Mutual

Paid Media • Demand Generation • Lead Generation • Analytics & Optimization

Reports To: Emily Cook, Digital Marketing Manager

Department: Marketing, Communications and Research

Location: Peoria, IL (Hybrid)

Commitment to Core Values 

At Illinois Mutual, our culture is built around our four core values. These values shape how we operate and define our expectations of each team member’s contributions: 

• Be honest, reliable and respectful 
• Think of other first 
• Work together to create results 
• Stand out with personal, caring service 

Position Summary

The Digital Paid Media & Performance Marketing Specialist is a mid-level, hands-on individual contributor responsible for planning, launching, managing, testing and optimizing multi-channel paid media and lead-generation campaigns for Illinois Mutual. This role combines deep paid-media platform expertise with strong analytical judgment to acquire high-value prospects, improve campaign efficiency and connect marketing activity to downstream lead conversion and business outcomes.

The ideal candidate has strong, practical experience in Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager and understands paid search, paid social, display/retargeting, demand generation and emerging channels. This individual will make day-to-day optimization decisions across budgets, bids, audiences, objectives, creative, copy and landing pages, while translating campaign performance into clear recommendations for Marketing, Sales and executive stakeholders.

Core Responsibilities

Paid Media Strategy & Campaign Execution

• Independently plan, build, launch and manage paid-media campaigns across Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager, with additional channel responsibility as appropriate.
• Develop channel and audience strategies that support B2B and B2C lead generation, agent recruitment, demand generation and broader marketing objectives.
• Manage paid search, paid social, display, video, retargeting and other performance-driven tactics across the prospect journey.
• Translate campaign goals into effective targeting, bidding, budget, conversion and optimization strategies.
• Evaluate opportunities to test new platforms, vendors, audience sources and emerging channels based on business fit, performance potential and scalability.

Performance Optimization & Testing

• Monitor in-market campaigns closely and make data-driven optimization decisions to improve lead volume, lead quality, conversion performance and media efficiency.
• Actively manage budget allocation, bid strategy, audience targeting, campaign objectives and pacing based on performance.
• Identify and reduce media waste by analyzing underperforming keywords, placements, audiences, creative and tactics and reallocating spend toward stronger opportunities.
• Develop and execute structured A/B tests across creative, copy, audiences, campaign objectives, offers and landing pages.
• Use testing results to establish actionable learnings and continuously improve future campaign strategy and execution.

Lead Generation, Demand Generation & Downstream Conversion

• Build paid-media programs designed not simply to generate traffic, but to acquire qualified prospects and support sustainable lead growth.
• Understand and evaluate the full path from media exposure and click through lead capture, marketing qualification, Sales follow-up and downstream conversion.
• Establish ongoing feedback with Sales to understand lead quality, identify conversion opportunities and continuously improve audience targeting, messaging and lead-generation performance.
• Measure and demonstrate the ROI of paid-media investments by connecting marketing spend to lead quality, conversions and downstream business results, and use those insights to optimize future campaigns and budget allocation.
• Apply a performance-marketing mindset to both lead generation and demand generation, balancing short-term conversion goals with efforts that build awareness and consideration among high-value audiences.
• Support retargeting, lookalike and advanced audience strategies that help Illinois Mutual reach, re-engage and convert priority audiences.

Analytics, Attribution & Performance Reporting

• Measure and analyze campaign performance using metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, conversions, conversion rate, cost per lead, lead quality and other business-relevant KPIs.
• Maintain a strong working knowledge of conversion tracking, pixels/tags, UTM parameters and web analytics needed to evaluate campaign effectiveness.
• Connect paid-media performance to CRM activity and downstream outcomes to improve visibility into which channels, audiences and campaigns generate the strongest business results.
• Develop clear performance summaries and actionable recommendations for Marketing, Sales and executive stakeholders, explaining what happened, why it happened and what should change next.
• Use analytics and attribution insights to inform budget allocation, channel mix, audience strategy and future campaign planning.

Cross-Channel Collaboration & Continuous Improvement

• Partner with the Digital Marketing Manager, Marketing leadership, Sales, creative/content teams, web resources and other cross-functional stakeholders to deliver cohesive, high-performing campaigns.
• Partner with Marketing and Sales to assess lead quality and identify opportunities to improve targeting, messaging, nurturing and conversion performance.
• Partner closely with Sales to track marketing-generated leads from initial acquisition through qualification, follow-up, application and business outcomes.
• Work within Illinois Mutual brand, legal and compliance requirements while helping identify effective ways to test, learn and improve performance in a regulated environment.
• Contribute paid-media expertise to integrated marketing initiatives and help ensure alignment across paid, owned and nurture channels.
• Stay current on paid-media platform changes, privacy and measurement trends, AI-enabled optimization capabilities and evolving performance-marketing best practices.

Anticipated Salary: $68,500 - $71,000 

Benefits Overview:  We strive for our employees to feel appreciated and supported, both professionally and personally. Our comprehensive benefit and discount package that meets a variety of needs is one way we demonstrate this. Some of our most admired benefits include: 

• Compressed 4 1/2-day work week (Half-Day Fridays)
• No monthly premium cost for employee medical, life and disability insurance coverage
• Paid time-off accrual, including annual rollover; and paid holidays
• Competitive 401(k) plan with immediate vesting on Company contributions
• Discounted on-site employee cafeteria
• On-site exercise facility and company-provided exercise time
• Tuition reimbursement and training incentives
• Access to voluntary dental and vision insurance coverage

Required Qualifications & Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business or a related field.
• Minimum 3–5 years of hands-on experience planning, executing and optimizing paid-media and performance-marketing campaigns, preferably within an agency, B2B, B2C, D2C, financial services, insurance, lead-generation or other performance-driven marketing environment.
• Demonstrated hands-on proficiency with Google Ads, including paid search campaign setup, keyword strategy, bidding, budget management, conversion tracking and ongoing optimization.
• Demonstrated hands-on proficiency with Meta Ads Manager, including campaign setup, audience targeting, budget optimization, conversion objectives, creative testing and performance analysis.
• Strong experience with paid search and paid social strategy and execution.
• Experience connecting campaign activity to CRM and lead-management data to evaluate lead quality and downstream performance.
• Hands-on experience with LinkedIn Campaign Manager and B2B paid-social campaigns.
• Demonstrated ability to manage campaign budgets and make independent optimization decisions based on performance data.
• Working knowledge of conversion tracking, audience targeting, retargeting, A/B testing and digital analytics/reporting.
• Demonstrated experience generating and optimizing leads, with an understanding of lead acquisition, lead quality and downstream conversion.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data, identify trends, draw conclusions and turn findings into specific recommendations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain campaign performance and recommendations to Marketing, Sales and leadership stakeholders.
• Strong attention to detail, sound judgment and the ability to manage multiple campaigns and priorities in a deadline-driven environment.

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with YouTube, Google Display or other display/video advertising platforms.
• Experience developing retargeting, lookalike, geofencing or other advanced audience strategies.
• Experience with marketing automation, nurture programs and the relationship between paid acquisition and lead follow-up.
• Experience testing and optimizing landing pages for conversion.
• Working knowledge of demand-generation strategy and how paid media contributes to both near-term lead acquisition and longer-term audience development.

Growth Opportunities

• Feed optimization and product/data-feed strategy.
• Cross-media optimization (XMO) or similar technology that dynamically allocates budget across digital channels based on performance.
• AI-enabled lead qualification, scoring, prioritization and automated lead follow-up.
• SMS, chat or voice AI capabilities that support faster lead engagement and conversion.
• Experience testing emerging paid-media channels and new performance-marketing technologies.
• Insurance or financial services industry experience.

Required Competencies (Proficiency Level) 

• Accountability (2) 
• Continuous Learning (2) 
• Customer Focus (2) 
• Integrity (1) 
• Organizational Awareness (1) 
• Teamwork (2) 

This job description is intended to provide a general overview of the position and does not include every detail of the role. Responsibilities and expectations may be subject to change based on Company needs. 

Illinois Mutual is an equal opportunity employer.