Senior Paid Social Lead

About Gusto

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 400,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.

All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process.

About the Role:

Gusto is looking for a Paid Social Marketing Lead to own our paid social program end-to-end from brand awareness through conversion across social channels such as Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, and TikTok. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role at the intersection of performance marketing, creative strategy, and AI-powered workflow design. You'll have full strategic and creative latitude over one of Gusto's most important acquisition channels, with direct influence on pipeline and revenue. If you're a full-funnel paid social operator who thinks in systems, holds creative and data rigor in equal measure, and uses AI as a genuine daily tool, we want to meet you.

About the Team:

You'll join Gusto's Demand Generation team, a high-performing group of performance marketers who care deeply about the craft of marketing and the mission behind it. Within Demand Gen, you'll be embedded on the Paid Acquisition team, a focused group responsible for driving awareness and pipeline through paid media. This team operates with high autonomy, a bias for experimentation, and a culture of cross-functional generosity. We hold ourselves to a high standard, move fast, and genuinely believe that being AI-native is part of what it means to do this job well today.

Here's what you'll do day-to-day:

Own paid social strategy and execution across Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and Tiktok, driving full-funnel campaigns from brand awareness through retargeting and conversion, with accountability to pipeline and revenue targets

Manage meaningful budget with rigor including campaign pacing, forecasting, budget-vs-actuals analysis, and making the case for paid social investment in imperfect attribution environments

Lead creative strategy and testing at scale — briefing creative studios and agencies, structuring meaningful experiments, reading results with precision, and building a clear learning roadmap

Partner with Web Marketing to align on landing page strategy, message match, and post-click conversion — because paid social performance doesn't end at the click

Manage agencies and contractors end-to-end, setting clear expectations, reviewing quality, and holding partners accountable to results

Use AI tools as a consistent, habitual part of your workflow — generating campaign briefs, developing copy variants, accelerating audience research, and building reusable systems that raise the bar for the whole team

Collaborate cross-functionally with Integrated Marketing, Communications, and Web to align paid social with integrated campaigns, product launches, and earned media moments — and bring performance data back upstream to influence what gets made

Here's what we're looking for:

10+ years of paid social experience at a B2B SaaS, performance marketing agency, or high-growth consumer organization

Full-funnel ownership across two or more major paid social platforms (Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Tiktok) with meaningful budget responsibility and a track record of driving measurable pipeline impact

Demonstrated experience managing external agencies and/or contractors — setting expectations, measuring performance, and holding partners to a high bar

Strong creative strategy and testing instincts — you know how to structure a test, distinguish a learning from a result, and translate performance data into creative direction

AI-fluent in practice, not just in theory — you use AI tools consistently in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate briefs, copy, and analysis, and you're building toward systematizing those habits for your team (Explorer-level minimum; Integrator trajectory preferred)

Excellent cross-functional collaborator who can translate integrated briefs into paid social strategy, advocate for what the channel needs, and work effectively alongside brand, web, and comms partners

Analytical and data-driven, with a clear point of view on attribution in imperfect measurement environments and comfort communicating paid social's contribution to business outcomes

Compensation

Our cash compensation amount for this role is $151,020/yr to $180,000/yr in Denver, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Atlanta, and $177,550/yr to $210,000/yr for San Francisco & New York. The cash compensation range for Toronto is (CAD) $134,285 - $158,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

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