{"id":1206596,"url":"https://alion.io/job/wpp-media-associate-director-seo","title":"Associate Director, SEO","company":{"id":5499,"name":"WPP Media","domain":"wppmedia.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/wpp-media","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":81,"open_postings":169,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.763,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":48,"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"}},"role":"Sales","role_family":"Sales","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Atlanta, United States","Chicago, United States","New York, United States","Detroit, United States","Los Angeles, United States","San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":75000,"max":180000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":180000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Google AI Studio","optional":true},{"name":"Screaming Frog","optional":true}],"status":"closed","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T21:36:12Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-19","last_verified_at":"2026-10-21T20:18:50Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":"2026-10-21T20:18:50Z","days_open":26,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":26},"description":"About WPP Media\nWPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships - all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open - we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.\nWPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.\nFor more information, visit wppmedia.com.\nAbout the Role\nEssenceMediacom is seeking an Associate Director, SEO & Generative Search Optimization, to join the Organic Search team and lead the strategy, recommendations, and delivery of SEO and GSO across a portfolio of Google products and services in the U.S., in partnership with global team members across EMEA and APAC. As search behavior continues to evolve beyond traditional results pages, this role will define how brands and products build visibility across Google Search, AI-powered search experiences, LLM platforms, and answer engines. In line with MFG's expectations for Associate Director-level talent, this role is responsible for navigating complexity to transform the 'how' and 'why' of SEO/GSO into a clear vision, ensuring technical, content, measurement, and cross-channel strategies are connected to client business priorities and delivered to a consistently high standard.\nThe ideal candidate combines deep organic search expertise with strong client leadership, commercial judgment, and people management skills. This person will serve as the primary owner of the client partnership for their assigned business area, build trust across complex stakeholder groups, and translate technical and strategic recommendations into compelling business narratives. They will guide Supervisors and junior team members, own bespoke scopes and operational frameworks, shape measurement approaches for emerging AI visibility, and formalize collaboration across SEO, SEM, Analytics, Content, Product, Engineering, and other agency partners. The role requires confidence leading senior client conversations, driving decisions through ambiguity, and maintaining accountability for strategy, delivery quality, team performance, and account growth.\nResponsibilities\nOwn the SEO and GSO vision for assigned Google products or product areas, connecting technical readiness, content strategy, entity authority, and AI-led discovery to measurable business priorities.\nDefine strategic roadmaps for complex site environments, anticipating evolving search and AI standards and translating infrastructure needs into persuasive business cases for Product, Engineering, Marketing, and other stakeholders.\nDirect long-term content strategy across traditional and generative search, balancing audience intent, topical authority, brand representation, source inclusion, and emerging AI visibility goals.\nOwn the narrative of SEO and GSO performance by ensuring measurement frameworks, dashboards, and reporting connect search outcomes to broader business KPIs and drive clear stakeholder action.\nServe as the primary client partner for the assigned product area, maintaining strong rapport, navigating complex stakeholder landscapes, managing expectations, and ensuring seamless delivery of the overarching search vision.\nLead senior client presentations and strategic discussions, translating complex technical, content, and measurement findings into clear recommendations, decisions, and prioritized investment opportunities.\nCreate bespoke scopes, operating frameworks, roadmaps, and delivery plans mapped to client business goals, while proactively identifying strategic growth opportunities and future areas of expansion.\nDrive operational excellence through expert project management, resource planning, timely task activation, rigorous quality control, and clear accountability across team-led delivery.\nFormalize integrated Total Search workflows across SEO, SEM, Analytics, Content, Product, Engineering, Social, PR, and other partners so organic insights influence cross-channel planning and optimization.\nLead cross-channel analyses, testing roadmaps, and performance validation initiatives that demonstrate the business impact of integrated paid, owned, earned, and generative search strategies.\nElevate team performance by coaching Supervisors to act as the primary quality filter, providing strategic feedback that strengthens their leadership, judgment, attention to detail, and ability to develop junior talent.\nMaintain a high bar for client-ready work, taking accountability for the accuracy, strategic depth, persuasiveness, and commercial relevance of final deliverables.\nDevelop and evolve AI Search POVs, GSO methodologies, operational playbooks, process documentation, and thought leadership that strengthen the account and contribute to the agency's broader search product.\nRequirements\nA minimum of 5 (five) years of organic search experience, with a proven record of leading high-performance SEO strategies for large or complex organizations; agency or media agency experience is highly desirable.\nAdvanced expertise in technical SEO, content strategy, structured data, entity optimization, topical authority, international search, site migrations, and the signals that support discoverability across traditional and AI-assisted search.\nStrong understanding of AI Search, LLM platforms, answer engines, and emerging discovery behaviors, with the ability to translate market change into practical client strategy, measurement, and operating approaches.\nDemonstrated ability to define a strategic vision and convert complex technical, content, and data challenges into clear business cases, prioritized roadmaps, and client-ready recommendations.\nStrong client leadership and executive communication skills, including experience owning senior stakeholder relationships, leading strategic presentations, navigating difficult conversations, and securing alignment across functions.\nAdvanced analytical and storytelling skills, with experience designing measurement frameworks, maintaining data integrity, interpreting complex datasets, and connecting SEO/GSO performance to broader business KPIs.\nExperience creating scopes of work, estimating resources, designing operating models, identifying growth opportunities, and managing delivery against commercial and operational expectations.\nProven people management and mentorship experience, including coaching managers or Supervisors, improving quality through others, providing actionable feedback, and supporting team development and retention.\nExperience formalizing ways of working across SEM, Analytics, Content, Product, Engineering, Social, PR, and other cross-functional partners to advance integrated Total Search strategies.\nProficiency with relevant analytics, search, crawling, reporting, and productivity platforms, including Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Keyword Planner, Data Studio, Lumar, Screaming Frog, Google AI Studio and Workspace products.\nA consultative, proactive, and learning-oriented mindset, with the judgment to operate effectively through ambiguity, anticipate industry shifts, improve processes, and contribute to agency innovation, automation, and thought leadership.\nWhat you can expect from MFG and EssenceMediacom:\nOur mission is to make advertising more valuable to the world. We do this by bringing together exceptional talent to solve some of the most complex challenges in today’s digital marketing landscape. We look for people whose values reflect our own: genuine, results-focused, daring, and insightful. As an EssenceMediacom employee, you can expect a workplace that invests in your career, cares for you, and creates an environment that is engaging, supportive, and rewarding. We believe these factors help create a workplace where you can be yourself and do outstanding work.\nWPP Mediaand all its affiliates embrace and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to buildingteamsthat representawide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Asaglobal media agency network serving global clients, we believe that greater inclusivity enables stronger collaboration, better ideas, and more impactful work.\nThe base salary range for this position at the time of this posting is indicated below. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors, including location, business needs, level of responsibility, experience, and qualifications. We offer a competitive benefits package, go to https://mybenefits.wpp.com/public/welcome for more details.\nUS Pay Range\n$75,000—$180,000 USD\nPlease read our Privacy Notice for more information on how we process the information you provide.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8899,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Growth opportunities"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Advertising","Digital Marketing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T00:19:52Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-10-06T19:09:46Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-12T19:01:20Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-10-21T20:18:50Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":null,"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":180000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/wpp-media-associate-director-seo","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/wpp-media-associate-director-seo.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-30T18:13:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":7085,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-31T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":5499},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5499"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwpp-media-associate-director-seo"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwpp-media-associate-director-seo"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwpp-media-associate-director-seo"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/wpp-media-associate-director-seo\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwpp-media-associate-director-seo"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":1206596}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"wppmedia.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":1206596},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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