How to hire an advertising director

How to hire an advertising director, step by step

Here's a step-by-step advertising director hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write an advertising director job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new advertising director
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring an advertising director, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

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   Hiring the perfect advertising director also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   This list shows salaries for various types of advertising directors.

   Type of Advertising Director	Description	Hourly rate
   Advertising Director	Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers plan programs to generate interest in products or services. They work with art directors, sales agents, and financial staff members.	$34-91
   Promotion Manager	A promotion manager plans and directs campaigns to promote products and services they are selling through contests, giveaways, or coupons. He/she is responsible for the development and implementation of promotion schedules to attract more customers by coordinating with finance, sales, legal, and marketing departments... Show more	$23-55
   Business To Business Sales Manager	A business to business sales manager is responsible for monitoring the company's business transactions and ensuring that the team meets sales goals and targets. Business to business sales managers review business accounts and perform adjustments to sales plans as needed to adhere to clients' requests and customer demands... Show more	$20-62

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Digital Marketing
   • B2B Marketing
   • SEO
   • Account Executives
   • Graphic Design
   • Sales Reps
   • Press Releases
   • Revenue Growth
   • Market Research
   • Sales Strategy
   • Real Estate
   • Media Management
   • SEM
   • Media Sales

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead corporate rebranding efforts to reflect proprietary technology and high-end international market.
   • Maintain and update social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google.
   • Develop and implement promotional campaigns for email, online advertising, SEO and direct mail.
   • Implement internet advertising strategies through social media, blogs, Facebook and twitter among others.
   • Direct a successful SEO and link-building campaign to increase the website's credibility and drive traffic with Google AdWords.
   • Create new revenue generating events, online programs, and print products that help clients to generate a measurable ROI.

   More advertising director duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your advertising director job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. An advertising director can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, advertising directors' average salary in florida is 52% less than in nevada.
   • Seniority. Entry-level advertising directors 63% less than senior-level advertising directors.
   • Certifications. An advertising director with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in an advertising director's salary.

   Average advertising director salary

   $116,829yearly

   $56.17 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level advertising director salary

   $71,000 yearly salary

   Updated January 29, 2026

   Average advertising director salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$132,452	$64
   2	Washington	$123,897	$60
   3	New York	$121,669	$58
   4	Colorado	$115,468	$56
   5	New Jersey	$108,822	$52
   6	Massachusetts	$108,366	$52
   7	Utah	$105,586	$51
   8	Connecticut	$102,577	$49
   9	Pennsylvania	$95,181	$46
   10	Delaware	$91,714	$44
   11	Texas	$91,635	$44
   12	Maryland	$91,547	$44
   13	District of Columbia	$89,093	$43
   14	Illinois	$81,062	$39
   15	Florida	$66,511	$32

   Average advertising director salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Netflix	$183,862	$88.40
   2	Microsoft	$163,080	$78.40	11
   3	Amazon	$149,171	$71.72	15
   4	The New York Times Company	$147,151	$70.75	1
   5	Snap	$122,492	$58.89
   6	Global Eagle Entertainment	$119,341	$57.38
   7	CafeMedia	$117,531	$56.51
   8	Solar.com	$112,721	$54.19
   9	SoundCloud	$103,745	$49.88
   10	Piano	$101,665	$48.88
   11	Glaxosmithkline	$101,365	$48.73
   12	Johnson & Johnson	$99,186	$47.69	2
   13	Simulmedia	$98,788	$47.49
   14	Metric Theory	$97,960	$47.10
   15	VaynerMedia	$89,732	$43.14
   16	FIGG	$87,093	$41.87
   17	American Learning Corporation	$79,052	$38.01

4. Writing an advertising director job description

   An advertising director job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of an advertising director job description:

   Advertising director job description example

   In the role as Director, Product, Advertising you will drive the construction and execution of the strategic product roadmap for Piano’s advertising offering, enabling Publishers to propel their advertising sales and drive ad revenue from their data inventory. Today, Piano empowers clients to collect real-time online user behavior, content consumption and event data that can be combined into advanced audience segments and activated via a broad set of 3rd party Ad connectors. Piano’s ability to drive user action, collect and act on 1st party data gives our clients the capability to succeed even as the ad ecosystem is reshaped by the end of 3rd party cookies. In the role as Director, Product, Advertising you will play a central role in evolving our advertising offering, identifying innovative solutions to product and market challenges by utilizing your solid understanding of the advertising ecosystem, key industry trends, and product management experience. You will be responsible for ensuring the successful launch of new advertising functionality and Ad integration capabilities in alignment with company strategic goals - and an advocate for high quality user experiences fulfilling client satisfaction and retention. As our company evolves and expands into new verticals, the Director, Product, Advertising will identify critical advertising capabilities required for expansion based on input from our executive team, growth team, strategic services, clients, and market research. In the role you will report to VP, Product, and Product, Development, Growth and Strategic Services are key functions you will collaborate with.
   
   

   Primary Responsibilities:

   Strategy and roadmap - Own roadmap for Advertising domain

   • Own the product roadmap for our Advertising domain including our DMP application
   • Identify and prioritize roadmap initiatives based on Piano vision and strategy, client needs, and market trends - in close collaboration with our Growth team. Distill identified needs into suggested roadmap initiatives.
   • Involve senior leadership and other key stakeholders in roadmap planning. Align on initiative success criteria (OKRs), manage tradeoffs between competing priorities and available resourcing, and clearly articulate reasoning behind prioritization decisions.
   • Present roadmaps to internal and external stakeholders. Generate interest, build understanding, and foster alignment around a common vision for our products.
   • Guide team members to ensure feature prioritization takes place with thorough consideration, serving as the voice of senior leadership.
   • Contribute to Piano’s vision and strategy at the senior level.

   Feature definition - Own feature specification and planning

   • Lead definition of scope and approach for prioritized projects
   • Coordinate the efforts of team members in solutioning, research and document the planned approach for development. Guide team members to ensure features are defined thoughtfully, thoroughly, and in consideration of the overall Piano platform.
   • Produce comprehensive feature specifications including problem to solve, success criteria (OKRs), use cases, UX flows, design and development requirements - present to stakeholders incorporating feedback and constructive criticism along the way.
   • Demonstrate a strong technical understanding of our platform’s existing capabilities - determine how new features should leverage and/or replace existing functionality to best meet business needs.
   • Ensure collaboration and alignment when a development project has dependencies, resolving any potential challenges with conflicting priorities.
   • Continuously work cross-functionally to align on how new features should be integrated within current products and the Piano platform.

   Delivery - Own realization of feature projects

   • Own the delivery and launch of new features, multi-feature initiatives, and products.
   • Serve as the voice of the customer and functional authority. Ensure that requirements are well understood by all team members and that features emerge from build while remaining aligned with business goals.
   • Define launch requirements in partnership with product marketing, program management, and other relevant stakeholders. Represent the product team in launch activities and evangelize new product capabilities internally and with clients.
   • Define and measure success criteria for items being developed and released.
   • Work with program managers to provide transparency and reporting on timelines to project stakeholders including senior leadership.
   • Deliver feature projects in a way that enables Piano clients to best meet business needs in a frictionless and delightful manner with a product with exceptional product design - we strive to be the best at what we do, this area is no exception!

   Leadership and collaboration - Product team and stakeholder partnership

   • Influence and inspire team members, even when no organizational authority is held over these team members.
   • Build mutually informative relationships with key internal and client stakeholders - be acknowledged as a key partner contributing to business success.
   • Communicate and collaborate effectively with team members around the world. Piano is a global company, made up of team members from many countries and time zones!
   • Respond to priorities and needs among stakeholders, even when these are not able to be delivered as requested, in a transparent, respectful, and genuine manner which establishes mutual trust.
   • Facilitate product team members’ growth to become the go-to-experts on the products and domains under their responsibility.

   
   

   We are looking for candidates with the following qualifications:

   • 8+ years experience as a SaaS product management
     • Experience managing products in media, advertising (buy-side and/or sell-side), or programmatic ad tech is a requirement
     • Experience directly managing or mentoring product team members is a plus
   • Passionate about the advertising ecosystem and grounded in the digital ecosystem
   • Experience working directly with a wide variety of stakeholders from senior leadership to clients, as well as with designers and software developers
   • Demonstrated ability to achieve strategic goals in an innovative and fast-paced environment informed by experience, research, data, and industry trends
   • Ability to view the “big picture” of challenges and opportunities related to client needs, including the technical, functional, process, and policy considerations, and to creatively define solutions to those challenges
   • Ability to adopt the client’s perspective when defining new initiatives and features
   • Experience creating product specifications and managing prioritization, software development resource allocation, project scope, and product delivery and launch
   • Excellent communication, problem-solving, organizational and analytical skills. Rigorous, structured, organized, and able to influence others
   • Like to plan, lead by example and work with an attitude of ‘it’s up to me to make change happen’
   • Are able to coordinate across different teams and people in different time zones and cultural backgrounds

   
   

   Perks at Piano

   • Unlimited PTO
   • 95% healthcare coverage
   • Stock options
   • Free daily catered lunches in the office
   • Free gym in the office
   • Annual continued education reimbursement
   • Commuter benefits
   • Unlimited healthy snacks, coffee, espresso, and soft drinks in the office
   • Team events and happy hours

   
   

   Applicants for this position should have authorization to work in this jurisdiction without sponsorship from the Company.

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5. Post your job

   To find advertising directors for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any advertising directors they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level advertising directors with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your advertising director job on Zippia to find and recruit advertising director candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting advertising directors requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new advertising director

   Once you have selected a candidate for the advertising director position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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