Senior Director, Paid Search and Partner / Affiliate Marketing

Why Join GEICO?

At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities.

Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide.

Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.

GEICO

Senior Director, Search & Partner Marketing

Confidential Job Description Draft

Location: New York, NY; Bethesda, MD; or Chicago, IL (Hybrid - 3 days per week in office)

Reports To: VP, Growth & Channel Marketing

Function: Performance Marketing

About the Role

Performance media is where GEICO's marketing investment turns into quotes, policies, and customers - and it is one of the largest, most measurable levers the company has for growing profitably across a multi-product portfolio. Every dollar in paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation competes in real time against well-funded insurers, and small gains in efficiency compound into meaningful business results. The leader of this function shapes how GEICO acquires customers at scale.

As Senior Director, Search & Partner Marketing, you will lead GEICO's Performance Marketing function, owning end-to-end performance media strategy and execution across four channels: paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation. You will lead a hybrid organization of in-house practitioners and agency partners, manage a significant evergreen budget, and set the testing, measurement, and first-party data agenda that determines where the next dollar goes. You'll sit on the Growth & Channel Marketing leadership team and be the voice of performance in conversations with senior and executive leaders.

This role is for someone who can move between altitudes in the same afternoon - inspecting a campaign build or a pacing report in the morning, then translating what it means for the business to senior leadership. You'll have real room to build: the team structure, the test-and-learn engine, the measurement approach, and the partnership model with data science, analytics, and IT are all yours to shape.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Leadership

• Set the multi-year performance marketing strategy and roadmap across GEICO's multi-product portfolio, aligned to acquisition, efficiency, and LTV objectives
• Lead a hybrid performance marketing organization of in-house hands-on-keyboard practitioners and agency groups to allocate, invest, and optimize the performance media budget across paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation
• Build, develop, and mentor an agile, collaborative, and high-performing team - including the leaders who manage it
• Drive transformative change within the go-to-market approach for acquisition efficiency and LTV improvements
• Own channel strategy and results for paid search and AI paid search, including how GEICO shows up in AI-powered search and answer experiences as consumer discovery shifts
• Own the affiliate, aggregator, and lead generation partner portfolio, including partner selection, commercial terms, lead quality, and cost per acquisition
• Serve as a digital pioneer by recommending new strategies and tactics and optimizing vendor relationships to increase performance and workflow efficiency

Budget & In-Market Management

• Oversee evergreen performance media budgets across GEICO's portfolio, including channel forecasting and rapid in-market adjustments based on performance insights
• Maintain and closely monitor pacing to forecast at-risk results and go-get opportunities
• Balance messaging and brand-building experiments with steady growth and performance

Optimization, Testing & Measurement

• Build strategies to enhance segmentation, targeting, personalization, and engagement across search, affiliate, and lead generation channels
• Create and implement systems for continual test-and-learn and optimization of all performance assets - including media, affiliates/aggregators, URL mapping, landing page content and copy, and ad copy - to drive efficient acquisition
• Build a culture of high-velocity testing (A/B and multivariate) and diligent measurement that improves efficiency and efficacy and generates scalable results
• Craft the learning agenda and implement the measurement plan, including detailed analysis of LTV, CAC, ROAS, and incrementality

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner closely with data science and analytics to build an industry-leading first-party data engine that powers the full funnel across tracking, attribution, and optimization
• Partner with analytics and IT teams on data and technical requirements for performance marketing
• Collaborate with brand, creative, and analytics teams to provide insights and metrics on platform, placement, creative, and campaign conversion, sharing best practices with partners
• Represent performance marketing with senior and executive leadership - presenting performance reads, points of view, and strategic recommendations

You May Be a Good Fit If You

• Have led a performance marketing function end to end - paid search, AI paid search, affiliates and aggregators, and lead generation - and owned the budget, the results, and the team behind them
• Have built and led a team of leaders, not just practitioners, and can point to people you've developed into larger roles
• Have worked inside a business where acquiring and retaining customers is the core model, and you think in CAC, LTV, and incrementality rather than impressions
• Can inspect a campaign build or a bid strategy in detail, then step back and explain to an executive what it means for the business and what you recommend
• Have run a test-and-learn program at scale and can show how its results changed where money was spent
• Know when to escalate, take feedback without losing your point of view, and hold yourself and your team accountable for the number
• Make the complex simple - through workshops, brainstorms, or plain-language readouts, you help partners act on what you've learned
• Use AI tools - Claude, Copilot, platform-native AI bidding and creative tools - to work faster and make better allocation decisions, and you help your team do the same
• Want to be inside the work at an iconic brand with real scale, where your decisions show up in the business results

Ideal Experience

• Experience: 15+ years in digital marketing, including significant time leading performance marketing teams and managing large performance budgets across search, affiliate, and lead generation channels
• Service company context: Background in a conversion-driven service business - financial services, insurance, SaaS, or banking - where the company's success depends on acquiring and retaining customers. Experience in CPG or physical product marketing is not a substitute for this context.
• People leadership: Experience leading leaders and managing a hybrid model of in-house teams and agency partners
• Platform expertise: Technical depth across major ad platform algorithms, ad products, optimization levers, and product roadmaps; expertise across biddable search media and emerging AI-driven search and answer-engine ad experiences, with a working knowledge of affiliate, aggregator, and lead generation partner models and the levers that drive quality and cost per lead
• Data & technology: Well-versed in audience development and activation (1P/2P/3P data), martech and adtech platforms, and analytics solutions (SEM bid management platforms, affiliate and partner tracking platforms, lead management and routing tools); strong understanding of the data privacy landscape
• Measurement: Experience with analytical models such as MMM and a deep understanding of how to use them to forecast spend and inform attribution
• Executive communication: Demonstrated ability to present to senior leadership, manage up on performance reads, develop and position POVs, and incorporate feedback to sharpen strategy
• AI fluency: Hands-on comfort with AI tools (e.g., Claude, Copilot) and AI-driven bidding, targeting, and creative decisioning, with a view on how they should change the way a performance team operates
• Operating range: Ability to manage multiple priorities and resources in a fast-paced, growth-oriented organization while leading the improvement of emerging cross-functional processes

Strong Candidates May Also Have

• Insurance or other regulated financial services marketing experience
• Experience managing a multi-product or multi-line portfolio with competing acquisition goals
• A track record of building first-party data and attribution capabilities in partnership with data science
• Experience leading an in-housing effort or restructuring an agency model
• Experience with incrementality testing methods (geo-holdouts, conversion lift) alongside MMM

The GEICO Pledge

Great Company: At GEICO, we help our customers through life's twists and turns. Our mission is to protect people when they need it most and we're constantly evolving to stay ahead of their needs. We're an iconic brand that thrives on innovation, exceeding our customers' expectations and enabling our collective success. From day one, you'll take on exciting challenges that help you grow and collaborate with dynamic teams who want to make a positive impact on people's lives.

Great Careers: We offer a career where you can learn, grow, and thrive through personalized development programs, created with your career - and your potential - in mind. You'll have access to industry leading training, certification, career mentorship and coaching with supportive leaders at all levels.

Great Culture: We foster an inclusive culture of shared success, rooted in integrity, a bias for action, and a winning mindset. Grounded by our core values, we have an established culture of caring, inclusion, and belonging that values different perspectives.

Great Rewards: We offer compensation and benefits built to enhance your physical well-being, mental and emotional health, and financial future - including market-competitive compensation, a 401K savings plan vested from day one with a 6% match, performance and recognition-based incentives, tuition assistance, mental healthcare, fertility and adoption assistance, and the GEICO Flex program offering up to four weeks of remote work per year.

A Note on Applications

We encourage you to apply even if you don't believe you meet every single qualification listed. Strong candidates rarely check every box - and research consistently shows that people from underrepresented groups are more likely to hold back when they're not a perfect match on paper. If this role sounds like work you'd be excited to do, we want to hear from you.

GEICO is an equal opportunity employer. GEICO does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Annual Salary

$195,000.00 - $315,000.00

The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/ annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate's work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.

At this time, GEICO will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The GEICO Pledge:

Great Company: Protecting customers through life's twists and turns with innovation and integrity.

Great Careers: Personalized development programs, mentorship, and certification assistance.

Great Culture: Inclusive and collaborative culture rooted in shared success.

Great Rewards: Competitive pay, benefits, and flexibility to support your well-being and future.

The equal employment opportunity policy of the GEICO Companies provides for a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, familial status, disability or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law. GEICO hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.

GEICO reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities to enable them to receive equal employment opportunity and/or perform the essential functions of the job, unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship to the Company. This applies to all applicants and associates. GEICO also provides a work environment in which each associate is able to be productive and work to the best of their ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment. We expect and require the cooperation of all associates in maintaining an atmosphere free from discrimination and harassment with mutual respect by and for all associates and applicants.