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KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings, is seeking a Senior Director of Media Planning and Buying to lead the company's multi-market media strategy across offline and digital channels. This role reports to senior leadership and owns the strategic direction of media investments spanning TV, video, out-of-home, radio, paid social, display, programmatic, and search.
Key responsibilities include defining and executing KAYAK's annual and quarterly media planning cycles with budget allocation, forecasting, pacing, and optimization across markets. You will develop integrated media plans that balance brand impact, audience growth, efficiency, and measurable ROI. The role requires establishing measurement frameworks and feedback loops to evaluate reach, effectiveness, incrementality, and return on investment in partnership with Analytics and external measurement providers.
You will manage strategic relationships with media agencies, publishers, broadcasters, and technology partners while collaborating with Creative, Brand, Finance, Product, Growth, and Commercial teams to align media investments with business priorities. A critical component is translating audience and media insights into compelling, channel-appropriate campaigns and communicating complex media decisions to senior stakeholders.
The role includes leading and developing a team of media professionals, building strong cross-functional working practices across distributed teams. You will use campaign performance data, consumer insights, competitive intelligence, and market trends to develop clear investment recommendations and manage trade-offs.
Required qualifications include 10+ years of progressive media planning and buying experience with multi-market campaigns and substantial budgets. You must demonstrate expertise across offline and digital media channels, strong knowledge of marketing measurement (KPI development, incrementality testing, attribution, media mix modeling), and advanced Excel skills. Experience with SQL, Tableau, or Looker is valued. A bachelor's degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business, Economics, Statistics, or related field is required, along with proven team leadership experience and excellent communication and negotiation skills.
