Resume
James Chase
Paid media director
Summary
Paid media lead with 7 years in the accounts and $100M+ in managed spend. At Tranzact, a Willis Towers Watson company, I scaled national Medicare carrier programs and went from analyst to Associate Director.
At Sherpa Collaborative I've run paid media AI-first: building the automation, tracking and CRM systems that cut execution time, then pitching and selling those systems to clients as services.
Selected results
$100M+managed ad spend across search, native and social
$5M ARRinbound call program built in its first year
70%less reporting time per client after automating it
263xcross-domain attributed purchases within 3 months
Experience
Sherpa Collaborative
Raleigh, NC- Performance Marketing Director Sep 2024 – Present (contract since Dec 2025)
- Run paid media AI-first across the agency's client roster. Built the automation that pulls every client's ad, GA4, LSA and CRM data weekly, flags anomalies, and drafts monthly strategy briefs and branded client decks. Reporting time per client dropped 70%, and those hours went back into strategy, media buying, pacing and optimization against each client's KPIs.
- Automated the client communication layer too. LSA leads get a reply within minutes and land in the client's CRM with notes attached, and meeting notes are parsed and routed after every call.
- Pitched, sold and built an inbound system for 3 local service clients so far, tying together Google Ads, Local Services Ads, Google Business Profile and GoHighLevel workflows, then monitoring it week to week.
- Pitched and sold an AI-driven automated outbound email system to the agency and an outside client. For the agency it returned $10K in revenue on $2K in spend.
- Built custom GTM tracking for multiple clients, including enhanced conversions and cross-account GCLID purchase attribution, so bidding runs on clean, fast data. At one DTC supplement brand, cross-domain attributed purchases increased 263x within 3 months.
- Manage the agency's white-label development partner, and work directly with clients' third-party developers on tracking and site changes.
Tranzact, a Willis Towers Watson company
Raleigh, NC- Associate Director, Paid Search Sep 2023 – Sep 2024
- Senior Digital Marketing Analyst Aug 2022 – Aug 2023
- Digital Marketing Analyst Aug 2019 – Aug 2022
- Took YourMedicareMatch.com from a single landing page to a $5M ARR inbound call program in its first year.
- Ran branded paid search for Humana, Aetna, Elevance and Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare plans.
- Added native programmatic on Taboola and Outbrain, roughly $1M in spend.
- Promoted twice. As Associate Director, managed and mentored 4 direct reports, held regular 1:1s, and wrote the SOPs and trainings the team worked from.
- Worked with cross-team stakeholders on forecasting and lead volume goals through peak season.
Terracon
Raleigh-Durham, NC- Geologist Jan 2016 – Jul 2019
- Analyzed and presented spatial and lab data in ESRI ArcGIS for client reports, and ran the Raleigh office's drone program.
Skills
- Platforms
- Google Ads (Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Demand Gen, Local Services Ads), Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, Taboola, Outbrain, Google Business Profile, GoHighLevel
- Measurement
- GA4, Google Tag Manager, enhanced conversions, GCLID and offline conversion tracking, Consent Mode v2, Google Ads API, data analysis
- AI & automation
- Claude, n8n, Python, custom agents for audits and reporting
Education
B.S. Geology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill