Agency folks: where does paid social live at your company?

Curious how other agencies structure this.
For those of you at agencies, does paid social sit under your Media/Performance team or your Social team?
We’re having internal conversations about the right model. On one hand, paid social is media spend, so it makes sense for it to live with the broader media investment team. On the other hand, paid social works best when it’s closely connected to organic strategy, content, creator/influencer work, community insights, and what’s actually resonating on the platforms.
Curious how other agencies structure this.
For those of you at agencies, does paid social sit under your Media/Performance team or your Social team?
We’re having internal conversations about the right model. On one hand, paid social is media spend, so it makes sense for it to live with the broader media investment team. On the other hand, paid social works best when it’s closely connected to organic strategy, content, creator/influencer work, community insights, and what’s actually resonating on the platforms.

A few questions:
Who owns paid social strategy?
Who owns buying/optimization?
How connected are your paid and organic social teams?
Do you have one social lead overseeing organic, paid inputs, influencer, and community, or are those split across teams?
What structure has worked well, and what has created too many cooks in the kitchen?
Would love to hear how others are solving this.

Comments

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wesdacar•9 days ago•1

The structure I have seen work best is shared strategy, split execution.

Paid/media should usually own budget, pacing, targeting, optimization, testing discipline, and measurement. Social/creative should own platform insight, organic learnings, community signals, creator angles, and whether the ads actually feel native to the feed. The mistake is letting either side operate alone. If paid owns everything, the work can become technically optimized but generic. If social owns everything, the creative may be better but budget rigor can get messy.

A practical setup is one paid social lead accountable for performance, one social/content lead accountable for platform fit, and a weekly 30 minute review where organic comments, top posts, creator trends, and paid results are all looked at together. That gives you one decision owner without cutting paid off from the people closest to the audience.

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