The Paid Search Manager is the internal channel owner for paid search. This role sets the strategy and roadmap, leads our agency to execute with excellence, and closes the loop between creative, landing experiences, and performance. You will define the testing agenda, challenge partners with insights and new ideas, and own the measurement plan and performance narrative for SEM in partnership with Marketing Analytics.

The ideal candidate brings hands-on experience managing SEM budgets at scale, a strong understanding of search engine algorithms, and a track record of delivering measurable performance improvements through paid search.

Responsibilities

• Set SEM objectives/OKRs, portfolio strategy (brand vs. non-brand, conquest, geo), and surfaces (Search, PMax/Demand Gen/YouTube Search as appropriate).
• Develop briefs and SLAs, prioritize the backlog, enforce QA standards and naming/UTM governance, lead weekly WIPs/QBRs, and hold the agency accountable for learnings, velocity, and outcomes.
• Build bottoms-up forecasts and scenario plans; manage pacing and reallocation to hit CPL/CPA/ROAS/payback goals in partnership with Growth, Finance, and Marketing Analytics.
• Own a structured test-and-learn program (creative, query strategy/negatives, bidding/tROAS/tCPA, audience signals/first-party uploads, PMax vs. Search splits, brand incrementality) with clear hypotheses, guardrails, and roll-out plans.
• Define the SEM measurement plan (conversion taxonomy, offline conversion import where relevant, consent-aware tracking, UTM standards). Partner with Marketing Analytics to build dashboards/scorecards and deliver crisp weekly/monthly readouts and recommendations.
• Translate query and auction insights into briefs for ad copy/extensions and partner with Web/App on landing page alignment and CRO; close the loop on what creative/LPs actually moved results.
• Partner with Data and Marketing Analytics to validate pixels/tags and server-side conversions.
• Manage Google/Microsoft reps and relevant tech partners; pilot new betas responsibly and bring back structured learnings.
• Ensure privacy-safe targeting and consent alignment (GDPR/CCPA), uphold brand guidelines in copy and query strategy.