Senior Paid Search Strategist (SEM)

As Senior Paid Search Strategist, you will own the creation, execution, and optimization of paid search campaigns, acting as the strategic SEM lead and advisor for a major national brand. You'll provide leadership and expertise in account structure and setup, ongoing budget and bid management, and continuous performance optimization. You'll collaborate across multiple teams and disciplines, present data-driven insights, and deliver actionable performance reporting to clients. You'll be responsible for defining and communicating SEM goals, maintaining client satisfaction, and educating both internal and external teams on the evolving SEM landscape and its opportunities.

You Will:

• Lead the ongoing development, implementation, and optimization of SEM strategy for a national brand with $1M+ budgets
• Work as part of a larger Media team, aligning your campaigns with your colleagues' strategies to reduce costs & improve performance by sharing learnings
• Translate business goals to SEM platform activation strategies/tactics
• Own the hands-on execution and management of day-to-day performance for multiple campaigns, including budget pacing, campaign setup, account structure, targeting strategy, bid strategy, platforms, data usage, performance optimizations, testing strategy, troubleshooting, and downstream client funnel optimization
• Clearly communicate paid search best practices and strategies, both internally and externally
• Create and share search POVs and case studies across the agency
• Develop consistent account processes and procedures
• Craft compelling ad copy and guide CRO strategies to drive high-quality traffic and conversions
• Deliver actionable insights to clients through insightful, visually compelling reports (including analysis and strategic recommendations)
• Identify market and consumer trends, telling a story with search data
• Run iterative testing strategies to drive incremental performance lifts
• Map out search tactics and strategies on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis
• Conduct regular SEM audits and competitive analyses to identify net-new opportunities
• Provide data-driven insights and recommendations to refine our strategy and improve campaign performance
• Stay on top of the latest trends in the SEM landscape, keeping clients educated and adapting our search strategies as needed in response

You Have:

• 4+ years of hands-on experience managing and optimizing paid search campaigns with large spends
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly and persuasively articulate paid search strategies
• Strong presentation and storytelling skills, with an emphasis on data visualization
• High attention to detail
• Proven success in optimizing SEM campaigns and achieving substantial improvements in performance over time
• High proficiency in industry-standard SEM tools (e.g. Google/Microsoft Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Ads Editor)
• Ability to react quickly, assess, and implement solutions
• Excellent data analysis and problem-solving skills
• Experience with Google Demand Gen, GDN, Performance Max
• A passion for testing and learning and a proactive approach
• Ability to mine search data for campaign performance insights, uncovering opportunities to drive ROI
• Passion for staying current in a rapidly evolving digital environment, leveraging new tools and techniques to gain a competitive edge

Nice-to-Haves:

• Advanced Excel/spreadsheet experience a plus
• Google Ads certification a plus
• Experience with YouTube/Video, Display, Shopping/PLAs, and Social campaigns a plus
• Experience with additional search tools such as Search Ads 360, SEMrush, Adobe Ad Cloud, Marin, Skai, or a plus
• Agency experience a plus

What We Offer

• Global maternity and parental leave
• Competitive benefits packages
• Vacation, compassionate leave, wellness days, and flex days
• Six free therapy sessions through Therify
• Access to online services for families and new parents
• Hybrid work options*
• Extensive winter holiday office closures
• Summer Fridays (off at 3:00 PM local time every Friday)
• Diversity and Inclusion Board with 12 affinity groups
• Funding towards internal learning and development
• Enterprise-wide employee discounts

Our new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success. In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 4 days a week.

At Critical Mass, we value our employees and offer competitive compensation and benefits packages. If you're looking for a challenging and rewarding opportunity, we encourage you to apply for this exciting position today!

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. If you are an individual with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please reach out to [redacted].

We are committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within our pool of candidates, with a target of achieving at least 50% representation from underrepresented communities.

The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com and us.greenhouse-mail.io. We will not use apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts for communicating with you. We will never ask you to send us money, technology, or anything else to work for our company. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please review your local government consumer protections guidance and reach out to them directly.

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If Canada based: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/finance/consumer-affairs.html
If U.K. based: https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights
If Costa Rica based: https://www.consumo.go.cr/educacion_consumidor/consejos_practicos.aspx