Senior SEM Specialist (Performance Marketing-North America)

About the Role

We are hiring a hands-on SEM Specialist who has directly managed monthly paid search budgets of $50,000 or more for North American markets. This is not a role for someone who only relies on automated bidding or set-and-forget campaigns. We are looking for a practitioner who thinks like a media buyer and a growth marketer — someone who understands manual bidding, search term mining, negative keyword discipline, funnel economics, and how paid spend translates into qualified pipeline and revenue.

You will own Google Ads and Microsoft Ads campaigns end-to-end, collaborate closely with sales team, and be accountable for CPL, CAC, lead quality, and revenue — not just clicks and impressions.

Key Responsibilities

Campaign Strategy & Execution

• •Plan, structure, and manage end-to-end SEM campaigns on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads targeting North American markets (US and Canada).
• •Build campaign architecture across brand, non-brand, competitor, and high-intent long-tail segments.
• •Own match-type strategy, ad group segmentation, negative keyword logic, and search term mining on a daily basis.

Manual Bidding & Budget Control

• •Directly manage monthly budgets of $50,000+ with disciplined allocation across campaigns, markets, devices, and funnel stages.
• •Operate manual CPC, eCPC, tCPA, and tROAS bidding models — and know when to use each.
• •Make daily bidding decisions based on unit economics, conversion value, and auction insights rather than platform recommendations alone.

Lead Quality & Revenue Focus

• •Optimize campaigns toward qualified leads, SQLs, and revenue — not just form fills.
• •Work with sales and CRM teams to define lead quality signals, feedback loops, and disqualification criteria.
• •Implement lead scoring, form qualification filters, and geo/role/budget-based filtering to protect sales team efficiency.
  

Tracking, Attribution & Reporting

• •Set up and maintain conversion tracking, GCLID capture, UTM hygiene, and offline conversion imports into Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.
• •Build reporting that ties paid spend to MQL, SQL, closed-won, and revenue — not just platform-reported conversions.
• •Diagnose attribution mismatches between ad platforms and CRM, and resolve them with clean tracking logic.

CRO & Funnel Efficiency

• •Partner with design, content, and web teams to diagnose and improve landing pages, lead forms, and funnel conversion rates.
• •Run structured A/B tests on ad copy, landing pages, and forms with clear hypotheses and measurable outcomes.
• •Identify friction points in the funnel that hurt lead quality or conversion rate and recommend fixes.

Competitive & Market Intelligence

• •Monitor auction insights, competitor bidding behavior, and share-of-voice trends across key markets.
• •Decide strategically when to outbid competitors and when to protect profitability — based on economics, not impression share alone.
• •Adapt messaging, bidding, and landing page strategy by geography (US vs. Canada, state/province, city tier) and by device and daypart.

Must-Have Requirements

• •3–4 years of hands-on SEM experience with direct ownership of campaigns (not support or coordinator roles).
• •Strong expertise in manual campaign management — manual CPC, eCPC, tCPA, tROAS.
• •Deep understanding of search term mining, negative keyword strategy, match-type logic, and Quality Score optimization.
• •Proficiency with Google Analytics (GA4), Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, and spreadsheet-based analysis.

Good to Have

• •Experience in EdTech, certification, or online training categories.
• •Exposure to Meta Ads (for remarketing) and LinkedIn Ads (for B2B).
• •Working knowledge of SEO, CRO tools (Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar), and A/B testing platforms.
• •Familiarity with Semrush, SpyFu, or similar competitive intelligence tools.
• •Google Ads and Microsoft Ads certifications.

Who You Are

• •You are commercially minded — you can defend trade-offs between scale, efficiency, and lead quality.
• •You prefer evidence over opinion and can back your decisions with data.
• •You think in unit economics, not vanity metrics.
• •You are comfortable pushing back on sales, leadership, or automation when the numbers say so.
• •You are curious about funnels, buyer psychology, and how markets differ — not just platform mechanics.