Job description
Blend’s Director of Paid Search Marketing role is perfect for a player/coach type who’s excited by terms like Google Travel Campaign, PMAX, attribution models, impression share, quality score, bid strategies, affinity audiences, and audit.
We’re looking for someone who enjoys doing the work, but has the experience to also direct the work, providing guidance and inspiration for future paid search practitioners, and taking the lead on analysis, research, and strategy. This is a hands-on role, with management being inclusive of setting up campaigns, selecting attribution models, working with the content and design teams to get ads produced, managing keywords and bids, monitoring and optimizing campaign performance, analyzing and reporting on results, and providing proposals and recommendations to clients.
Your efforts will center on helping grow revenue and profitability through scalable paid search campaigns for our tour, activity, and attraction clients in markets such as Chicago; Wisconsin Dells; Banff National Park, Charleston, SC; Paris, and more. These small to midsize companies ($2-$30M annual revenue) rely on Blend to increase demand and bookings for their experiences.
What You’ll Do
- Help our clients be discovered, so they can reach their business goals.
- Create and communicate the agency’s approach to targeting, segmentation, bids, etc.
- Conduct research and provide recommendations for new and niche search platforms that may be appropriate for clients.
- Ensure that not only reporting gets done consistently and on time, but that it’s accompanied by analysis and action plans so that agency staff and clients can make informed decisions about strategies, tactics, and ad spend.
- Prioritize, organize, and delegate so the right tasks get done at the right time.
- Create and manage a quality control system for the agency’s paid search efforts.
- Work with agency partners, account managers, and clients in developing a search strategy for each client.
- Manage and/or delegate the management of ~$4-5 Million/year in Google Ads spend for our tour, attraction and activity clients.
- Manage client campaigns in other platforms including Microsoft Ads and possibly some display platforms on occasion.
- Develop and maintain regular reporting structures or dashboards for paid search marketing analytics.
- Collaborate with our SEO team to ensure the balance of paid and organic search remains healthy.
- Help build the paid search marketing team over time, including participating in recruiting and interviewing.
Platforms and Tools You’ll Use
- Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
- Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets
- Google Analytics
- Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Ads Keyword Planner, and other keyword research tools
- Looker Studio
- ClickUp
- Slack
About You
SEM is your passion, and everyone around you knows it. You maybe (just maybe) took some time last holiday to tell your family about weighted averages and multi-channel attributions as well as the latest results of your A/B test.
You care about the numbers, but you know that explanation and storytelling are crucial to help stakeholders understand the numbers. You can have productive conversations with executives about performance and action plans.
You obsess about detail.
You don’t just dabble in A/B testing; you’re rigorous about it.
You understand the pros, cons, and how-tos of bidding strategies, and are actually looking forward to the opportunity to chat about them during an interview.
You think that Excel PivotTables, VLOOKUP, and nested functions are child’s play. And you probably can’t wait to tell us why you’ve moved on from VLOOKUP to XLOOKUP.
You not only care about attribution models, but can explain them in a way that others understand. You might even be able to convince a client to care about which attribution model is used.
You have excellent written and verbal communication skills, allowing you to do your own proofing of ad copy and campaign reports.
You’re a big picture person who obsesses over word connotations.
You have excellent team skills and can help others who may not work in paid search (i.e. clients, account managers, designers, and writers) understand the nuances to a search marketing strategy. In particular, you work well with copywriters because you understand that we walk the fine line of stewarding brands while also winning clicks.
You frequently get lost “in-the-zone” managing an account, not noticing anything else around you.
You love going deep and figuring out exactly the right keyword and landing page for your audience.
You understand best practices in SEO and CRO and can clearly articulate how they relate to PPC.
You take initiative and figure stuff out on your own.
You can hold your own and give reasoned answers as to why you think a strategy is right or wrong.
You’re keeping up with the latest advertising platform developments on a daily or weekly basis.
People love working with you because you’re super smart and talented, but you’re also humble and genuinely nice.
Have 7-9 years of professional, post-collegiate experience in digial marketing
Have 6+ years of experience managing PPC accounts
Have experience working with developers (or yourself) to ensure that attribution, eCommerce analytics and cross-domain tracking (including call-tracking) are properly configured.
Be proficient in GA4
Be proficient in Microsoft Excel and other analytic software and tools
Demonstrate strong analytical skills, including the ability to handle statistics carefully and select the most appropriate attribution model for a campaign
Have some experience managing campaigns in social advertising platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)—enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each and how they complement a search marketing strategy.
Experience managing paid search accounts inside a full service marketing agency is a big plus.
Experience managing and owning strategy for multiple Google Ads accounts simultaneously is a must.
Competitive Compensation: $95,000 to $130,000 a year + benefits, depending on experience.
Benefits Overview: Competitive salary commensurate with experience, with 11.5 paid holidays, generous PTO, health insurance, dental, vision, long-term and short-term disability insurance.
Fully Remote, Hybrid, or In Person: You have the option to work out of our Madison, WI office as much or as little as you like. About half our team is based in the Madison area. The rest of the team is scattered throughout the US.
A Great Team and Culture: We are a team of 16 full-time team members with some contractors thrown in the mix—all nice, smart, passionate people—that has a track record for creating wins.
About Blend Marketing
Blend is a full-service marketing agency passionate about helping tour & activity businesses grow. We believe that a combination of effective strategy, branding, and marketing foster growth and profitability.
Our Culture
We’re a team of kind, smart, passionate people who share core values of Be Kind, Deliver Excellence, Keep Learning, and Take Ownership. You’ll get that vibe when you talk to any of our team members. We’re a hybrid team, with many team members in Madison, Wisconsin, and some people working remotely. We have two annual full team on sites, typically in Madison, WI.
Our Clients and Work
We work with tours, activities, and attractions that have revenue targets of $2-30M/yr. You can see some of our clients and work at https://blend.travel/work/.
