Search Engine Marketing Director

Director, Search Engine Marketing

The Role

This role is a critical position within the Digital Media team. The Director of SEM is a key leader within the Media team at ICON and has a seat at the table in making key decisions around client strategy and department planning.

The candidate is a proven leader in Performance Marketing, and has an intimate understanding of Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, including Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Discovery Ads.The candidate has strong knowledge of the role SEM plays in achieving client goals, and how the different ad platforms interact with each other. The candidate can also explain complex analytics and performance metrics to Marketing teams, with clear action steps and optimization recommendations.

This is an exciting opportunity to help advance the SEM business at ICON, with significant potential for personal and professional growth.

Specific Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of SEM professionals, providing coaching and mentoring to all levels.
• Develop and build strategy as it relates to SEM and Google products.
• Collaborate and work closely with other platforms teams, including Data & Analytics, Ad Operations, Paid Social, and Programmatic.
• Directly interface with ICON clients, and participate in regular status meetings and calls.
• Work with the Media and Account Management team to gain an understanding of campaign specific goals, build targeting, and executional recommendations.
• Develop new business proposals based on client specs, working closely with the ICON sales team.
• Oversee the strategy, development and execution of SEM campaigns in media platforms, not limited to Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, with a variety of KPI goals (online sales, foot traffic, site visits, lead form submissions, etc.).
• Lead new testing and growth initiatives in areas like campaign expansions, ad copy testing, landing page testing, audience targeting testing, etc.
• Lead monitoring, optimization, testing and reporting of campaign performance and proactively communicate any issues.
• Serve as an SEM expert, platform partner, and trend-spotter to bring first-to-market search and digital media opportunities that align with business objectives.
• Present to clients on campaign results, insights, recommended optimizations and path forward for improvement.

Basic qualifications

• 8 - 12 years minimum of full-time experience in Digital Performance Marketing.
• Experience managing a team, and collaborating with other team leads.
• Demonstrated expertise in media strategy and execution, ideally within a media agency.
• Self-starter, highly motivated, positive demeanor, excellent communicator, and able to juggle multiple assignments simultaneously.
• Polished with excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Willingness and flexibility to “pitch in” with various ad-hoc projects to help support the larger Media Strategy & Analytics team.
• Ability to adapt to change and continually evolve skills to meet the ever changing needs of the television industry.
• SEO experience a plus.

Must have the legal right to work in the United States.