SEM Manager

About the position This hybrid role requires in-office presence Tuesday-Thursday each week and the candidate must be located in or near Charlotte, NC, or have plans to relocate. The position does not offer visa sponsorship. The SEM Manager will execute strategies and initiatives to increase paid search traffic and revenue, managing paid search campaigns for LendingTree's lending and banking products. This individual will handle account management, placements, ads, and bidding under the direction of team leaders. They will also collaborate with product, creative, growth marketing, and analytics teams to launch and track landing page conversion funnel and creative tests, contributing to the overall strategy and monetization of assigned vertical markets.

Responsibilities

• Full funnel search marketing: ads, bids/bid strategies, landing pages, keyword research & reporting.
• Ownership of the direction, optimization, spend, and P&L of specific campaigns in the online lead aggregation space.
• Daily management of bids, spend and ROAS/CPA.
• Ongoing account optimization, including structure & targeting improvements (geo, demographic, day-parting, keyword and landing page), search query mining, keyword expansion, advanced use of negative keywords, and improvement of bid management processes and algorithms.
• Run all ongoing reporting and communication requirements as needed to keep general managers, business teams and SEM/marketing peers informed of results and insights as appropriate.
• Research and communication of the competitive landscape for specific products to be marketed, including: landing page and conversion funnel paths, as well as insight into competitors’ impact on our volume, cost and performance in the paid search space.
• Work closely with vendors to ensure appropriate support, and to stay on top of product releases and new available features, such as Performance Max and AI Max.
• Working closely with product/tech teams to streamline and optimize the consumer experience and conversion funnels for specific products and sites to be marketed.
• Demonstrate internal and external capabilities to drive adoption of machine learning-based approaches to improve marketing efficiency.
• Ongoing testing and optimization of visitor experiences, including ad messaging, landing pages, while working closely with the product and analytics teams.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience executing and optimizing paid search campaigns across Google and Bing with a proven ability to improve KPIs.
• Extensive experience using automated bid strategies (tCPA, tROAS, Maximize Conversions, Rule Based Bidding etc…).
• Advanced knowledge of Excel & Powerpoint
• Working knowledge of Tableau, advanced knowledge is a plus.
• Strong analytical, communication and presentation skills.
• Be self-motivated, able to execute effectively on new ideas and see projects through start to finish.
• Hard-working, creative and eager to learn and expand knowledge of online direct marketing.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with Google Performance Max preferred
• Experience with lead generation within financial industry preferred

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision insurance
• 401(k) matching
• Life insurance
• Pet insurance
• Competitive PTO (paid time off) policy