Senior Paid Search Manager (SEM)

TickPick•New York, NY

12d•$145,000 - $175,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are hiring a Senior Paid Search Manager to own SEM end to end. For at least the first 12 to 18 months you will live in paid search: auditing the account, testing relentlessly, building automation alongside engineering, and scaling our search budget efficiently. This is deep, hands-on channel craft for someone who wants to run the account themselves and shape the tooling around it, and it is scoped to grow with its results.

Requirements

5 to 8 years in paid search or performance marketing, with your tactical depth intact, whether you rose quickly and stayed close to the craft or are a more senior operator returning to hands-on work.
Deep tactical mastery of Google Ads (Microsoft Advertising a plus). You build and optimize campaign structure and bidding personally.
Demonstrated use of AI at a software level. You have built or co-built tools, with a technical partner, a software kit, or on your own, that turn paid-search best practices into automated auditing, bid and budget optimization, and reporting. This is beyond platform-native automation and chat prompting.
Advanced bidding fluency (tCPA, tROAS, value-based) and budget management against CAC, CPA, ROAS, and LTV.
Strong analytical and quantitative skills, including query-level analysis. SQL and BI tools a plus.

Nice To Haves

Broader paid-acquisition experience (paid social, app install). SEM is the focus, but breadth informs how you build and opens future scope.
Experience with Search Ads 360 or third-party PPC tooling.
Sports, entertainment, and/or two-sided marketplace experience.
Bachelor’s degree in engineering or the sciences.

Responsibilities

Own paid search strategy, execution, pacing, and optimization end to end.
Build and refine campaign structure across brand, non-brand, competitor, event, seasonal, and promotional categories, managing keyword coverage, bids, copy, and targets.
Manage the account actively, making multiple bidding, budget, and pacing updates per day.
Run the tactical craft: search-term mining and negative-keyword hygiene, RSA and asset-level creative testing, and Quality Score diagnostics across landing page experience, ad relevance, and expected CTR.
Plan for seasonality around the sharp, predictable spikes of on-sales, using seasonality adjustments and data exclusions to keep bidding ahead of demand.
Develop advanced bidding frameworks beyond platform defaults (tCPA, tROAS, value-based bidding).
Build the test-and-learn roadmap for major platform capabilities, including AI Max and other Smart Bidding forms.
Build or co-build AI and automation tooling for auditing, bid and budget optimization, and reporting, and own AI or ML integration into the channel.
Optimize against CAC, CPA, ROAS, and LTV, connecting channel results to business outcomes.
Protect conversion tracking and measurement integrity, including enhanced conversions and value accuracy, since every bidding and budget decision downstream depends on it.
Run incrementality testing (geo holdouts, brand-search pause tests) to isolate paid’s true contribution and calibrate targets and attribution.
Monitor competitor activity through Auction Insights and adjust strategy and pacing accordingly.
Manage budgets and forecasting, supporting business reviews with weekly reads and quarterly reviews.
Partner with Engineering, Data and Analytics, Creative, Brand, and Lifecycle, and work with web and product on landing page and message-match optimization.