Senior Paid Search Lead

As Senior Paid Search Lead, you will take full ownership of client accounts: audits, tracking architecture, bidding strategy, Performance Max, feeds, experimentation, and reporting directly to the client's CMO or founder. You will be as comfortable writing a Google Ads script or SQL query as you are defending a growth plan in a boardroom.

This role is a strong fit if you have personally scaled $100K+/month accounts and can show the before-and-after numbers. This role is not a fit if your experience is mainly social media buying, executing someone else's strategy, or results described only in CTR and impressions.

Responsibilities:

• Build value-based bidding using margin, LTV, or lead-stage values, with conversion value rules that steer tROAS toward profit.
• Use marginal ROAS thinking (Performance Planner, bid simulators, spend-response curves) to find where the next dollar stops being profitable.
• Manage learning phases, seasonality adjustments, data exclusions, portfolio strategies, and new customer acquisition goals.
• Control PMax cannibalization with brand exclusions, account-level negatives, and URL expansion rules.
• Segment asset groups by margin tier, category, or audience signal; analyze channel performance and search term insights.
• Run PMax vs. Standard Shopping vs. Search experiments.
• Optimize Merchant Center feeds: supplemental feeds, custom labels by margin and stock, query-driven titles, and suspension fixes.
• Run n-gram analysis at scale to cut waste and find new themes.
• Decide when broad match + smart bidding works and how AI Max for Search changes matching.
• Build negative keyword architecture and write RSAs that perform without over-pinning.
• Implement server-side GTM, GA4, Enhanced Conversions, Consent Mode v2, and offline conversion imports (GCLID/GBRAID/WBRAID) from Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho.
• Reconcile platform conversions against backend revenue using GA4 → BigQuery.
• Design incrementality tests (geo-holdouts, conversion lift) and translate MMM outputs into budget decisions.
• Write Google Ads scripts for pacing, anomaly alerts, n-gram reports, and negative mining.
• Use GAQL, the Google Ads API, BigQuery SQL, and Looker Studio dashboards that blend ad, CRM, and revenue data.
• Go beyond import: LinkedIn profile targeting, Microsoft Audience Network, Microsoft PMax, separate UET and offline imports, and bids tuned for Microsoft's auctions.
• Lead QBRs with CMOs and founders, push back with data, and write growth plans with expected impact.
• Work in unit economics: POAS, contribution margin, LTV: CAC, break-even ROAS, cost per SQL, and pipeline modeling.
• Diagnose performance drops (tracking, auction, demand, competition, site, seasonality) and recover policy suspensions.

Requirements:

• 6+ years of hands-on paid search, including 3+ years as the primary account owner (not supported or "assisted with").
• Personally managed one account spending $100K+/month (₹80 lakh+), or a $3M+/year portfolio.
• A growth result you led, with numbers on your resume: before and after figures, timeframe, and spend level (e. g., revenue 2x+ at stable ROAS, or CPA down 30%+ while growing volume).
• Personally implemented GTM (including server-side), GA4, Enhanced Conversions, Consent Mode v2, and CRM offline conversion imports.
• Value-based bidding in production, feeding margin, LTV, or lead-quality values into Smart Bidding, with measurable impact.
• Performance Max at scale with control: brand exclusions, margin-based asset groups, custom labels, and search term analysis.
• Microsoft Advertising experience beyond importing Google campaigns.
• Written Google Ads scripts or used the Google Ads API and can query data in BigQuery or similar SQL.
• Presented strategy and results directly to CMOs, founders, or heads of marketing, without a manager in the room.

Nice to have:

• Incrementality testing (geo-holdouts, conversion lift) and working knowledge of MMM (Meridian, Robyn).
• Merchant Center feed optimization for catalogs of 5,000+ SKUs, using tools like Feedonomics, DataFeedWatch, Channable, or ProductHero.
• Multi-market or multi-language accounts.
• Search Ads 360.
• A track record of turning around an underperforming account.
• Python for analysis and automation.