Senior Search Strategist at Gannett in McLean, Virginia

Job Description:

The Sr. Search Strategist role is focused on defining strategy and driving success for top brands across the National, Enterprise and Multi-Location team. In this role, you will act as an advisor and investigator, understanding the clients' business goals, analyzing current campaigns, the results, the set up, and recommending modifications and appropriate capabilities and implementation skillsets needed to help achieve set benchmarks. This role will own the strategic recommendation elements to help campaigns reach client. This role will also take an active role in our pre-sales process and in making initial client recommendations prior to onboarding. The role we play is significant and we strive to exceed our goals and client expectations, while learning, growing, and having fun as a team along the way.

Are you in? Come talk to us, we would love to tell you more!

About the job :

The Senior Search Strategist will focus efforts around four core functions:

• Discovery
• Implementation
• Optimization
• Results

Leveraging our in-house reporting dashboards, you will identify and select campaigns to review based on shortfalls you see from established client expectations. In other circumstances, cases will come directly to you from our Sales and Brand Management team, soliciting your advice on recommendations to correct campaign performance. Some brands will be existing, while new, large brands will be also folded in as they are closed by our sales team. Our brands today are primarily focused on SEM, and you will work to ensure that this tactic is delivering stellar results across each brand and account within the brand, while helping to partner with colleagues in order to make strategic recommendations on how to diversify this approach through other advertising platforms.

Recommended changes will then be implemented. Whether helping implement the changes directly or delegating tasks to associated client success managers attached to the brands, you will be accountable for ensuring implementation is completed correctly. From there, continuous optimization will occur with consistent reviews that you will conduct leveraging reporting tools to help tell the story to clients.

Results will then be shared with internal and external clients. Using the same reporting platforms, we will share results and format it in such a way that it tells a story and provides clients valuable insights and recommendations.

This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports and will own the strategic elements of the client relationship while the current/existing managers will own people management of teams and execution disciplines.

Expectations

You must have applied experience in SEM at an expert level, with an advanced knowledge of shopping ads and paid search ads outside of search engine platforms, such as Yelp and Amazon. You should also have a cross-section of skills spanning:

• Advertising Strategy
• Project Management

• Technology
• Attention to detail
• Consumer Insights
• Analytics
• Implementation of Data -Driven Decisions

Responsibilities

Day-to-Day:

• Develop and execute effective SEM and paid search strategies that align with clients' goals and objectives.

• Conduct in-depth keyword research to identify high-value keywords and phrases for both organic and paid search campaigns.
• Oversee paid search campaigns, including budget management, ad copywriting, bid optimization, and performance tracking.
• Monitor and analyze performance metrics using tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, and internal software, and provide regular reports to external and internal stakeholders.
• Stay current with industry trends, algorithm updates, and best practices in search marketing to ensure compliance and effectiveness.
• Conduct competitive analysis to identify opportunities and threats in the search marketing landscape.
• Collaborate with client or internal web development and UX teams to optimize landing pages and user experiences for improved conversion rates.
• Manage the search marketing budget, allocating effectively to maximize ROI.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration with other departments, such as sales, post-sales, creative, data science, customer experience and others, to integrate search marketing efforts with broader business objectives.
• Identify areas for improvement, conduct A/B testing, and implement optimization strategies to enhance clients' SEM performance.

Strategy:

• Digital Strategy - Act as an advisor, analyzing current campaigns, the results, the set up, and recommending modifications needed to help achieve set benchmarks. Provide proactive commentary on the overall health of an account, drive strategy and actively make recommendations as appropriate.
• Plan & coordinate meetings with clients, and internal teams to ensure all strategic recommendations are shared, along with the campaign story of performance changes.
• Dive deep into campaign goals and make recommendations to help achieve results
• Partner with Data Science to build complementing reporting aspects related to campaign performance insights where needed.

Product:

• Evolving Digital Marketing Landscape - Stay abreast of new and evolving digital marketing concepts, specifically related to Search, and develop and facilitate training sessions for team members to understand the evolving digital marketing concepts.
• Help to advise, even construct, Search proposals for new brands/RFPs or through the identified gaps in existing campaigns.

Key Qualifications

• Creative thinker with strong time management and organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail.
• Ability to lead the discussions related to strategic recommendations or campaign performance in critical in-person meetings including quarterly business reviews, annual reviews or save efforts.
• Willingness to collaborate cross functionally and navigate effectively through multiple functions in the organization Ability to manage heavy workloads with flexibility to rapidly shift priorities based on organizational needs.

• 5+ years of experience in the digital space, in an agency environment, or in-house equivalent.
• 5+ years of hands-on SEM optimization experience - building PPC campaigns from the ground up. and managing them directly - with in-depth knowledge of Google Ad Platform.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate complex digital/search concepts.
• Expert knowledge and understanding of SEM, with advanced knowledge search impacts on social, email marketing, display, and an understanding of new media consumer behaviors and trends .
• Knowledge of Google Data Studio and/or other reporting platforms, with ability to determine advertising "story" from metrics.
• Ability to distill information within Microsoft Excel.

Performance Measurements Include (but are not limited to):

• Ability to connect professionally with other teams to ensure smooth and on-time deliverables.
• Ability to drive urgency with internal teams to meet & exceed external client commitments.
• Ability to identify product diversification, revenue retention and expansion opportunities.
• Ability to make recommendations and facilitate remediation efforts for distressed accounts or clients that lack strategic direction (the latter especially applicable to new brands).

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The annualized base salary for this role will range between $75,000and $90,000. Variable compensation is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, location, and union representation, if applicable.
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