SEM Manager – Search Strategy & Key Account Performance - Night Shift (Onsite | Lahore | Salary in PKR)

About Our Client:

Hiring for a Certified US-based Digital Marketing Agency, focused on maximizing your Marketing ROI.

Role Overview

Our highest-Value clients pay us for strategy and certainty, not task execution. This role is the strategic brain of our search practice across paid and organic. You research the industry, find what converts efficiently, and turn it into winning campaign strategies. You own the performance of our key accounts, quality-check their campaigns before launch, and lead the strategy conversation with those clients directly. What you prove on key accounts becomes the playbook our Ads and SEO teams run on every other client.

You do not manage the delivery teams. You make them better. This role reports to a Director on a single reporting line, and works alongside the Senior Ads Manager and the SEO Manager as the internal customers of your research.

Responsibilities & Requirements:

What You Get The 

• key account portfolio. Our Premium clients, with direct client access. You lead quarterly strategy reviews with these clients yourself.

• The full search surface, paid and local-organic. Our clients are local service businesses; their customers decide in the Google local pack, Maps, Local Services Ads, and increasingly in AI answers. Your mandate spans all of it: Google Ads, Local Services Ads, Microsoft Ads, Google Business Profile, local rankings, and AI search. This role isn't just owning the paid side of that equation.

• A real mandate, in writing. On key accounts, your findings are implemented by default: delivery teams either implement within the agreed window or file a written objection to the Director, who decides. Silence is not an option. This protocol is part of the role, not something you negotiate after joining.

• The pre-launch QA gate on key accounts. No key-account campaign, landing page, or major creative goes live without your sign-off on strategy, tracking, and conversion quality.

• The research agenda. You decide what we test: untapped channels, AI search advertising, creative angles, landing page patterns. [Insert annual research and testing budget], spent at your discretion within budget.

• Direct leadership access. You present findings to the Director and CEO monthly.

What you Own

• Blended cost per qualified lead, in dollars, across the key account portfolio, counting paid, organic, and local-attributed leads together. Target: CPL reduced by 25% within 12 months of joining. Delivery teams execute; you are accountable for whether the number moves, and shifting lead mix toward cheaper local-organic sources is one of your primary levers.
• Industry and conversion research across paid and local-organic: search demand shifts, competitor strategies, Google Local Services Ads, AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity,
• Google AI Overviews), Microsoft/Bing, and emerging channels no one else in our market is using yet

• High-converting campaign concepts for both channels: offers, angles, keyword and audience strategy, and the creative that carries them

• Conversion creative standards: reviewing and directing landing pages, static ads, and video creative for key accounts against what engages the target homeowner and converts. You do not produce the creative; you define what converts better (based on stats, A/B Testing, market research) and reject what will not convert.

• Pre-launch QA on key accounts: strategy soundness, tracking integrity, creative quality, and landing page conversion readiness, signed off before anything goes live.

• Opportunity audits within live key-account campaigns and local presence: wasted spend, untapped queries, local pack and Maps ranking gaps, Google Business Profile health, review velocity, service-area coverage gaps, LSA positioning, and creative fatigue

• Quarterly playbooks translating key-account wins into deployable systems for the Ads and SEO teams to run on all other clients

• Client-facing strategy communication on key accounts: quarterly business reviews and strategy escalations

What You Do NOT Own

• The Ads and SEO teams. The Senior Ads Manager and the SEO Manager lead their people, launch gates on non-key accounts, and day-to-day delivery.
• Non-key-account decisions. There, your playbooks are recommendations, and their voluntary adoption rate is one of your KPIs. Findings nobody chooses to adopt are the wrong findings.
• Creative production. Design and content teams produce; you set the conversion bar and approve for key accounts.
• One owner per outcome. Yours is key account search performance and the strategy engine behind it. Where a boundary is unclear, the Director decides.
  

First 90 Days

Day 30: Full audit of every key account across paid, organic, local, and AI search visibility, including creative and landing page conversion review. Written findings with dollarized opportunity sizing, presented to leadership and to each key client.

Day 60: Pre-launch QA gate live on all key accounts. First research-driven campaign concept in market with a defined success threshold. Decide-or-escalate protocol running with both delivery teams.

Day 90: Measurable CPL movement on at least two key accounts against the documented baseline. First quarterly client strategy review led by you. First playbook delivered to the Ads and SEO teams.

Non- Negotiable Requirements

• 8+ years in search/performance marketing, with deep paid-search expertise and substantial strategic experience across SEO, local search, CRO, and conversion analytics. Agency-side US lead-generation experience strongly preferred.
• Deep, current expertise in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, plus real command of local search for service businesses: Google Business Profile, local pack dynamics, and Google Local Services Ads. Working knowledge of AI search advertising and AI answer-engine visibility (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)
• A proven eye for conversion creative: you can look at a landing page, a static ad, or a video and explain, with evidence, why it will or will not convert the target audience, and what to change. Portfolio or case examples required.
• Proven case studies where your strategy moved cost per lead or revenue, with numbers you can defend under questioning
• English communication at 9/10 or above, spoken and written. You will lead strategy calls with US business owners. Tested with a live client-call simulation during the interview process. No exceptions.
• Comfort operating through influence and a written escalation protocol rather than direct authority over delivery teams

KPIs

• Blended CPL in dollars across key accounts vs the documented 2025 baseline, with lead mix (paid vs local-organic share) reported alongside it
• Qualified lead volume per key account per month, across paid, organic, and local sources
• Key-account local visibility trend: local pack presence and Google Business Profile conversion actions across each client's service area, tracked as leading indicators of the blended number (day-to-day ranking ownership sits with the SEO Manager)

• Key account retention and expansion revenue

• Client-caught defects on key accounts (target: trending to zero; every miss logged with root cause)

• Playbooks shipped per quarter (minimum one) and their adoption rate across non-key accounts

• Research-driven tests launched per quarter with documented outcomes, win or lose
  

Growth Path

This role is the natural predecessor to senior search leadership as Company grows. That step is earned, not promised: reviewed at month 12 based on key account results, playbook adoption, and leadership readiness.

This Role Is Not For You If

• You need a team executing under you to feel senior,

• You present activity instead of outcomes,

• You judge creative by taste instead of conversion evidence,

• or you avoid direct conversations with demanding US clients.

Benefits
Market-competitive Salary,
Performance bonus tied to key account CPL and retention,
Health insurance
Paid Time off

Other Details:
Work Mode: Onsite - Full Time
Location: Lahore
Experience: 8+ Years
Days: Monday to Friday
Timing: 5:00 PM - 2:00 AM PKT (Night Shift)

About HR Ways:

HR Ways is an award-winning Technical Recruitment Firm helping software houses and IT Product companies internationally and locally to find IT Talent. HR Ways is engaged by 300+ Employers worldwide, ranging from the world's biggest SaaS Companies to the most competitive Startups. We have entities in Dubai, Canada, the US, the UK, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the world. Join our WhatsApp Channel to stay updated, or visit www.hrways.co to learn more.