Paid Search Manager

**We are excited to be recruiting for an experienced Paid Search Manager to join our Le Boat team in Cape Town**

You will be working for our fantastic brand Le Boat which is the market leader in self-drive boating holidays across Europe and Canada’s inland waterways. With over 50 years of experience and operating a fleet designed to suit all party sizes and budgets, everyone can enjoy a holiday with Le Boat Welcoming guests from all around the world including North America, Germany, and France, Le Boat provides holidays in 9 different countries, has a fleet of 900 self-drive boats, and offers 16 destinations across Europe and Canada

Le Boat is part of Travelopia, we are travel experts. Our award-winning travel brands create unique experiences for our guests around the world. From wildlife encounters to polar expeditions, from cultural tours to yachting adventures, our business is not just about showing people the world but designing new ways to experience it.

We are now looking for a passionate Paid Search Manager to join our Le Boat brand, who as part of the wider Ecommerce and Digital Marketing team can help drive our paid search performance and strategy to the next level. You will lead the work to develop and execute a strategy and roadmap of continuous optimisation and growth that will drive a significant part of the new customer acquisition for Le Boat.

You will be self-motivated and driven, with a passion for making sense of data and analytics, and a desire to progress your digital marketing career within an innovative and entrepreneurial travel business.

**What you will be doing**
- You will be responsible for creating and driving long term strategic growth from the paid search channels, managing the accounts in-house to implement optimal performance across multiple search engines and device types
- Liaising with key search engines and other partners to identify, explore and test new opportunities within the paid search landscape and ensure the business is at the forefront of paid search innovation
- Managing global paid search accounts across multiple international domains to ensure campaigns are planned, executed and optimized in line with business strategy and priorities, and managing a media budget, maximizing, reporting and forecasting on the return on investment
- You will be responsible for budget planning, managing account bidding strategy at both a keyword and campaign level through your internal team
- You will be responsible for continuous ad-copy testing working with regional teams and language specialists, leveraging the available formats and testing tools across Google and Bing/Microsoft, together with landing page testing working with the CRO team to run AB tests to improve conversion
- Managing one paid search specialist to help manage and deliver all paid search and digital media activity and plans, ensuring they're meeting and exceeding performance objectives, whilst supporting and facilitating career progression
- Demonstrating thought leadership across paid search and digital media that inspires, leads and motivates the wider Ecommerce, Marketing and overall businesses on all matters relating to paid search marketing
- Providing in-depth reporting, analysis and insight to relevant stakeholders, highlighting the commentary behind actual and forecasted performance, and providing insight on any variances
- Initiate and lead the creation of weekly, monthly and quarterly channel dashboards and reporting to aid optimisation, and help with wider digital marketing and business communication, strategy and planning
- Whilst the focus of the role is on paid search channel management and optimization, you will also identify, develop and test opportunities across other paid digital media channels and platforms e.g. digital display, paid social, video etc. including making recommendations on channel opportunities, approach, measurement & attribution, expected returns/benefits and budgets
- You will work closely with Data & Analytics specialists to help with tracking, reporting and attribution measurement and with the in-house SEO Manager to optimize paid and organic search strategies, investment and activity

**What we are looking for**

You will be a proven paid search marketing leader who can bring fresh ideas and industry best practices to get the most from paid search marketing activity and investment. Hands-on experience in setting, and managing paid search strategies, dependent upon business priorities, as well as experience of using both manual and automated bidding approaches, strategies, and tools is essential. Knowledge and experience of using Google AdWords (& Editor) and Microsoft Ads, as well as Google Analytics and Excel, are also vital skills for this role.

You will be commercially focussed, understanding how to use data and insights to drive improved returns and optimisation from the investment, and enjoy building relationships articulating your paid search and digita