Paid Search Strategist

Delve Deeper is a Performance Media Agency focused on helping clients grow their customer base by integrating the power of Tech & Data in Media. We act as one highly functioning team that is powered by our professional “Fire in the Belly”, with a passion for creating exceptional value by delighting our clients and creating an engaging work environment for our team members.

We deliver digital marketing management, first-party data science and consulting, and adtech/martech systems integration & reselling on a global scale. We connect the dots between data and technology in media by identifying our clients' super fans, deterministically finding more of them, and converting them online in the most effective way.

Delve Deeper has been recognized as Built In Colorado’s “Best Places to Work” for the past four years in a row. Our culture emphasizes professional development in an environment where everyone can have an impact. We are passionate about seeing our team through self-care, family, community and (of course) career growth. As a privately owned company, we don’t get caught in red tape, instead we pave a path of growth for those with a passion to succeed professionally.

Delve Deeper is a fast-paced company with proven success with high-profile global customers such as UNICEF, International Rescue Committee, Virgin Voyages, Gerber Life Insurance, Apple Leisure Group, Orange, and Hebe.

Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, Delve Deeper also has offices in Warsaw and Minsk, as well as team members in 10 other countries.

The Mission

At Delve Deeper, we believe the future of Paid Search belongs to the Strategist – someone who combines the massive scale of AI with the precision and discipline of human strategy.

We’re looking for a Strategist who acts as a Pilot, not a passenger. You see platforms like Google Ads as powerful engines, and you actively set the course, monitor the instruments, and take manual control when the terrain gets difficult.
In this role, you will:

• Lead a pod of specialists working across several client accounts
• Architect account structures and testing roadmaps
• Own performance through our Stop / Scale / Start process
• Elevate the craft of the team through training and mentorship
  

Your north star: ensure our ad investments consistently hit or beat client performance targets.

Core Responsibilities

1. The Strategy: Stop / Scale / Start

You are the primary decision‑maker for where client ad investments go and how they perform.

• Scale: Aggressively increase investment in proven winning tactics, keywords, ads, and placements until they approach diminishing returns.
• Stop: Confidently reallocate investments away from tactics that dilute marginal ROI, even if they look good in blended or surface‑level metrics.
• Start: Launch new tactics based on clear hypotheses (e.g., “Will Manual Exact Match outperform PMax for this product cluster at our target CPA?”).
  

You treat every account like a financial portfolio of ad investments, balancing low‑risk / high‑efficiency “harvest” tactics with higher‑risk “mining” tactics to deliver profitable growth and a low-risk / high-reward portfolio. 

Ultimate accountability: Your core KPI – our Start / Stop / Scale decisions consistently hit or improve client ROI/ROAS or CPA targets.

2. Lead a pod of several specialists (typically 2–3 people plus shared resources) across a portfolio of 2–4 clients.

• Pod Lead: Set the strategic agenda for the pod, run working sessions, and ensure everyone is aligned on priorities and testing plans.
• Manage the individuals in your pod on a day to day basis, providing feedback, training, and operate as the main point of management for these more junior team members.
• Delegation & QA: Assign work (builds, audits, experiments) and review not just for accuracy, but for the logic behind decisions.
• Context Switching: Move smoothly between different business models and objectives in a single day, while keeping each client’s targets, constraints, and growth plan straight.
• Client Stewardship: Ensure each client in your pod has a clear performance narrative, a prioritized test plan, and a path to target.
  

3. The Architecture: Hybrid Ecosystems

You design hybrid account structures that combine automation with fundamentals:

• The Machine (Mining): Use PMax, Smart Bidding, and Broad Match to discover and scale new demand.
• The Fundamentals (Harvesting): Use Exact / Phrase, tighter structures, and negative strategies to capture high‑intent traffic efficiently.
• Input Engineering: Shape the machine’s behavior with strong inputs:
  • Audience signals and customer lists
  • Product feeds and structured data
  • Query sculpting and negative lists
  • Offline and high‑quality conversion signals

Your goal: automation that behaves like a disciplined trader of ad investments.

4. The Art: Psychology & Ad Copy

• Write and oversee psychology‑driven ad copy that attracts the right audience and filters out low‑value clicks.
• Treat creative as data: run structured tests to understand why certain angles win (e.g., trust/legacy vs discount/speed).
• Collaborate on landing page direction to ensure the full path aligns with the investment thesis of each campaign.
  

5. The Translation: Communication & Impact

• Move beyond “what happened” to what we caused and what we’ll do next.
• Explain the difference between platform‑reported conversions and true business outcomes (e.g., policies, qualified leads, LTV).
• Translate technical decisions (bids, structures, signals) into clear, financial language that resonates with client stakeholders.
  

6. The Academy: Training & Leadership

• Contribute to and refine the Delve Deeper Training Academy, creating SOPs and mini‑modules on:
  • Directed Automation and hybrid architectures
  • Advanced Excel analysis for auditing automation
  • Search term analysis and query governance
  • Publish one article quarterly about relevant subject matter
    
• Develop Analysts to be Strategists:
  • Teach them to think in investments, not tasks
  • Review their work for reasoning and impact, not just formatting
  • Give structured feedback that improves their judgment
    

How You’ll Spend Your Time

Rough guide to your week:

• ~70% – Live optimization & analysis
  • Interrogating performance data
  • Reallocating investments
  • Adjusting bids, structures, and signals
  • Refining tests to answer one question:
    “How do we get more efficiency from these ad investments?”
    
• ~20% – Strategy, planning, and communication
  • Building Start / Stop / Scale plans
  • Preparing client‑facing narratives and recommendations
  • Translating performance into business impact (ROI or CPA)
    
• ~10% – Training, systems, and pod leadership
  • Coaching Analysts
  • Improving SOPs and training modules
  • Strengthening our overall approach to Directed Automation
    

How Success Is Measured

In a performance agency, results are the only scoreboard. You are successful when:

• Client ROI/ROAS or CPA targets are consistently hit or improved
• The Start / Stop / Scale process in your pod clearly explains where each dollar of ad investment is going and why
• Live campaigns show improving efficiency over time (not just more volume)
• Analysts in your pod show visible growth in decision quality and ownership
  

The Toolkit

Excel / Sheets Power User

• Comfortable exporting raw data and building your own truth
• Fluent in PivotTables, advanced formulas, and data cleaning

Technical Literacy

• Able to collaborate on pixels, tags, server‑side tracking, and attribution settings

Advanced Reporting & Automation

• Familiar with using scripts or APIs (directly or via tools) to uncover “hidden” data – especially for Smart Bidding and PMax

Platform Expertise

• Deep experience in Google Ads; familiarity with additional search engines or channels is a plus
  

Who You Are

• Investment‑Minded: You instinctively think in terms of ad investments, risk, and return – not just spend and pacing.
• Results‑Driven: You care about outcomes (ROI, CPA, growth) more than aesthetics, trends, or “what everyone else is doing.”
• Curious and Analytical: You enjoy digging into the numbers, forming hypotheses, and testing them.
• Calm Context Switcher: You can juggle 3–8 clients, each with different goals, and keep your thinking clear.
• Teacher‑Leader: You like leveling up the people around you and building systems others can use.
  

What Delve Deeper Offers:

• Health Benefits: Comprehensive (100% company-paid) health coverage for employees & their families, including medical, dental, and vision insurance. We also offer FSA and HSA health options with a company contribution.
• Other Benefits: Life Insurance and Disability Coverage
• Retirement Plan: 401(k) plan with a 4% match/company contribution
• Paid Time Off (PTO): Generous vacation, sick leave, and paid holidays
• Parental Leave: Up to 3 months of paid time off for new parents
• Wellness Program: $1,250 annual reimbursement for health and well-being (gym membership, ski passes, meal plans, fitness equipment, etc.)
• Beautiful Office & Workspace: Newly built and designed office exclusively for Delve Deeper with local restaurants, shopping, and hiking/biking trails. Large common areas filled with snacks, beverages, and regularly catered meals!
• Hybrid Working Model: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in-office with the option to work from home on Mondays and Fridays
  

The base salary range for this position is $95,000 - $115,000 per year. In addition, you will be eligible for an annual performance-based bonus tied to individual and company-wide goals and objectives with a potential to exceed salary levels.  This bonus structure is designed to reward exceptional performance and contributions toward Delve Deeper’s overall success.

Delve Deeper is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that diversity enriches the workplace and we are committed to growing our team with the most talented and passionate people from every community. Delve Deeper strives to create a culture of unity and respect, and to that end, we have a zero tolerance policy for behavior that promotes harassment, hate, and discrimination of any kind. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals. If you require assistance during the application process due to a disability, please let us know.

How to Apply

In your application, briefly describe a time you acted as an ad investment manager for a client by:

• Re‑allocating media investments using a Start / Stop / Scale approach, and
• Improving ROI or CPA through a decision the platform would not have made on its own.