SEM SPECIALIST (PART TIME)

SEM Specialist – Part-Time
Australian Market | 4 Hours per Day | Pathway to Full-Time Permanent Employment

Position Overview
We are seeking an experienced and results-driven SEM Specialist to join our Digital Marketing team and support the delivery and ongoing optimisation of paid search campaigns for clients operating primarily within the Australian market.

This is initially a part-time position working 4 hours per day, with the opportunity to transition into a full-time permanent role based on performance, capability, business growth and ongoing client requirements.

The SEM Specialist will be responsible for the hands-on management, optimisation, monitoring and reporting of Google Ads campaigns across a portfolio of clients. The role requires strong technical knowledge of paid search, commercial awareness, analytical capability, attention to detail, and the ability to translate campaign performance data into practical recommendations.

The successful candidate will work closely with SEO Specialists, Digital Marketing Leads, Account/Project Managers, content teams, analytics specialists and other members of the digital delivery team.

Key Responsibilities

1. Google Ads Campaign Management

Manage the day-to-day operation of Google Ads accounts across assigned Australian clients, including:

• Search campaigns
• Performance Max campaigns
• Display campaigns
• Remarketing campaigns
• Video/YouTube campaigns where applicable
• Demand Gen campaigns where applicable
• Local/location-focused campaigns where appropriate

Responsibilities include:

• Campaign creation and deployment
• Campaign restructuring
• Ad group development
• Keyword implementation
• Match-type management
• Negative keyword management
• Ad copy creation and testing
• Asset creation and optimisation
• Location targeting
• Audience targeting
• Device optimisation
• Ad scheduling
• Bid strategy configuration
• Budget management
• Conversion optimisation
• Campaign monitoring and troubleshooting

2. Keyword Strategy & Search Term Management

Conduct ongoing keyword research and optimisation to ensure campaigns reach commercially relevant audiences.

Activities include:

• Keyword discovery and expansion
• Search intent analysis
• Competitor keyword research
• Search term reviews
• Negative keyword identification
• Cross-campaign and cross-account negative keyword management
• Keyword cannibalisation and campaign overlap analysis
• Broad, Phrase and Exact Match strategy
• Brand versus non-brand campaign separation
• Location-specific keyword development
• Service-specific keyword segmentation

Ensure campaigns are structured to minimise irrelevant traffic and unnecessary budget consumption.

3. Campaign Optimisation

Continuously review campaign performance and implement improvements across:

• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate
• Cost per click
• Cost per conversion/acquisition
• Impression share
• Search lost impression share
• Search lost impression share due to budget
• Search lost impression share due to rank
• Quality Score
• Ad relevance
• Landing page experience
• Conversion value
• ROAS where applicable

Identify underperforming campaigns, keywords, advertisements, audiences, locations and landing pages and recommend corrective actions.

4. Budget & Bid Management

Manage allocated advertising budgets responsibly and ensure spend is aligned with client priorities.

Responsibilities include:

• Daily and monthly budget monitoring
• Campaign budget allocation
• Spend pacing
• Forecasting
• Identifying under-spend and over-spend risks
• Recommending budget redistribution
• Reviewing automated bidding strategies
• Monitoring Target CPA and Target ROAS
• Assessing Maximise Conversions and Maximise Conversion Value strategies
• Identifying campaigns constrained by budget
• Escalating material budget or performance risks

The SEM Specialist is expected to provide recommendations; material strategy or budget changes must follow the appropriate client approval and governance process.

5. Conversion Tracking & Measurement

Work with the broader team to ensure campaigns are supported by reliable measurement.

Review and validate, where access permits:

• Google Ads conversion tracking
• Google Analytics 4
• Google Tag Manager
• Website form submissions
• Phone call conversions
• Ecommerce transactions
• Lead-generation events
• Micro and macro conversions
• Enhanced Conversions
• Offline conversion imports where applicable

Identify tracking anomalies or data-quality issues and escalate them appropriately.

6. Search Query & Traffic Quality Analysis

Regularly review search term reports to determine:

• Traffic relevance
• Emerging search trends
• Negative keyword opportunities
• New keyword opportunities
• Competitor searches
• Informational versus transactional intent
• Brand traffic
• Irrelevant traffic
• Geographic relevance
• Potential campaign overlap

Take appropriate optimisation actions to continuously improve traffic quality.

7. Ad Copy & Creative Optimisation

Develop and optimise paid search advertising aligned with the client's services, brand guidelines and target audience.

Responsibilities include:

• Responsive Search Ads
• Headlines
• Descriptions
• Sitelinks
• Callouts
• Structured snippets
• Promotion assets
• Image assets where applicable
• Business information assets
• Call assets
• Location assets

Conduct structured testing of messaging, value propositions and calls to action.

8. Landing Page Performance

Review landing pages from a paid search perspective and provide recommendations covering:

• Search intent alignment
• Message consistency
• Conversion opportunities
• Calls to action
• User experience
• Mobile usability
• Page speed
• Content relevance
• Trust signals
• Lead-generation effectiveness

Work collaboratively with SEO, content, development and client teams rather than making unauthorised website changes.

10. Competitor & Market Analysis

Conduct regular paid search competitor analysis covering:

• Competitor positioning
• Competitor advertisements
• Keyword competition
• Auction Insights
• Impression share
• Messaging and offers
• Market changes
• Emerging competitors

Translate findings into clear campaign recommendations.

11. Reporting & Performance Analysis

Prepare clear and concise campaign updates for internal and client reporting.

Reporting may include:

• Spend
• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• CPC
• Conversions
• Conversion rate
• Cost per conversion
• Conversion value
• ROAS
• Impression share
• Keyword performance
• Campaign performance
• Search-term findings
• Budget performance
• Optimisation activity
• Risks
• Recommendations
• Next actions

The SEM Specialist must be able to explain what happened, why it happened, what action was taken, and what should happen next rather than simply reporting metrics.

12. Performance Monitoring & Issue Identification

Proactively identify and escalate material issues including:

• Sudden traffic declines
• Sudden conversion declines
• Significant CPC increases
• Budget overspend
• Campaign disapprovals
• Account suspensions
• Conversion tracking failures
• Landing page failures
• Broken URLs
• Policy violations
• Significant impression-share losses
• Campaign learning limitations
• Keyword or account conflicts
• Abnormal search traffic

Urgent or commercially significant issues should be escalated promptly rather than waiting for scheduled reporting.

13. SEM Administration & Governance

Maintain accurate records of campaign activity.

This includes:

• Recording material optimisation changes
• Updating assigned project-management tasks
• Maintaining campaign documentation
• Providing evidence of completed activities
• Documenting recommendations
• Recording outstanding actions
• Maintaining appropriate campaign naming conventions
• Following approved client governance and change-management processes

Where required, updates and evidence will be maintained in platforms such as Smartsheet or other approved project-management systems.

14. Collaboration with SEO & Search Teams

Work closely with SEO specialists to create an integrated search strategy.

Collaboration should identify:

• High-performing paid keywords
• Organic ranking opportunities
• Paid versus organic search overlap
• Search intent trends
• Content opportunities
• Landing-page improvements
• Competitor opportunities
• Search demand changes

The objective is to improve overall search visibility and commercial outcomes rather than operating SEM and SEO as isolated channels.

15. Ad Hoc Campaign Support

Support urgent or short-term campaigns where required, including:

• Recruitment campaigns
• Service campaigns
• Product/service launches
• Location campaigns
• Branch campaigns
• Events
• Seasonal campaigns
• Promotional campaigns
• Lead-generation campaigns

Ad hoc client priorities may take precedence over longer-term optimisation activities where required by the business.

##### Required Experience######

The successful candidate should ideally have:

• At least 2–4 years' hands-on Google Ads / SEM experience
• Demonstrated experience managing Google Ads campaigns independently
• Strong knowledge of Google Search campaigns
• Experience managing meaningful monthly advertising budgets
• Experience managing multiple campaigns or client accounts simultaneously
• Strong understanding of keyword match types
• Strong negative-keyword management capability
• Experience with automated bidding strategies
• Experience with conversion tracking
• Working knowledge of Google Analytics 4
• Working knowledge of Google Tag Manager
• Experience analysing search terms and campaign performance
• Strong Excel or Google Sheets capability
• Experience preparing campaign performance reports
• Strong written English communication skills

Preferred Technical Skills

Experience with the following will be advantageous:

• Google Ads
• Google Ads Editor
• Google Analytics 4
• Google Tag Manager
• Google Search Consol