Paid search marketing experts need a variety of skills to be successful. Here are a few of the most important ones, all of which MarketerHire vets for:

  • Data analysis (and Excel chops): Strategists need to know how to make sense of metrics and data to identify what aspects of a paid search campaign need tweaking for optimal return on investment (ROI). This often involves exporting results into a master spreadsheet and uncovering underlying patterns. Knowing your way around Excel is a very useful skill for SEM marketers.
  • Campaign planning and optimization: Understanding the ins and outs of Adwords, Bing Ads, or Yahoo Ads is absolutely critical to create and execute campaigns. That means understanding the Pay-Per-Click model (PPC), the Cost-Per-Click model (CPC), the Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions model (CPM) and knowing how to optimize them for click-through rate (CTR) and less spend. 
  • Retargeting: After a user has engaged with an ad on another channel — whether it’s a display ad, a paid social media ad, or an Amazon ad — paid search marketers know how to retarget them with SEM. Note that ad copy will play a big role here in effectiveness, too. 
  • Keyword research: Expert SEM marketers know how to identify search term trends and opportunities via keyword research, using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Ahrefs and SEMRush. 
  • Communication: Search engine marketing specialists don’t operate in a vacuum. They need to be able to communicate and collaborate with SEO experts, content marketing managers, and growth marketers to ensure a tight digital marketing strategy and effective marketing campaigns. ‍‍
  • ‍Deep channel expertise: All specialists need to have deep marketing channel expertise, but this is especially true for paid search marketers. They’ll need to make sense of quality scores, negative keywords, ad rank, ad groups, ad extensions, match types, text ads, and more, all of which can sound like a foreign language to amateurs.