Manager, Digital Marketing

Paid Search Manager

When you join Sallie, you become a champion for all students. Sallie's Education Services team is a diverse group of growth-obsessed entrepreneurs, data analysts, engineers, and developers with a passion for imagining and building scalable businesses for students andfamilies on their unique journey to-through and immediately after higher education. We're on a mission to revolutionize how students and their families plan, pay and complete this journey with confidence. Join a team of seekers, challengers and creative thinkers to change the way students plan for their future for the better.

What You'll Contribute As a Paid Search Manager, you will lead the strategy, execution, and optimization of paid search programs across our Education Services digital growth portfolio. You'll play a critical role in driving member acquisition, engagement and mid-funnel performance through Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and emerging platforms. This role requires a data-driven operator who understands how modern search platforms function in an automation-first environment. You will manage marginal efficiency, scale investment responsibly, and ensure paid search contributes profitable growth across multiple products.

What You'll Do

• Channel Strategy & Ownership: Own paid search strategy across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, driving profitable volume across products and lifecycle stages.
• Full Ecosystem Execution: Lead execution across Search, Performance Max, YouTube, and remarketing, leveraging value-based bidding and structured signal inputs to maximize long-term return.
• Account Architecture: Build and maintain scalable account structures aligned to acquisition, engagement, and revenue goals.
• Investment & Bidding Strategy: Lead budget allocation, automated bidding strategies, and marginal efficiency optimization to improve conversion and ROAS performance.
• Audience & Keyword Expansion: Develop keyword, query, and audience expansion frameworks to drive incremental growth.
• Performance Analysis & Optimization: Analyze performance data, identify trends, and implement ongoing optimization to improve efficiency, scale, and conversion outcomes.
• Testing & Experimentation: Design and execute structured test-and-learn roadmaps across campaign types, ad formats, creative, targeting, bidding, and landing pages.
• Forecasting & Planning: Own paid search forecasting and investment planning aligned to business targets and acquisition goals.
• Measurement & Signal Integrity: Ensure accurate tracking, value signals, audience inputs, and attribution frameworks are properly configured to drive platform performance.

What You'll Need

Basic Qualifications

• 4+ years managing paid search at scale in acquisition-focused environments
• Hands-on experience with Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
• Demonstrated experience optimizing toward LTV or value-based metrics
• Experience managing $1M+ annual budgets
• Strong understanding of automation-first campaign structures (Smart Bidding, Performance Max)
• Demonstrated ability to scale programs under aggressive growth targets while maintaining efficiency discipline
• Advanced performance analysis skills (marginal return evaluation, forecasting)

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, economics, analytics, or a related field
• Background in lead generation or marketing in the education vertical
• Experience managing multiple products or business lines simultaneously
• Exposure to landing page testing, CRO, and SEO strategies
• Proactive approach to testing new platform features, betas, and optimization tools

Sallie Mae is proud to be an equal opportunity (EEO) employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, genetic information, gender identity, disability, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.