Growth Lead, SEM

About the role
Rippling is looking for a Growth Lead, SEM to drive qualified pipeline and efficient revenue growth through paid search. This is a senior individual contributor role for someone who combines deep B2B SEM expertise with strong business judgment and the ability to turn opportunities into measurable results.
Reporting to the Director of Search Marketing, you will own end-to-end strategy and execution across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, initially focused on Rippling’s Finance and IT products. You will also help shape the broader SEM strategy and lead initiatives across product lines as business priorities evolve.
You will independently develop your roadmap, identify growth opportunities, and make investment decisions grounded in marginal returns, incrementality, and opportunity cost. You will partner closely with business leaders and teams across Marketing, Sales, Analytics, and Growth Operations to connect channel decisions to business outcomes.
As a senior member of the team, you will mentor other marketers, strengthen how we operate, and serve as a trusted SEM expert for stakeholders. Success means delivering results in your own portfolio while improving the capabilities and effectiveness of the broader team.
What you will do
Own SEM strategy and business outcomes: Lead strategy, planning, and hands-on execution for your product portfolio. Take accountability for qualified pipeline, revenue contribution, efficiency, and budget management.
Build and drive your roadmap: Translate business objectives into annual plans and quarterly priorities. Proactively identify opportunities, size their potential impact, and lead initiatives from diagnosis through execution without waiting for detailed direction.
Allocate investment based on marginal returns: Develop and independently apply a framework for determining where the next dollar will generate the greatest incremental value. Reallocate budgets across campaigns and products, evaluate opportunity costs, and manage forecasts and pacing.
Lead experimentation and measure incrementality: Design tests that answer meaningful business questions across bidding, targeting, creative, landing pages, and investment levels. Distinguish attributed performance from incremental growth, communicate uncertainty, and scale approaches supported by evidence.
Strengthen B2B measurement and bidding signals: Partner with Growth Operations and Analytics to connect CRM outcomes to reporting and optimization. Improve offline conversion imports, signal quality, and conversion goals for longer sales cycles, including predictive value-based bidding where appropriate.
Apply expert judgment to structure and automation: Continuously improve account architecture, bidding portfolios, and campaign strategy. Evaluate capabilities such as AI Max, Performance Max, and automated bidding, using clear hypotheses and appropriate controls to improve business results.
Improve the full acquisition funnel: Work with CRO, Web, Product Marketing, and Sales to improve messaging, landing page relevance, conversion rates, and downstream lead quality. Turn customer and sales feedback into actionable improvements.
Lead stakeholder communication: Proactively communicate opportunities, recommendations, performance trends, and risks. Explain SEM clearly to technical and nontechnical audiences, align stakeholders on tradeoffs, and constructively challenge requests when another approach would create more value.
Raise the team’s capabilities and operating standards: Mentor teammates and serve as an established source of SEM expertise. Build shared frameworks, QA safeguards, and AI-assisted workflows that improve execution quality, accelerate analysis, and make successful approaches repeatable.
What you will need
Substantial B2B SEM experience: Typically 10+ years in SEM or performance marketing, including significant hands-on ownership of B2B paid search programs. Experience with sales-assisted acquisition and lon