Google Ads Specialist

Google Ads Manager

🔥 R40,000–R50,000 per month

📍 South Africa (Remote) | Full-Time

Placed by Scaled – connecting exceptional South African talent with world-class global companies

🚀 We're Looking for a Google Ads Specialist

We're hiring on behalf of a fast-growing UK search agency looking for an experienced Google Ads specialist to join their remote team from South Africa.

And we're looking for someone who is deeply specialised in Google Ads.

This isn't a generalist paid media role.

We're not looking for someone whose experience is split between Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, SEO and content.

Google Ads is the focus.

You'll spend most of your time inside Google Ads accounts, analysing performance, making optimisation decisions, testing new strategies and looking for opportunities to improve results across Search, Shopping and Performance Max.

If you've spent the last few years getting genuinely good at Google Ads — managing real budgets, solving performance problems and figuring out what to do next — we'd love to hear from you.

🎯 The Opportunity

You'll take ownership of a portfolio of Google Ads accounts and be responsible for keeping performance moving in the right direction.

You'll analyse the data, identify what's working and what's not, make informed changes and constantly look for the next opportunity.

Every decision should have a reason behind it.

You won't simply make changes because Google recommends them or because an account hasn't been touched for a few days.

You'll form a view, take action and measure whether the result matched your expectation.

You'll also work closely with the Head of Performance, bringing solutions and recommendations — not just problems.

This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys being deep in the accounts and wants genuine ownership over client performance.

🛠️ What You'll Be Doing

• Manage and optimise Google Ads accounts across Search, Shopping and Performance Max.
• Analyse campaign performance and make data-driven decisions around bids, budgets, keywords, search terms and campaign structure.
• Identify opportunities to improve account performance and generate additional growth.
• Manage and optimise accounts against clear commercial performance targets.
• Run tests and continuously look for the next move within each account.
• Carry out regular account checks and maintain consistently high standards.
• Diagnose performance issues and develop clear, practical solutions.
• Analyse search terms, keyword performance, conversion data and campaign-level trends.
• Work with Shopping and Performance Max campaigns to identify opportunities for growth and efficiency.
• Manage multiple accounts while maintaining strong attention to detail.
• Communicate performance, decisions and recommendations clearly in writing.
• Use AI, automation and tooling to improve the quality and efficiency of your work.
• Take full ownership of your accounts and the results they produce.

🧠 What We're Looking For

The ideal candidate will:

• Have 3+ years of hands-on Google Ads / PPC experience.
• Have spent the majority of their recent career working directly with Google Ads, rather than across multiple digital marketing channels.
• Have strong experience across Search, Shopping and Performance Max.
• Have managed real client budgets with clear performance targets attached.
• Have experience managing multiple Google Ads accounts simultaneously, ideally within an agency environment.
• Be highly analytical and comfortable making decisions based on data.
• Understand bidding strategies, keyword strategy, search-term analysis, budgets and campaign structure.
• Understand Google Ads best practice and know when to adapt it to the situation.
• Be commercially minded and understand metrics such as CPA, ROAS, conversion value and profitability.
• Be comfortable investigating problems independently rather than waiting for someone else to identify the solution.
• Have excellent written and spoken English.
• Be highly organised, diligent and proactive.
• Be comfortable working independently without constant supervision.
• Have a genuine interest in AI, automation and the future of search advertising.
• Take ownership of results rather than simply completing tasks.

⭐ Most importantly...

We're looking for someone who is:

Analytical. Diligent. Curious. Commercially minded. Accountable.

Someone who doesn't just maintain accounts.

Someone who can look at an account that's hitting target and ask:

"What could we do next?"

Someone who sees a problem and starts thinking about the solution before raising the flag.

Someone who understands that good Google Ads management isn't about making constant changes.

It's about making the right changes, for the right reasons, and knowing whether they worked.

And someone who wants to help build a different kind of search agency, rather than simply manage another book of accounts.

🚫 This probably isn't the role for you if...

• Your experience is primarily SEO, content or organic search.
• You've mainly worked across Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and Google Ads as a generalist.
• Google Ads has only been a small part of your broader digital marketing role.
• Your experience is primarily focused on reporting rather than hands-on account optimisation.
• You prefer account coordination or client management over getting into the detail of the campaigns.
• You rely heavily on platform recommendations rather than forming your own view of what an account needs.

We're looking for depth in Google Ads, not breadth across every marketing channel.

💰 Pay & Benefits

• R40,000–R50,000 per month, depending on experience.
• Fully remote from South Africa.
• 4.5-day working week.
• High level of autonomy and ownership.
• Direct access to the Head of Performance and senior leadership.
• Opportunity to grow with a rapidly scaling UK search agency.
• Work in an environment actively using AI and automation to rethink how search agencies operate.
• Opportunity for your responsibilities to grow as the business scales.

🏆 Why This Opportunity?

This isn't a traditional agency role.

You'll have the opportunity to:

• Work across a diverse portfolio of Google Ads accounts.
• Spend your time actually optimising campaigns, rather than sitting in endless meetings.
• Work closely with an experienced senior performance team.
• Develop deeper expertise across Search, Shopping and Performance Max.
• Work at the forefront of AI-powered agency operations.
• Take real ownership over client performance.
• Build international experience while working remotely from South Africa.
• Grow with a business that's actively changing how search agencies operate.

🤖 One Thing About AI

Our client uses AI and LLMs heavily across the business and expects the team to do the same.

You'll be encouraged to use AI creatively to improve your workflow, analysis and output.

However, we're not looking for someone who uses AI as a substitute for Google Ads expertise.

You need to understand the accounts yourself, form your own opinions and use AI to make you better and faster.

The application questions are designed to understand how you think, so your answers should be your own.

📋 A Few Things We'd Like to Know

As part of your application, we'll ask you a couple of questions about your Google Ads experience and how you approach optimisation.

1. Tell us about your Google Ads experience.

How many years have you worked hands-on with Google Ads? What types of accounts have you managed, and approximately what level of monthly ad spend have you been responsible for?

2. Tell us about an account that was already performing well.

What did you identify as the next opportunity, what did you change, and what happened as a result?

We're particularly interested in how you think, not just the results you achieved.

📅 What is the Process?

1. Apply. Submit your application through the Scaled platform.
2. Application Questions. Answer two short questions about your Google Ads experience and approach to optimisation.
3. Interview. Discuss your experience, technical knowledge and approach to account management.
4. Technical Assessment. Demonstrate how you approach optimisation, account strategy and problem-solving.
5. Final Interview. Meet the senior team.

🔥 Ready to go deeper into Google Ads?

If you're a Google Ads specialist, not a generalist, and you want to spend less time managing process and more time actually improving accounts, we'd love to hear from you.

Apply now.

Placed by Scaled – connecting exceptional South African talent with world-class global companies