Job Description

Associate Director, Performance Marketing, SEM

4 days ago Be among the first 25 applicants

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 150,000 businesses worldwide including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 1,800 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$6.2 billion and backed by worldleading investors including Visa, Airtree, Blackbird, Sequoia, DST Global, Greenoaks, Salesforce Ventures, Lone Pine, and Square Peg, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If youre ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

Attributes We Value

We hire successful builders with founderlike energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong rolerelated expertise and sharp thinking, and youre motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

Youre humble and collaborative; turn zerotoone ideas into real products, and you get stuff done endtoend. You use AI work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, youll tackle complex, highvisibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, lets build whats next.

About The Team

The Marketing team at Airwallex drives brand awareness and customer engagement through innovative and strategic campaigns. We work to communicate the value of our financial solutions, attract new customers, and strengthen relationships with existing ones. By leveraging datadriven insights and creative strategies, we ensure Airwallex stands out in a competitive market. Our team is passionate about telling the Airwallex story and supporting the company's growth and success.

What Youll Do

Were looking for a strategic, analytical, and deeply experienced SEM leader to own and scale our global paid search program. As the Associate Director, Performance Marketing (SEM), youll lead the strategy, investment, and execution of search engine marketing across Google and Microsoft Ads. Youll manage a multimilliondollar budget, define our SEM growth roadmap, and partner closely with product marketing, regional marketing, and analytics to drive measurable business outcomes from lead generation to revenue contribution.

This role is ideal for someone who can operate both strategically and tactically: designing frameworks for growth, mentoring regional and channel specialists, and ensuring our paid search programs deliver sustainable ROI across multiple regions and audiences. This role is based in San Francisco.

Responsibilities

• Own the global SEM strategy, setting the vision for how paid search drives customer acquisition, lead generation, and pipeline growth across segments (SMB, midmarket, enterprise).
• Develop and execute short and longterm SEM growth plans, balancing efficiency (LTV:CAC) with scale.
• Partner with Global Performance Marketing Strategy, Product Marketing, and Regional Leads to localize SEM campaigns for each markets commercial priorities.
• Manage annual and quarterly budget planning, pacing, and forecasting for paid search investments.
• Serve as the SEM thought leader, identifying innovation opportunities in automation, AI bidding, audience layering, and creative testing.
• Oversee campaign structure, keyword strategy, bidding models, and creative optimization across Google and Microsoft Ads.
• Implement testing frameworks (ad copy, landing pages, audiences, match types) to continuously improve CTR, CVR, and pipeline conversion.
• Partner with Analytics and Data teams to ensure endtoend visibility into ROI, pipeline contribution, and attribution across campaignsli>
• Drive adoption of valuebased bidding (VBB) and audiencefirst approaches (RLSA, Customer Match, CRMbased targeting).
• Ensure strong campaign hygiene, naming conventions, and tracking governance (UTMs, conversion imports, offline events).
• Collaborate with Product Marketing and Content to align messaging, creative, and offers with product value propositions.
• Partner with Lifecycle and Growth Product teams to build cohesive acquisitiontoactivation journeys.
• Work with Finance and RevOps on pacing, forecasting, and ROI analysis to guide datadriven budget allocation.
• Align with Sales and Regional Marketing to ensure SEM efforts support pipeline coverage and demand generation goals.
• Manage and mentor SEM managers or specialists, fostering a culture of experimentation, precision, and datadriven decisionmaking.
• Develop playbooks and best practices for global and regional SEM teams.
• Partner with agency and platform reps to stay ahead of algorithm updates, betas, and emerging trends.
• Drive operational excellence through consistent QA, documentation, and performance review cadences.

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in SEM or performance marketing, with proven success driving measurable growth and ROI.
• Strong expertise managing largescale multiregion paid search programs (Google + Microsoft).
• Experience optimizing for B2B SaaS or fintech pipelines with fullfunnel visibility (from lead to closedwon).
• Handson familiarity with Marketo, Looker, SQL, Salesforce, and offline conversion tracking workflows.
• Demonstrated analytical strength comfortable with bid modeling, forecasting, and performance attribution.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Bachelors degree in Marketing, Economics, Data Analytics, or related field (MBA a plus).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building global SEM frameworks that scale across markets.
• Knowledge of multitouch attribution (MTA), MMM, or incrementality testing.
• Exposure to AIdriven ad copy generation or creative automation systems.
• Familiarity with SEO/SEM alignment strategies to maximize paidorganic synergy.
• Strong relationship with platform partners (Google, Microsoft) for comarketing and innovation programs.
• Multilingual and particularly Mandarin or Cantonese.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We dont regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary. If you are approached by someone claiming to represent Airwallex, please verify with our team.

Compensation Range: $138K - $210K

Job Tags

Similar Jobs