Paid Search Specialist in Manchester

Reports to: CEO

Location: Manchester, hybrid (2 days a week in the office).

Compensation: £42,000 - £50,000 per year.

Bonuses: Significant individual bonuses tied to your team and the Google service, plus team-wide bonuses when we hit company milestones

Responsibility

Owning every pound our clients spend on paid media, on every platform, held to one leading our Meta strategy from day one and building and launching our Google Ads service in January 2027.

Background

Solar on Steroids is a Manchester marketing agency and the UK's biggest solar marketing agency. We're behind roughly 3% of every solar installation in the country and have generated over £30m in sales for more than 60 installers. Every quote and sale we generate pulls through live onto our website, so there's nowhere to hide. That's how we like it.

Every client is directed & filmed on site every three months, our 25-strong editing team turns each shoot into 30+ ads, and we produce over 200 ads a week. Our own API feeds every quote and sale back into the ad account, so we optimize for cost per sale.

Solar on Steroids is the first business under the On Steroids brand. We've launched Windows on Steroids for window and door installers, with more home services verticals to follow. Our core service is one thing done exceptionally well: high-production video ads for ambitious home services businesses. Around it, we're building a small set of services that solve the next problems our clients hit as they grow.

Reporting to our CEO, you'll lead our Google strategy and a team of three remote media buyers running around £250,000 a month in ad spend. Around 70 clients already trust us with their Meta marketing already, we announce our Google Ads service on 27 November 2026, and it launches in January 2027.

Most people in this seat inherit a team and some accounts and are asked to keep them ticking over. You inherit a Meta operation that already works, and the mandate to take it onto every other channel. We're looking for someone with significant hands-on Google Ads experience, strong measurement skills and the appetite to build a service from the ground up.

Main Accountabilities

• Own our Meta strategy: how we structure, test, allocate budget, kill and scale across every client account. Raise the bar on accounts that already perform and make sure none are left behind.
• Ensure our Meta strategy remains market leading based on best practices and new updates.
• Coach our three remote media buyers: set the standard, coach them and balance their books of accounts.
• Build and launch the Google Ads service: the offer, account structures, tracking, playbooks, onboarding and reporting, starting with Search and Local Services Ads.
• Run the first Google accounts yourself and prove the service works before it scales.
• As Google grows, hire the media buyers and account managers to run it, and decide how many accounts each person can hold properly.
• Expand into every channel worth being on, including YouTube, Microsoft Ads and ChatGPT ads, deciding what is worth testing and when.
• Work with sales and our client success managers so clients see what Google can do for them, and every account on every platform delivers results worth keeping.
• Lead the people in the accounts, and get into the accounts yourself whenever it matters. Client success managers own the day-to-day client relationship.

Success in 12 Months

• Day one: own the Meta strategy.
• Before January 2027: Google service built, with clients lined up from the November announcement.
• January 2027: Google launches, with the first accounts run by you.
• Twelve months in: 50 clients on Google, and one standard across every channel.
• Enjoy the numbers, know noise from signal, and make decisions quickly;
• Have opinions about how Meta and Google work together;
• Can explain your thinking in plain writing to someone who isn't a marketer;
• Have the appetite to build a new service, not just run an existing one;
• Are energised by being measured on ownership, consistency, communication, operational maturity, commercial contribution and leadership.

Experience & Skills

• Significant hands-on Google Ads experience, Search and Local Services Ads especially, with real budget behind it.
• Experience running paid media in an agency, across many client accounts at once.
• Strong on measurement: conversion tracking, offline and CRM conversion imports, and making sure the platform optimises for the right thing.
• Ideally, experience coaching remote media buyers, or real excitement about doing it for the first time.
• Local service lead generation is a strong advantage, home improvement especially. You don't need to have built a Google service from scratch; strong execution and the appetite to build one is enough.

The Benefits of Working at Solar on Steroids

• Demand is already waiting for Google. Around 70 existing clients we can offer it to, a launch announcement in November, and new clients signing every month.
• Sale-level data from day one. Our own API pulls quoted and sold deals from each client's CRM and feeds them into the ad platforms, Google included. You optimise for cost per sale, not cost per click.
• More creative than anyone in the auction. YouTube and video formats are usually where search agencies run dry. Here, they're the easy part.
• A direct line to the CEO. No committees between your idea and it going live.
• Competitive pay. £42,000-£50,000 a year, plus significant individual bonuses tied to paid media performance and the Google service, and team-wide bonuses when we hit company milestones.
• Real room to climb. Charlotte joined as our first full-time hire in August 2025 as a Creative Strategist, became Senior Creative Strategist in December 2025, and moved into Client Success & Delivery Lead in September 2026. This role starts with a team of three and one channel to launch. If it works the way we expect, it becomes a department, and you lead it.
• AI-first, on purpose. Our own AI operating system pulls data from every platform we use each night, with an AI layer that answers questions and acts on our tools in plain English. Leo, our Systems Architect, makes sure you have data you can trust, reporting that builds itself and tooling built for your team.
• 28 days' paid holiday, plus Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve off.
• Hybrid working. Two days a week in our Manchester office, the rest from home, plus 10 days a year working remotely from abroad.
• A speedboat, not a freight ship. Our founders left big corporations where good ideas died in red tape. Here, a decision made Monday morning is tested Monday afternoon and rolled out Tuesday.
• The latest software and equipment, MacBook included, plus great team socials.
• Genuinely fun clients. Many are ex-trade who got off the tools and built their own businesses. No stuffy "let's circle back" conversations.

Application Process

1. Screening call.

A 30-minute call with our screening team.

2. First stage.

A 60-minute interview with the hiring managers.

3. Final stage.

A task, presented back to the hiring manager team.

4. Coffee catch-up.

An informal coffee with the team, so we can get to know you outside the workplace.

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