Search Lead

Agency:

Critical Mass

Job Function:

Strategy and Planning

Job Subfunction:

Account Planning and Brand Planning

Job Description:

The Role:

At Critical Mass, the Search Lead advances account- and practice-level priorities by leading data-driven Search strategy and delivery for a leading financial-services client. The role brings together search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), and AI Search to turn consumer intent, technical performance, content, brand signals, and competitive intelligence into prioritized roadmaps and measurable business outcomes. Reporting to the Search Director, the Search Lead partners closely with them to investigate, validate, and strengthen the overarching Search strategy, bringing forward alternative approaches and opportunities to amplify impact while leading day-to-day execution, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and team development.

You Will

Search Strategy and AI Discovery

• Partner with the Search Director to investigate, validate, and refine integrated SEO/GEO/AI Search strategies, identifying alternative approaches and opportunities to amplify strategic impact while leading day-to-day execution, current-state assessments, strategic recommendations, and prioritized roadmaps.

• Direct AI brand and narrative audits to understand how a client’s brand, products, and services appear across major AI platforms, examining visibility, sentiment, citations, recommendation frequency, sources, and AI-generated narratives.

• Map search demand, consumer intent, and AI-assisted financial discovery journeys, identifying priority topics, conversational prompts, decision points, and content opportunities.

• Lead competitive and category benchmarking across search and AI environments, evaluating competitors, aggregators, and category leaders to uncover visibility gaps, whitespace opportunities, and narrative advantages.

• Develop an integrated brand ecosystem GEO strategy across owned, earned, and paid channels, aligning content, authority signals, partnerships, and brand narratives.

Technical, Content, and Channel Optimization

• Oversee technical SEO and AI-readiness assessments covering crawlability, indexability, rendering, semantic structure, schema markup, site architecture, internal linking, and content accessibility; prioritize barriers to discoverability and citation authority with technical teams.

• Guide content optimization strategies across product pages, FAQs, educational content, and supporting assets, emphasizing semantic clarity, embedding alignment, answer-first formats, relevant topic coverage, and discoverability in traditional and AI-generated results.

• Provide ongoing technical and content optimization recommendations and implementation support, informed by search behavior, major algorithm changes, and developments in large language models and AI discovery.

• Coordinate integrated SEO/SEM strategies and measurement to strengthen brand visibility throughout the funnel, improve efficiency, and connect organic, paid, and relevant social search opportunities.

Performance, Client Partnership, and Cross-Functional Delivery

• Define success metrics tied to client business objectives; develop holistic dashboards and interpret performance across traditional and AI search, including visibility, citations, competitive presence, and other relevant outcomes.

• Lead ongoing performance monitoring and quarterly SEO/GEO reporting, supported by monthly planning and status discussions that clarify priorities, progress, findings, next steps, and strategic opportunities.

• Facilitate recurring working sessions across content, paid media, social, PR, creative, analytics, technology, and partner agencies; establish aligned priorities, shared briefs, and coordinated execution.

• Deliver polished, insight-led reports, strategic points of view, and presentations for senior internal and client stakeholders, translating complex data and technical topics into actionable decisions.

Team and Practice Leadership

• Lead and organize Search workstreams, translating project requirements into clear assignments and next steps; oversee quality, timelines, and consistency of client deliverables while keeping Search discipline and account leads informed.

• Manage and coach direct reports where assigned, proactively assess team needs, review and refine work and presentations, and support career development aligned with Critical Mass expectations.

• Advance Search practice capabilities through knowledge-sharing, cross-disciplinary education, strategic frameworks, tools, processes, and automation; support new business pitches, RFPs, and opportunities to expand existing client programs.

What You Will Do

• Advanced understanding of Search strategy and SEO, including technical optimization, search-driven content strategy, consumer intent, competitive analysis, and the translation of insights into business priorities.

• Ability to lead GEO and AI Search strategy, including AI visibility and narrative analysis, prompt and journey research, AI-oriented technical and content assessments, and practical optimization recommendations.

• Strong analytical judgment and data storytelling skills, with the ability to establish success measures, uncover market and brand-level opportunities, and deliver clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.

• Advanced familiarity with first-party analytics and search platforms (such as Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Ads) and third-party research and auditing tools (such as BrightEdge, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog).

• Advanced spreadsheet skills, including pivot tables, lookup functions, and large-dataset analysis; ability to use visualization and automation to improve analysis and reporting.

• Strong written and verbal communication, presentation, stakeholder-management, and facilitation skills, with the ability to refine team output and communicate technical concepts clearly.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop teams, collaborate across disciplines, solve complex business challenges, maintain high quality standards, and manage competing priorities.

• Breadth across Search specializations, including SEO/SEM integration and measurement; knowledge of social search optimization (such as YouTube SEO), data visualization, and automation is valuable.

• Ability to identify new strategic and process opportunities and contribute to client growth discussions, pitches, and new service development.

Toronto: $100,000-$130,000

To the extent permissible by local law, Omnicom’s policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless additional in-office days are directed by their agency or manager.

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