Search Director

Adelphi Group; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Global maternity and parental leave

Competitive benefits packages

Vacation, compassionate leave, sick/pn

Online services for families

Early Dismissal Fridays

Job summary

Critical Mass in New York is seeking a Director of Search to define and lead the organic and AI-search vision for Capital One. You will own the strategy across SEO, GEO, and AEO, align with business priorities, and drive prioritized roadmaps across technical, content, brand, and experience dimensions.

You will lead audits, optimize across content and digital experiences, and connect organic search insights with paid media.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of SEO/search experience, including leadership
• Hands-on expertise across technical SEO, content strategy, and measurement
• Experience developing GEO/AEO and AI-search strategies and related tools
• Proven track record translating data into roadmaps and investment decisions
• Experience in a large enterprise, preferably in financial services or regulated industry
• Strong communication, leadership, and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Familiarity with enterprise SEO tools and analytics platforms
• Ability to influence without direct ownership across multiple teams

Responsibilities

• Own the vision, roadmap, and prioritized recommendations for SEO, GEO, and AEO
• Lead audits and translate findings into actionable optimization steps
• Guide integration of organic/AI-search insights with paid search and media plans
• Collaborate with client and agency teams to implement instead of operating in isolation
• Develop testing and learning roadmaps for content, technical, and AI-search hypotheses
• Partner with stakeholders to ensure governance and actionable recommendations
• Lead a high-performing Search team and deliver executive-ready performance updates
• Represent Critical Mass as a senior search thought leader with Capital One

Skills

SEO/Search

Team Leadership

Technical SEO

Content Strategy

Analytics

Paid/SEM knowledge

Tools

BrightEdge

Ahrefs

Semrush

Screaming Frog

Botify

Adobe Analytics

GA4

Tableau

Looker

Job description

Agency:

Critical Mass

Job Function:

Strategy and Planning

Job Subfunction:

Account Planning and Brand Planning

Job Description:

In this role, you’lldefine and lead the organic and AI-search vision for Capital One, helping the brand earn visibility wherever consumers search, discover, compare, and make financial decisions.

As Director of Search, you are both a strategic leader and a hands‑on innovator - able to translate a rapidly evolving search landscape into practical, measurable opportunities across traditional SEO, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), AI Overviews, and large language model experiences. You will lead an integrated SEO/GEO strategy informed by search behavior, AI trends, competitive intelligence, and Capital One business priorities, turning that strategy into prioritized roadmaps across technical, content, brand, and experience considerations.

This role is embedded within Critical Mass’s broader Capital One performance program. You will connect organic and AI-search strategy to paid search, media planning, measurement, content, audience intelligence, and cross-agency work - while partnering closely with Capital One teams to guide implementation, measure performance, and identify where search insights should influence future investment.

You Will

• Own the vision, strategic roadmap, and prioritized recommendations for Capital One SEO, GEO, and AEO across priority Retail Consumer Bank experiences

• Develop and continuously evolve an integrated SEO/GEO strategy informed by consumer search behavior, AI-search trends, competitive intelligence, businessobjectives, and the broader performance marketing plan

• Lead technical, content, and AI-search audits, translating findings into clear optimization recommendations, sequencing, dependencies, and expected business impact

• Guide ongoing optimization across priority Capital One content and digital experiences, partnering with client and agency teams to support implementation rather thanoperatingas an isolated SEO workstream

• Serve as the senior Search lead within the Capital One account leadership team, bringing a search-first perspective to strategy, planning, innovation, and investment decisions

• Connect organic search and GEO/AEO insights with paid search - including emerging LLM-search opportunities - to improve coverage, learning, efficiency, and customer journey visibility

• Define the role of search across the integrated performance ecosystem, connecting search intelligence with media, audience, creative, content, measurement, and experience teams

• Build a performance measurement approach for organic and AI-search visibility, defining practical KPIs, baselines, benchmarks, health ranges, and reporting that ties search outcomes to Capital One business objectives

• Monitor traditional search, AI Overviews, LLMs, answer engines, and emerging search behaviors toidentifymaterial shifts, risks, and opportunities for Capital One

• Deliver executive-ready performance reporting and strategic updates that turn search and LLM data into clear recommendations and inform ongoing investment opportunities

• Develop testing and learning roadmaps for search, including content, technical, experience, and AI-search hypotheses; evaluate results and translate learnings into scaled recommendations

• Partner with Capital One brand, product, technology, analytics, legal/compliance, and marketing stakeholders to ensure recommendations are actionable within enterprise and governance requirements

• Collaborate seamlessly with Critical Mass media, strategy, analytics, creative, PMO, and other agency/consulting partners, minimizing handoffs and creating a connected end-to-end search approach

• Lead competitive and category analysis across both traditional SERPs and AI/LLM environments,identifyingwhere competitors are earning visibility, citations, authority, and consumer preference

• Define search-driven requirements for technical SEO, structured data, information architecture, internal linking, content quality, accessibility, indexability, page experience, entity signals, and AI-citation readiness

• Translate customer intent and search demand into content and experience opportunities that support consumer needs across discovery, consideration, and decision journeys

• Establish clear processes, quality standards, documentation, and governance for Search deliverables so recommendations are consistent, traceable, and easy for client teams to operationalize

• Lead, coach, and grow a high-performing Search team, providing critical review andmaintaininga consistently high bar for strategy, analysis, storytelling, and client delivery

• Represent Critical Mass as a senior search thought leader with Capital One, bringing forward emerging capabilities, platform changes, AI-search implications, and future-forward opportunities

You Have

• 10+ years of SEO/search experience, including 3+ years leading high-performing teams and senior client relationships

• Deep, hands-onexpertiseacross technical SEO, content strategy, organic search measurement, and enterprise-scale SEO programs

• Demonstrated experience developing and executing GEO/AEO and AI-search strategies across AI Overviews and LLM ecosystems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, or comparable platforms

• A track recordof translating search and AI visibility data into measurable business outcomes, prioritized roadmaps, and investment recommendations

• Experienceoperatingwithin a large, complex enterprise; financial services, banking, or another highly regulated category is strongly preferred

• Strong understanding of the factors that influence organic and AI-search visibility across technical, content, brand/entity authority, structured data, and digital experience considerations

• Experience conducting technical, content, competitive, and AI-search audits and turning findings into actionable recommendations that client teams can implement

• Excellent written and verbal communication, with executive-level presentation, data storytelling, and facilitation skills

• Strong organizational and project leadership skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, stakeholders, dependencies, and deadlines in a highly matrixed environment

• Experience defining and documenting operating processes, best practices, QA standards, and governance to improve implementation quality and consistency

• Proficiencywith enterprise SEO and research tools such as BrightEdge,Ahrefs,Semrush, Screaming Frog,Botify, or comparable platforms

• Proficiencywith analytics and visualization tools such as Adobe Analytics, Google Search Console, GA4, Tableau, Looker, Datorama, or comparable platforms

• Experience with GEO/AI-search measurement and monitoring tools such as Profound, BrightEdge AI Catalyst, Bluefish, or comparable platforms

• Strong analytical skills and comfort working with large datasets toidentifypatterns, diagnose performance, and prioritize opportunities

• Working knowledge of paid search/SEM and the ability to develop integrated organic/paid search strategies and workflows, including emerging LLM-search considerations

• Experience partnering with product, engineering, content, UX, brand, analytics, media, and compliance teams to influence implementation without relying on direct ownership

• A proactive, consultative leadership style with the judgment to distinguish between immediate optimization opportunities and longer-term strategic bets

• Experience testing and applying AI tools to research, analysis, content, optimization, and Search workflows withappropriate qualityand governance controls

• Ability to work from either the Chicago or New York office and travel consistently to New York for client meetings, strategic planning, presentations, and key working sessions

What We Offer:

• Global maternity and parental leave

• Competitive benefits packages

• Vacation, compassionate leave,sick/personaldays

• Access to online services for families and new parents

• Early DismissalFriday’s(off at 3:00 PM local time every Friday)

• 12 affinity groups

• Internal learning and development programs

• Enterprise-wide employee discounts

Our new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success. In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 3 days a week.__

New York: $120,000-$150,000

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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