Organic search expertise is the latest in-demand skillset among ad agencies. Media agencies are competing with brands and each other to fill senior roles intended to burnish their capabilities in search engine optimization, AI discoverability and organic search.
Digiday identified eight agencies, including both indie and holding company shops, currently advertising for director, assistant director or manager-level organic search positions.
“It’s a product of the buzz and emphasis on AI and SEO,” said Adam Edwards, chief product officer at Brainlabs. “Every brand wants to better understand how they get themselves mentioned and cited on ChatGPT and on Gemini.”
Kinesso, Digitas, Wpromote, Kepler, Tinuiti, Critical Mass and Mindgruve were among other agencies with open roles. Salaries advertised spanned a range of $100,000-$150,000, while one managing director position posted by Brainlabs offered $260,000 a year.
It’s a sharp illustration of how seriously agencies and brands now treat this skillset. Several brands have moved to bring organic search teams in-house in recent months, as they look for ways to adapt to changing user search behavior.
Media agency Wpromote, for example, is currently recruiting for a senior director with responsibility for SEO and content to lead a bespoke team built for an unnamed airline client.
“Every single client is interested in how organic discoverability on AI and LLMs works, and what the way for their brand to get in is,” said vp of organic growth, Megan Shriver.
Whoever fills the role will report to Rachel Klein, Wpromote’s svp of earned and owned media. The agency already employs 70 people within its SEO and organic search team, as well as a specialist team spanning organic, paid and AI search briefs – but Shriver said it had added three staffers in the last year as client interest in the area increased.
“We’re actively interviewing for two more that are junior SEO manager roles,” she said.
Although SEO is a two decade-old practice, agencies aren’t just looking for experienced search execs. They’re screening for experience with AI search tools like Profound and Scrunch and for candidates as capable with LLM tools as they are regarding website schema.
“I’m looking for somebody that’s in the platforms and doing their own testing,” said Shriver. Experience with branded content production and PR, she added, was also considered a plus.
Edwards said that Brainlabs had hired at least 10 staffers to its existing SEO team, which employs 120 people. For its open MD role, he said the company was looking for a “unicorn” candidate with leadership experience and expertise with contemporary search solutions.
Indie media agency Tinuiti – which also just hired Abby Klaassen to take over as CEO from Zach Morrison – has been hiring to build out a combined AI discoverability and SEO team since last summer, when it hired a senior director of AI SEO innovation. The company is currently hiring for a director of SEO, plus two other positions.
Simon Poulton, evp of innovation at Tinuiti, said the company hoped to find candidates with expertise “across measurement, engineering and problem solving capabilities.” The agency would “almost certainly” add further roles this year, he added. “The client interest and engagement that we have around our program has been phenomenal.”
Grace Mante, associate vice president of Kepler’s Search Center of Excellence, said her agency’s push to hire more SEO talent would continue beyond the associate director position it’s currently working to fill.
“We are anticipating further growth in Kepler’s [search] practice as we prioritize thought leadership and client support during such a transformational time in search and related moments of discovery,” she said in an email.
Critical Mass was also recruiting for SEO expertise – this time for a vp of search, with special attention given to SEO and GEO. Grant Owens, chief strategy officer, told Digiday it was provoked by a rise in demand for combined paid and organic search expertise.
“We’re now getting many more briefs that are combining paid, SEO, and AEO together,” he said. Tinuiti’s Poulton concurred, and added that combined search briefs were “the only way that we’re really talking about [search] right now.”
For Shriver, hiring senior SEO talent is a key part of Wpromote’s efforts to stay ahead of the market. “This is the biggest thing that’s happened to SEO, ever,” she said. “If you’re not doing AI search, you’re not going where SEO is going.”