Performance Marketing Ecommerce (time sheeting)

# Senior Google Ads, Microsoft Ads & SEO Performance Marketing Expert We are an established ecommerce business operating across Australia and the United States and are looking for **genuinely experienced performance marketing specialists** to work directly with our internal ecommerce team. We are open to: * **One senior expert** capable of overseeing PPC + SEO; * **Two specialists** — one focused on Google/Microsoft Ads and one focused on SEO; or * A small specialist team where the actual people applying are the people undertaking the work. **We are not looking for an agency sales representative who wins the account and then hands the work to junior staff.** ## What We Need ### PPC / Performance Marketing You should have extensive hands-on experience with: * Google Ads * Google Shopping / Performance Max * Microsoft Ads / Bing * Google Merchant Center * GA4 * Google Tag Manager * Ecommerce conversion tracking * Enhanced conversions * Attribution and tracking troubleshooting * Product feeds and feed optimisation * Search campaigns * Shopping campaigns * Remarketing * Landing-page/CRO recommendations * Performance reporting based on commercial outcomes rather than vanity metrics We need someone capable of identifying not only **what happened**, but **why it happened and what should be changed next**. Our internal team can implement website and Shopify changes, so we need an expert who can diagnose issues, recommend improvements and, where appropriate, work collaboratively with developers and ecommerce staff. ### SEO The SEO specialist should have strong hands-on experience across: * Ecommerce SEO * Shopify SEO * Technical SEO * On-page optimisation * Internal linking * Keyword mapping * Category/collection architecture * Product-page SEO * Content briefs * Schema/structured data * Google Search Console * Indexation and crawl issues * Cannibalisation * CTR optimisation * Competitor analysis * Link/profile assessment * SEO reporting tied to rankings, traffic and commercial outcomes We do **not** want someone producing generic monthly SEO reports while undertaking very little implementation. We expect recommendations to translate into actual work. ## How We Work — Important This engagement will operate through **Upwork hourly billing with the Upwork timer/work diary enabled**. We are specifically moving away from arrangements involving: * Large unexplained retainers; * Blanket monthly fees where the work undertaken is unclear; * Retrospective or unsubstantiated timesheets; * Account management charges without meaningful work; * Work being quietly outsourced or handed to junior staff. We are happy to pay experienced people appropriately. What we require in return is **transparency and accountability**. If 3.2 hours are spent investigating a tracking issue, we expect to see approximately 3.2 hours recorded against that work. We would much rather have an excellent specialist complete something in four hours than pay an agency for twenty hours of account-management overhead. ## Who We Are Looking For We particularly want people who: * Have managed meaningful ecommerce advertising budgets; * Can demonstrate measurable performance improvements; * Understand the interaction between PPC, SEO, CRO, feeds and ecommerce; * Are comfortable challenging existing campaigns rather than simply maintaining them; * Can explain complex issues clearly; * Document what they change; * Are proactive when they identify a problem; * Can work directly with our internal ecommerce and development team; * Take responsibility for their own work. If you are applying as part of an agency, **tell us exactly who will personally work on our account and their individual experience**. Please do not apply using the experience of the agency founder if a junior employee will actually undertake the work. --- APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS Please start your proposal with: **DP PERFORMANCE 26** Do not put anything before those words. Applications that do not follow this instruction may not be reviewed. Then answer the following questions. ### 1. Which role are you applying for? State one: **A — PPC / Google & Microsoft Ads** **B — SEO** **C — Both PPC + SEO** If applying as a team, tell us exactly who will undertake each component. 2. What has materially changed? Identify **three separate changes during approximately the past 12 months that you believe have materially changed how an ecommerce business should approach Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, tracking, Merchant Center or SEO.** For each one explain: * What changed; * Why you think it matters; * One thing you actually changed in a client account because of it. Generic answers such as "AI is becoming more important" will not score highly. 3. Tell us about something that went wrong. Describe **one ecommerce account you personally managed where performance deteriorated significantly.** Tell us: * What you initially thought was causing it; * What the real cause turned out to be; * How you discovered it; * What you changed; * What happened afterwards. We are deliberately more interested in your diagnostic process than hearing another success story. 4. PPC diagnostic test Imagine this scenario: Google Ads reports substantially more conversions and revenue than GA4 is showing as Paid Search revenue. At the same time, overall Shopify revenue appears normal. **What are the first five things you personally investigate, and in what order?** Do not provide a textbook list. Explain briefly why you would investigate them in that sequence. 5. Merchant Center / Shopping Give us an example of a Merchant Center or product-feed problem you have personally discovered that was hurting advertising performance **without the products necessarily being completely disapproved**. How did you detect it? 6. SEO diagnostic test An ecommerce collection page has: * strong impressions; * relatively poor CTR; * rankings predominantly between positions 4–12; * several related product and information pages competing for similar terms. You have approximately **five hours available during the first month** to improve the situation. Tell us what you would actually do during those five hours and approximately how you would allocate the time. 7. Your actual working process At the end of a normal two-hour optimisation session on our account, what would we receive from you? For example: * Changes made; * Findings; * Work diary; * Notes; * Recommendations; * Testing plan. Tell us how you personally document your work. 8. Evidence Please provide **two examples of ecommerce accounts you personally worked on**. Where confidentiality permits, include: * Approximate monthly ad spend or organic traffic; * Your exact role; * Starting performance; * Changes you personally made; * Result; * How long you worked on the account. Redacted screenshots are welcome. Will this business give a review? 9. Availability and rate Please provide: * Your hourly rate; * Hours available per week; * Your timezone; * Whether you personally undertake all work; * Whether you are currently available to start; * Whether you would be comfortable working entirely through the Upwork hourly timer. 10. Current Client Load and Capacity We are specifically looking for someone who will have enough capacity to properly understand and manage our accounts rather than adding us to a very large portfolio of clients. Please tell us: How many active clients/accounts are you personally responsible for at the moment? How many Google Ads accounts do you personally manage? How many SEO clients do you personally manage? Approximately how many hours per week are already committed to those clients? What is the maximum number of clients you normally manage at one time? If we engaged you for 10–20 hours per week, how would you ensure that time was genuinely available? Do you have any clients that would create a direct competitive conflict with an artificial plants, landscaping, home décor or ecommerce business? Please answer with actual numbers rather than saying that you have "sufficient availability." We are not necessarily looking for someone with the fewest clients. However, we do want to understand how much attention our account would realistically receive and whether the person applying is already spread across a very large number of accounts. --- # ONE FINAL QUESTION Please answer this **without using ChatGPT or another AI writing tool**: **Think of the last ecommerce account you personally opened inside Google Ads, Merchant Center, GA4 or Search Console. What was one unusual, annoying or unexpected thing you noticed in that specific account that probably wouldn't appear in an audit checklist? What did you do about it?** There is no "correct" answer. We are interested in the kind of small detail that someone who spends their working day inside real accounts notices. --- ## Engagement We anticipate starting with an audit and practical optimisation work before establishing an ongoing weekly workload. This is potentially a long-term engagement across multiple ecommerce websites for the right person or team. We are happy to work with specialists internationally. **Expertise, commercial judgement, communication and accountability are substantially more important to us than location.** We are not searching for the cheapest freelancer. We are searching for someone who is **very good at what they do, works efficiently and can demonstrate the value of the hours we are paying for.**