{"id":2762158,"url":"https://alion.io/job/rakuten-kobo-manager-sem","title":"Manager, SEM","company":{"id":38977,"name":"Rakuten Kobo","domain":"kobo.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/rakuten-kobo","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Marketing","role_family":"Marketing","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Toronto, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":77837,"max":122548,"currency":"CAD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":86677},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"GA4","optional":false},{"name":"Google Ads","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-15T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-18T06:03:16Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"Job Description:\nHere at Rakuten Kobo Inc. we offer a casual working start-up environment and a group of friendly and talented individuals. Our employees rank us highly in terms of commitment to work/life balance. We realize that for our people to be innovative, creative and passionate they need to feel valued and supported.\nIf you’re looking for a company that inspires passion, personal, and professional growth - join Kobo and come help us on our mission of making reading lives better.\nThe Role:\nWe’re looking for an experienced SEM Manager to help lead the day-to-day management and optimization of our global paid search program across Devices, Kobo Plus and Content.\nThis is a hands-on performance marketing role for someone who can step in quickly, operate independently and make an immediate impact. You’ll own campaign execution and optimization, manage investment across multiple markets, and continuously improve performance through smarter bidding, targeting, testing and budget allocation.\nYou’ll work closely with Media, eCommerce, SEO, Analytics, Creative and agency/platform partners to ensure paid search efficiently captures demand and delivers against clear commercial outcomes.\nWhat You’ll Do\nOwn day-to-day management and optimization of Kobo’s global paid search campaigns across Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising.\nManage SEM across multiple lines of business, including Devices, Kobo Plus subscriptions and digital Content.\nManage budgets and pacing across markets, products and campaigns, proactively reallocating investment based on performance.\nOptimize against key metrics including CPA/CAC, ROAS, revenue, conversion and contribution margin.\nDevelop and optimize campaign structures, bidding strategies, keywords, audiences, match types and negative keyword strategies.\nManage Search, Shopping/PMax and other relevant paid search campaign formats.\nBuild and launch campaigns supporting promotions, product priorities and key commercial periods.\nLead ongoing testing across ad copy, creative, audiences, bidding approaches and landing pages.\nMonitor performance closely, quickly identify issues or opportunities, and take action without requiring significant oversight.\nPartner with SEO to understand paid and organic search performance together and identify where paid investment is most incremental.\nProvide clear, concise reporting on performance, actions taken, risks and recommended next steps.\nWhat You Bring\n4-6+ years of hands-on SEM / paid search experience, ideally within ecommerce, subscription or consumer digital businesses.\nDeep expertise in Google Ads, including Search, Shopping/PMax, automated bidding and audience strategies.\nExperience managing meaningful paid search budgets across multiple products, markets or geographies.\nStrong understanding of performance marketing economics, including CPA, CAC, ROAS, LTV and contribution margin.\nStrong analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to quickly diagnose performance changes and translate data into action.\nExperience with GA4, conversion tracking, attribution and performance reporting.\nUnderstanding of SEO and the relationship between paid and organic search.\nComfortable working both strategically and directly in-platform - this is not an agency-management or strategy-only role.\nAble to get up to speed quickly, work independently and deliver with limited onboarding.\nWhat Success Looks Like\nYou’ll quickly become a trusted extension of the team, ensuring our paid search program remains well-managed, efficient and commercially disciplined. You’ll bring additional capacity where we need it most, while identifying opportunities to improve CPA, profitability and overall search performance.\nThe Perks:\nFlexible hours and hybrid remote working environment\nSubsidized in-office lunches\nFour extended long weekends in the summer\nFull benefits starting from your first day\nPaid Volunteer days, unlimited sick days, and 3% RRSP matching\nWork From Anywhere Program for up to 3 months (90 days)\nLifestyle spending account\nTalent and development training budget\nFree Kobo device + free weekly e-book or audiobook\nWeekly Kobo Spark sessions\nMaternity/paternity leave top up\nDog friendly office\nAbout Rakuten Kobo Inc.\nRakuten Kobo Inc. is the world’s digital bookseller created by and for booklovers. Owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten Group, Inc. and headquartered in Toronto, Rakuten Kobo’s millions of worldwide users can read anytime, anywhere, and on any device. With a mission to make reading lives better for all, Rakuten Kobo connects readers to stories using thoughtful and personalized curation of eBooks and audiobooks, and the best dedicated eReaders and apps for reading. With the singular focus of making reading lives the best they can be, Kobo’s open platform allows people to fit reading into more moments in their busy lives. To learn more about Rakuten Kobo, visit www.kobo.com.\nRakuten Kobo Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially.\nRakuten Kobo would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role however only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.\n#RKIND\nFive Principles for Success\nOur worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.\nAlways improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen\nPassionately Professiona l - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best\nHypothesize - Practice - Validate - Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory\nMaximize Customer Satisfaction - The greatest satisfaction for our teams is seeing their customers smile\nSpeed!! Speed!! Speed!! - Always be conscious of time - take charge, set clear goals, and engage your team\nRakuten is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially.\nAs part of our Rakuten interview process, we encourage applicants to use their own words, rather than AI-generated content. Tell us your story in a way that's personal and authentic.\nRakuten would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role however only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.\nBeware of fraudulent job offers claiming to be from Rakuten. Rakuten does not send unsolicited job offers or request money during the recruitment process. Learn more: https://rakutenemploymentalert.com/\nAt the time of posting, Rakuten expects the Compensation (base salary + discretionary bonus) for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for stock options, health, vision, dental insurance, RRSP matching, Personal Time Off (PTO), Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.\nCAD $77,837.00 - 122,548.53 annually","description_format":"text","description_chars":7438,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":4,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Pet friendly","Stock options"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Canada","iso":"CA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms","Books"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-17T03:00:01Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":86677,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/rakuten-kobo-manager-sem","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/rakuten-kobo-manager-sem.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-18T10:01:49Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"assistant_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1721,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":38977},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=38977"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Frakuten-kobo-manager-sem"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Frakuten-kobo-manager-sem"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Frakuten-kobo-manager-sem"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/rakuten-kobo-manager-sem\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Frakuten-kobo-manager-sem"}]}