Interim PPC Manager
The role
We are a growing dental group with a large portfolio of practices across the UK. Paid search is a primary driver of new patient acquisition across our estate, and we are investing in stronger in-house oversight to sharpen performance, improve commercial accountability and get more from our agency partnerships.
We are looking for an experienced interim PPC Manager to take ownership of our paid search activity and lead our external agency relationships. This is a commercially-minded, hands-on role for someone who understands multi-account PPC at scale, knows how to connect paid media investment to real business outcomes, and can bring rigour and direction to agency delivery from day one.
The role sits within the Digital Marketing team, reports to the Digital Marketing Team Lead, and is engaged on a 12-week Fixed-Term Contract inside IR35, with a view to extend.
Key Accountabilities include:
Agency Leadership & Governance
Act as the primary day-to-day contact for all external PPC agencies, providing clear briefs, direction and performance feedback.
Define KPIs, reporting cadences and performance benchmarks for each agency relationship.
Hold agencies accountable to deliverables; challenge output quality and escalate where performance falls short of expectation.
Own the PPC retainer scope and ensure agency resource is deployed effectively against business priorities.
Lead regular agency review meetings and present findings and recommendations clearly to internal stakeholders.
Paid Search Strategy & Execution
Develop and maintain a PPC strategy that reflects the multi-account, multi-location structure of the business.
Oversee campaign structure, bidding strategy, budget allocation and audience targeting across the full account estate.
Lead local PPC activity: geo-targeting, location extensions, local intent keywords and radius-based campaign management.
Ensure campaigns are structured to capture demand across all relevant paid channels – Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and any applicable display or social paid formats.
Work collaboratively with the SEO function to align paid and organic strategies, avoid keyword cannibalisation and share audience and intent insight.
Lead Management & Conversion
Develop a strong working understanding of the lead management ecosystem across the practice portfolio – including form, phone and chat conversion sources.
Work with lead management platforms to ensure accurate attribution and tracking across all paid touchpoints.
Define and monitor conversion events at each stage of the patient enquiry journey, from ad click through to booked appointment.
Identify and act on conversion rate optimisation opportunities across landing pages, ad copy and audience targeting.
Liaise with internal teams to ensure lead volumes are matched to practice capacity and CRM workflows.
Reporting, Data & Commercial Performance
Own PPC reporting: build and maintain dashboards that give clear visibility of paid performance across the estate.
Report regularly to the Digital Marketing Team Lead and wider stakeholders, translating data into clear next best actions and forward plans.
Frame PPC metrics in commercial terms – cost per lead, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend and contribution to new patient targets.
Monitor budget pacing, identify waste and proactively recommend reallocation to maximise return.
Stay ahead of platform changes (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads), algorithm updates and competitor activity, adapting strategy accordingly.
Paid Social & Meta
Take hands-on ownership of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) paid social campaigns — this role requires direct execution capability, not just agency oversight.
Build, test and optimise Meta campaigns across prospecting and retargeting audiences, with a clear focus on driving patient enquiries and booked appointments.
Lead the development of paid social creative — briefing, building and iterating on ad creative in collaboration with the Practice Marketing Team, with an understanding of what drives performance in a healthcare and local services context.
Proactively identify opportunities to expand the role of paid social across the practice portfolio — working with the Practice Marketing Team to surface demand, build a testing roadmap and make the case for investment.
Ensure paid social activity is integrated with the broader paid media strategy — aligned on audience, messaging and conversion tracking across channels.
Stakeholder & Project Management
Manage multiple concurrent PPC workstreams across the practice portfolio, prioritising effectively under competing demands.
Take clear ownership of deliverables and follow through without requiring close supervision.
Communicate confidently with non-technical stakeholders – translating campaign data into business language that drives decisions.
Work collaboratively within the Digital Marketing team, contributing to shared goals and broader channel integration.
Maintain clear project documentation, status tracking and audit trails for all paid media activity.
Skills and Experience
Essential:
3–5 years of hands-on PPC management experience, in-house or agency-side.
Proven track record managing multi-account PPC estates at scale.
Strong experience with local PPC: geo-targeting, local intent and location-based campaign structures.
Experience in a regulated industry – healthcare sector experience particularly valued.
Solid understanding of lead management: multi-source attribution across forms, phone and chat.
Commercially driven – comfortable setting, tracking and reporting against KPIs and revenue-linked targets.
Strong reporting skills: Google Ads, GA4, Data Studio/Looker or equivalent dashboarding tools.
Able to define and communicate next best actions clearly from data – not just reporting backwards.
Experienced managing multiple projects and stakeholders concurrently, with strong ownership of deliverables.
Collaborative team player who can also work independently and at pace.
Desired:
Experience managing PPC in the dental, healthcare or wider wellness sector.
Familiarity with healthcare-specific lead management and CRM platforms (e.g. Dengro, Boxly or similar).
Experience working in a group, franchise or multi-location business model.
Hands-on Meta Ads experience (Facebook and Instagram) — campaign build, audience targeting and creative testing, not just oversight.
Experience working alongside or briefing SEO teams to align paid and organic strategy.
Comfortable presenting campaign strategy and performance to senior leadership.
Experience building or developing paid social creative — understanding of formats, copy principles and what drives engagement and conversion in a local services or healthcare context.
Experience collaborating with a marketing or content team to develop and iterate on social creative assets.
IND003
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace. We are committed to creating an environment of mutual respect and are dedicated to providing equal employment opportunities regardless of race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partner status, disability, age, or nationality.
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