Principal Analyst, Paid Search Analytics

Why Join GEICO? At GEICO, we offer a rewarding career where your ambitions are met with endless possibilities. Every day we honor our iconic brand by offering quality coverage to millions of customers and being there when they need us most. We thrive on relentless innovation to exceed our customers' expectations while making a real impact on local communities nationwide. Founded in 1936, GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies and one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. When you join our company, we want you to feel valued, supported, and proud to work here. That's why we offer the GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers. Principal Analyst, Paid Search Analytics Team: Marketing Analytics Reports To: Director, Performance Analytics Role Summary GEICO is one of the most recognized brands in American insurance, and search is where customers who are ready to shop find us. As Principal Analyst, Paid Search Analytics, you will be the analytics expert behind GEICO’s paid search investment across Google, Microsoft, and emerging search platforms. You will measure what search truly drives and turn the results into weekly optimization decisions for the Search and Performance Marketing teams. You will report to the Director, Performance Analytics, and partner closely with Performance Marketing, SEO/AEO analytics, vertical search and aggregator analytics, Finance, and our agency partners. This is a hands-on role. The analyst spends most of their time in the data: building and reading tests, monitoring performance, modeling bids and budgets, and turning the results into recommendations. They also advise senior leaders and set the standard for how search is measured. You will thrive here if you like building as much as leading. Search analytics is at the start of its build, so you will shape the scorecard, the testing approach, and the standard the team holds itself to. The Problems You’ll Solve • Incrementality in search. Separating demand GEICO created from demand it would have captured anyway, especially on branded terms, with holdouts, geo tests, and experimental methods. • Attribution that holds up. A consistent view of search performance that reconciles platform data, first-party data, and marketing mix models. • Anomaly detection. Spotting a broken campaign, a shifting auction, or a tracking problem in real-time. • Bidding and budget efficiency. Evaluating bid strategies, target settings, and budget pacing against cost per acquisition and ROI. • Local and competitive response. Understanding how search performs by market and how competitor moves change the auction. What Success Looks Like in Your First Year • A standard paid search scorecard in use, covering spend, pacing, efficiency, and quality of volume • Anomaly alerts that surface issues in real-time, and a weekly optimization rhythm Performance Marketing relies on • A tested view of branded and non-branded incrementality that informs budget decisions • One agreed attribution approach for search, shared by Marketing, Finance, and agency partners • Recurring search reporting automated with Business Intelligence Key Responsibilities • Serve as the analytics thought partner to Search and Performance Marketing leaders. Anticipate what they need and bring insight before being asked. • Own the measurement strategy for paid search, including the performance scorecard, KPI definitions, and standards for how incremental impact on inquiries, new business, and cost per acquisition is measured. • Design, run, and read incrementality and test-and-control studies, including holdouts, geo experiments, and quasi-experimental methods on observational data. Be clear about each method’s limits. • Monitor performance daily and weekly. Build anomaly detection and alerting, investigate changes in volume or cost, and recommend action quickly. • Analyze keywords, queries, audiences, bid strategies, and budget allocation across Google, Microsoft, and other search platforms. Recommend changes and measure the results. • Lead forecasting and pacing for search spend and volume, and feed the results into the monthly reforecast with Marketing Investment Analytics. • Reconcile search performance across platform reporting, first-party data, and marketing mix model outputs, and align on one attribution approach with partners. • Work with SEO/AEO, vertical search and aggregator, and Mid/Low Non-Search analytics so that Marketing sees a consistent view across all demand-capture channels. • Work with agency and measurement partners on data needs, reporting standards, and day-to-day performance questions. • Partner with Business Intelligence to automate recurring reporting. Evaluate new tools, including automation and AI, to improve speed and quality. • Present to senior marketing leadership, and defend the approach. Share unwelcome findings with clarity and diplomacy. • Understand the drivers of change over time across outcomes and communicate narrative to stakeholders Required Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Data Analytics, Data Science, Computer Science, or similar). • 7+ years of experience in marketing analytics, with deep experience in paid search or performance marketing measurement. • Recent, hands-on delivery of analysis (not oversight only), including designing and reading incrementality or test-and-control measurement. • Expert SQL skills, plus working proficiency in Python or R for analysis and workflow automation. • Hands-on knowledge of search platforms and tools such as Google Ads, Search Ads 360, and Microsoft Advertising, and of bidding and budget optimization. • Working proficiency in BI tools (Power BI strongly preferred) and the ability to adapt quickly to new tools and platforms. • Experience with forecasting, attribution, and marketing mix model outputs, and with reconciling dif