We pulled the live market on the senior search roles you have open and translated them into money and risk: what they should pay, what the open seats are costing, and where the talent market is heading.
We already partner with your Brainlabs Argentina team. This report is for the US side.
Sector: High-performance media agency
Team: 1,000+ staff, PE-backed
Region: New York / Remote-US
Report date: 18 June 2026
Live market band, Director-level search roles
$138kto$221k
Director SEO and Paid Search comp has moved up sharply. An offer priced below this band stalls, and the top 1% never engages.
Built from public hiring data, no access to your systems needed
Comp from SalaryGuide: 24k+ salaries, 90k+ companies
95% of roles filled within 25 days, vs a 55 to 75 day norm
Comp & market reality
Live market
Benchmark bands for your open senior search roles, US market, from SalaryGuide. Low gets replies, mid is competitive, top is the premium that pulls the best off a role they already hold.
Role
Market low
Market mid
Top 1% pull
Director, SEOSenior, client-facing, remote-US
$148klow
$182kcompetitive
$221kpremium
Director, Paid SearchPerformance media, remote-US
$138klow
$168kcompetitive
$205kpremium
Senior SEO ManagerMid-senior, account-leading
$108klow
$132kcompetitive
$158kpremium
Your live posting for Director, Paid Search lists $125k to $195k, which tops out below the market premium. Indicative bands for illustration, confirmed against your exact roles on the call.
What the open seats are costing
Estimate
You have 15+ search roles open at once. Here is the cost of one senior seat sitting empty, benchmarked for an agency your size and confirmed on the call.
30 days open
Lost output on the account book that seat carries, spread across an already stretched team.
$18,000est / mo
60 days open
The industry norm just to fill. Two months of slower delivery and mounting account pressure per role.
$36,000est
Mis-hire scenario
A senior, client-facing search hire who looks right on paper but underperforms: 3 to 9 months salary plus lost accounts.
$45k–$165kat risk
Risk & AI trend
2026
GEO and AI-search are rewriting the role. A pure-SEO senior from two years ago is now a mid; the market wants AI-native operators who still have the SEO fundamentals.
The senior pool is shrinking relative to demand. The best operators are not on job boards, which is why postings stall.
Comp is climbing ~18% year on year at director level. Offers built on last year's band quietly get ignored.
Your Greenhouse funnel is active and PE-backed after the Exverus acquisition, a serious, funded hiring motion stretching the internal team across 15+ open roles.
Case study · Hennessey Digital
"Search For Hire transformed our hiring, letting us recruit the top 1% of talent in the space." We placed a senior, client-facing SEO lead on a $200k+ monthly book, fully remote across the US, on day 25.
257
candidates assessed
Day 25
brief to accepted offer
70%
submit-to-interview vs 20-30%
JP
Josh PeacockFounder, Search For Hire
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A 30-minute call where we translate this report into money and risk for Brainlabs, and sketch a 90-day hiring plan for the role. One agenda.
Our promise: we will find at least $25,000 of avoidable cost or risk in your search hiring over the next 12 months, or we build your full Golden Recruitment Blueprint (avatar, EVP, outcome scorecard, 90-day roadmap) for one role free, the pack we normally only create for paying clients.
Search For Hire · the headhunting agency for SEO & Performance Marketing teams. An AI-assisted analysis from public hiring data and SalaryGuide market benchmarks. All figures are estimates, confirmed on the call. Prepared for the named recipient only.
