| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Marketing |
| Level | Manager |
| Reports to | Head of Digital Marketing |
| Direct reports | Performance Marketing Specialist, Performance Marketing Executive, Affiliate Marketing Executive |
| Experience | 5 to 8 years in performance marketing, including 2 years managing large monthly budgets and a team |
Performance Marketing Manager job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Performance Marketing Manager
Department: Marketing
Reports to: Head of Digital Marketing
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Performance Marketing Manager runs paid acquisition: the money a company spends on Google, Meta, YouTube, programmatic, marketplaces and affiliates to win customers at a known cost. They set channel budgets and bid strategies, plan creative tests, own conversion tracking, and answer for customer acquisition cost and return on ad spend. The role is central in e-commerce, D2C, fintech, edtech, real estate and app businesses, and leads the specialists and executives who run campaigns day to day.
Key responsibilities
- Set monthly budgets, targets and cost ceilings for each paid channel from the business's acquisition and revenue goals.
- Decide account structures, bidding strategies and audience plans across Google, Meta, YouTube, programmatic and marketplace ads.
- Plan a creative testing calendar with the design and content teams, and retire ads as soon as their performance fatigues.
- Own conversion tracking with the tech team, including pixels, server-side events, app attribution and offline conversion uploads.
- Review spend, cost per acquisition and return on ad spend daily, and approve budget shifts between campaigns and channels.
- Run incrementality and holdout tests to check which channels bring customers who would not have come anyway.
- Work with product and CRM teams on landing pages, offers and first-order journeys that lift conversion from paid traffic.
- Manage platform representatives, agencies and affiliate networks, and negotiate commercial terms where possible.
- Report weekly and monthly on acquisition cost, payback, cohort quality and next steps to the head of digital marketing.
- Coach specialists and executives on bidding, analysis and creative testing, and review their account changes.
Requirements
- Graduate degree in any discipline, with engineering, commerce or an MBA common
- Google Ads Search and Display certifications
- Meta Certified Media Buying Professional is an advantage
- 5 to 8 years in performance marketing, including 2 years managing large monthly budgets and a team
KRAs and KPIs for a Performance Marketing Manager
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Acquisition cost | Blended customer acquisition cost within the monthly ceiling for each business line |
| Return on ad spend | Return on ad spend at or above the target set for each channel |
| Acquisition volume | New customers or qualified leads from paid channels at or above the monthly target |
| Budget pacing | Monthly paid spend within 5 percent of plan across all platforms |
| Creative testing | At least 10 new creatives tested each month, with the winners documented |
| Tracking reliability | Paid conversions matching backend orders or CRM leads within 10 percent every month |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, Google Analytics 4, AppsFlyer or Adjust, Google Tag Manager, Marketplace ad consoles, Looker Studio or Power BI.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Head of Digital Marketing, Head of Growth, Head of E-commerce
Interview questions for a Performance Marketing Manager
- Our cost per acquisition on Meta has risen steadily for three weeks. How would you diagnose it?
- How do you decide how much budget a new channel should get for a test?
- How would you check whether branded search is actually bringing new customers?
- Walk me through your creative testing process. How do you decide a winner?
- Ad platform conversions dropped after a privacy change but orders did not. How do you report performance now?
- You inherit a badly structured ad account. What do you change in the first week?
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What does a performance marketing manager do?
A performance marketing manager runs paid campaigns that bring customers or leads at a known cost. They set channel budgets and bidding strategies, plan creative tests, own conversion tracking, review acquisition cost and return on ad spend every day and lead the specialists who manage the ad accounts.
What is the difference between performance marketing and digital marketing?
Digital marketing covers every online channel, including SEO, social media, content, email and paid ads. Performance marketing is the paid part, where spend is tied to a measurable result such as a click, lead, install or sale, and budgets move quickly toward whatever performs.
What is ROAS in performance marketing?
ROAS stands for return on ad spend. It is revenue from ads divided by ad spend, so ₹4 of revenue for every ₹1 spent is a ROAS of 4. Performance marketing managers set ROAS targets by channel but also check margins, because a high ROAS on low-margin products can still lose money.