Senior Manager - Performance Marketing

THE CANDIDATE PERSONA:
We are not looking for a marketing manager. We are looking for a performance marketing IC who has operated at serious scale and wants to own an entire acquisition engine.
The ideal candidate is currently a senior performance marketer or growth lead at a high-growth consumer app. They spend their days inside Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads - building campaigns, testing audiences, reading creative performance data, and making bid decisions. They may manage 1-2 people but their identity is as a practitioner, not a people manager.
They are drawn to early-stage companies where ownership is real, not theoretical.
They understand the Indian consumer app landscape - the auction dynamics, the creative fatigue cycles, the Tier 2/3 acquisition challenges. They have personally managed meaningful monthly budgets and know the difference between spending money and spending money efficiently.
WHAT THIS ROLE OWNS:
- Full P&L ownership of paid acquisition across Meta and Google. Personal accountability for CAC, not shared with an agency or a team.
- Agency-to-in-house transition: Complete takeover of campaigns from the current agency partner within 90 days. No phased handoff - a full takeover.
- Hands-on campaign execution: This person builds campaigns, sets up audiences, manages bids, and reads the data themselves. Day one. They can hire support later, but they must be able to run the engine solo.

- Creative partnership: Works closely with the Creative Strategist to test 50+ creative variants per week. Translates performance data into creative briefs and hypotheses.
- Attribution and measurement: Builds the attribution infrastructure and incrementality testing framework. Ensures every rupee of spend is traceable.
- Team building: Hires 1-2 team members once the function is stable - but this is a do-first, delegate-later role.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE:
- Month 3: Majority of budget running in-house. CAC trending meaningfully downward. Clear channel attribution in place.
- Month 6: 100% in-house. Significant CAC improvement achieved. Incrementality testing running. First team hire onboarded.
- Month 12: Predictable, scalable acquisition engine. Healthy LTV:CAC ratios. The paid acquisition function is a competitive advantage.
NON-NEGOTIABLE REQUIREMENTS:
- These are hard filters. Candidates who do not meet all of these should not be submitted.
- 5-7 years of performance marketing experience with personal, hands-on campaign management inside Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads.
- In-house experience (not agency-side). Must have sat inside a product company and owned CAC directly.
- Managed a meaningful monthly acquisition budget with personal accountability for unit economics.
- Consumer app experience - edtech, fintech, consumer social, D2C apps. Must understand mobile user acquisition, not just web.
- Demonstrable CAC improvement track record with specific numbers they can walk through.
- Available to join within 30 days. This is a high-priority hire.
PREFERRED BUT NOT REQUIRED
- Experience with mobile attribution platforms (AppsFlyer, Branch, Adjust).
- SQL proficiency for ad-hoc funnel and cohort analysis.
- Experience building a small performance marketing team (1-3 people).
- Familiarity with Tier 2/3 India acquisition dynamics and vernacular user behaviour.