Hire Performance Marketing Director — paid acquisition with P&L discipline
A Performance Marketing Director owns paid acquisition as a P&L: every dollar of ad spend accountable to CAC targets, creative testing run as a system, and scale decisions made on incrementality — not platform-reported ROAS. They manage the media buyers or agencies, set the testing agenda, and know when a channel is tapped out versus underinvested. This is the hire that turns ad spend from a gamble into a managed investment.
I'm Omer Muneer Qazi, a Dubai-based Fractional CTO & Solutions Architect with 15+ years of experience and 100+ projects delivered across 6 countries. Paid acquisition lives or dies on measurement — tracking, attribution, incrementality — which is exactly where my technical vetting matters most. For day-to-day paid operations, see head of performance marketing.
Paid spend managed like capital
Paid strategy & budget allocation
Spend allocated across Google, Meta, TikTok, and emerging channels against CAC and payback targets. Budget moves monthly on evidence, not quarterly on habit.
CAC & payback targets
Explicit unit economics per channel: what you can afford to pay, how fast it must pay back, and the kill criteria when it does not. Everyone works to the same numbers.
Creative testing system
Creative treated as the primary lever: structured testing of hooks, formats, and angles, with a pipeline that never runs dry. Winners scaled fast, losers killed fast.
Team & agency management
Media buyers managed or agencies held to account with real briefs and real targets. The director can audit an ad account and know within an hour whether the work is good.
Attribution & incrementality
Measurement beyond platform claims: blended CAC tracking, holdout tests where they matter, and MMM-lite thinking as spend grows. You will know what the ads actually caused.
Scale & efficiency playbooks
Documented playbooks for scaling winners and entering new channels: what to test first, what good looks like, when to stop. Knowledge stays in the company, not in one buyer’s head.
From ad spend to accountable growth
A structured engagement with no surprises — you’ll always know what’s happening and what’s next.
Account & tracking audit
Ad accounts torn down and rebuilt in analysis: structure, creative, tracking, attribution. The audit finds waste and mismeasurement first.
Targets & testing agenda
CAC targets set per channel, creative testing pipeline established, measurement fixed. The operating system for paid goes live.
Manage & optimize
Weekly optimization against targets, creative refreshed on cadence, budget reallocated monthly. Spend becomes a managed portfolio.
Scale with discipline
Proven channels get more budget against guardrails; new channels get structured tests. Growth without the efficiency collapse.
Why hire a performance marketing director through a Fractional CTO
Performance marketing is the most technically demanding corner of marketing: server-side tracking, attribution modeling, incrementality testing, creative analytics. Most hiring processes cannot evaluate any of it. I can — I check that candidates understand what their numbers actually measure, because a director optimizing to platform-reported ROAS will happily scale unprofitable spend.
I also make sure the measurement foundation is fixed before budgets grow. To discuss your paid acquisition leadership, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
Fractional vs full-time cost?
Full-time performance marketing directors run $130k–$190k. Fractional makes sense until monthly ad spend justifies full-time leadership — often in the $100k+/month spend range.
Do they run the accounts themselves?
They own strategy, targets, and team — and they are expected to be able to dive into any account and diagnose it. Day-to-day buying may sit with specialists or agencies they manage.
First 90 days?
Audit, tracking fixes, CAC targets set, creative pipeline started, obvious waste cut. Expect cleaner numbers in month one and real efficiency movement by month three.
How do they prove paid is working?
Blended CAC against target, payback periods, and incrementality evidence — not screenshots of platform ROAS. Reporting the CFO can interrogate.
When do we need this hire?
When ad spend is material (typically $50k+/month) and growing, and nobody senior owns its efficiency. Below that, a strong media buyer plus good oversight usually suffices.
Make paid acquisition accountable
Tell me your monthly ad spend and current CAC — I will tell you what leadership your paid program needs.