Head of Performance Marketing

Responsibilities

• Own Starling’s performance marketing strategy across all paid channels, driving profitable customer growth across our personal and business banking products and propositions.
• Set and deliver the performance marketing strategy, balancing customer acquisition, volume, CAC, payback and long-term customer value.
• Own the allocation and optimisation of a significant media budget, flexing investment across channels, audiences, products and propositions based on performance and commercial opportunity.
• Lead the ongoing optimisation of paid search, paid social, programmatic, app marketing, affiliates, partnerships and other emerging performance channels, continually challenging where and how we invest.
• Build a culture of continuous testing and optimisation, developing a robust test-and-learn programme across audiences, creative, messaging, landing journeys, bidding, channels and media strategy.
• Drive improvements in CAC, conversion rates and payback periods, identifying opportunities to remove inefficiency and unlock incremental growth.
• Use data, attribution and experimentation to understand the true incremental contribution of each channel, moving to MMM measurement and challenging assumptions around performance.
• Partner closely with Web, CRM, Data, and Product Marketing teams to connect media activity with the full customer journey, from first interaction through to acquisition and activation.
• Develop a clear performance framework and set of KPIs that enables the business to understand what is working, why it is working and where we should invest next.
• Lead forecasting, budgeting and performance reporting, providing clear recommendations to senior stakeholders on where to increase, reduce or reallocate investment.

Requirements

• Significant experience leading performance marketing and customer acquisition within a high-growth, consumer-focused business.
• Proven experience managing substantial paid media investment across multiple channels, with accountability for CAC, acquisition volume, payback and commercial return.
• Deep understanding of the full performance marketing ecosystem, including paid search, paid social, programmatic, app marketing, affiliates, partnerships and emerging channels.
• A demonstrable track record of improving marketing efficiency while continuing to grow acquisition, rather than simply increasing media spend.
• Deep commercial and analytical skills, with the ability to translate complex performance data into clear investment decisions and actionable recommendations.
• Deep experience with testing, experimentation, optimisation and attribution, including the ability to understand incrementality and the limitations of platform-reported performance.
• Experience managing and optimising media budgets dynamically, knowing when to scale, hold, reduce or stop investment based on performance and opportunity.
• Excellent understanding of customer journeys, conversion optimisation and the relationship between media, product, proposition, creative and CRM.
• Experience developing performance strategies across both established and emerging channels, with a willingness to test new approaches and challenge conventional thinking.
• Experience working with senior stakeholders and influencing investment decisions at executive level, with the confidence to challenge assumptions and make evidence-based recommendations.

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you)
• An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
• Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
• Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x your salary
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work and Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships