Paid Media - Performance Marketing (Cape Town)

Job description

Reach Digital is looking for a talented and performance-driven Paid Media Specialist to join our team. 
We are looking for someone who understands that paid media is more than simply setting up campaigns. You should be comfortable developing strategies, building and optimising campaigns, analysing performance, identifying opportunities, and turning data into actionable recommendations. 
The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on experience across Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Microsoft Ads, with a particular strength in social media advertising and performance marketing. 
We are ideally looking for a Mid-Level specialist, although a strong junior candidate with the right experience, attitude and technical foundation will be considered. 
As a paid media specialist, you will be responsible for managing paid media campaigns across multiple platforms and clients. 
You will work closely with the wider digital marketing team to develop and execute campaigns that drive measurable business results, including sales, leads, website traffic, engagement, and brand awareness. 
The role requires someone who is both strategic and hands-on. You should be comfortable working independently on campaigns while also collaborating with account managers, creative teams, SEO specialists, developers, and clients.

Paid Media Strategy: 

• Develop and implement paid media strategies aligned with client objectives and budgets. 
• Determine the appropriate platforms, audiences, campaign objectives and budgets for each campaign. 
• Develop full-funnel paid media strategies across awareness, consideration and conversion. 
• Identify opportunities to scale successful campaigns while maintaining efficiency. 
• Stay up to date with platform developments, new features, targeting capabilities and industry trends. 

Campaign management:
Plan, build, launch and optimise campaigns across: 

• Meta ads – Facebook and Instagram 
• Google ads 
• TikTok ads 
• LinkedIn ads 
• Pinterest ads 
• Microsoft ads 

Campaign experience should ideally include: 

• Lead generation 
• E-commerce 
• Website conversions 
• Sales 
• Traffic 
• Awareness 
• Retargeting 
• Prospecting 
• Remarketing 
• Advantage+ / automated campaign types 
• Performance max 
• Search campaigns 
• Shopping campaigns 

Optimisation and performance 

• Monitor campaign performance on a daily and weekly basis. 
• Analyse key performance indicators including: 
• ROAS 
• CPA / cost per acquisition 
• CPL / cost per lead 
• CPC 
• CPM 
• CTR 
• Conversion rate 
• Revenue 
• Purchase volume 
• Reach and frequency 
• Make data-driven optimisation decisions. 
• Manage budgets and pacing across multiple accounts. 
• Conduct A/B testing across audiences, creative, messaging, placements and campaign structures. 
• Identify underperforming campaigns and implement corrective strategies. 
• Identify high-performing campaigns and develop scaling strategies. 

Analytics and reporting 
The successful candidate should be comfortable working with marketing data and translating it into meaningful insights. 

Experience with: 

• Google analytics 4 (GA4) 
• Google data studio / looker studio 
• Supermetrics 
• Google tag manager 
• Meta pixel 
• Meta conversions API (CAPI) 
• Conversion tracking 
• UTM tracking 
• Attribution and reporting 
• Platform analytics 

You should be able to look beyond surface-level metrics and answer questions such as: 

• "Why did performance change?" 
• "What's driving the increase in CPA?" 
• "Which audience is actually generating revenue?" 
• "Where should we put the next R50,000 of budget?" 
• The ability to turn data into clear recommendations and actions is essential. 

E-commerce experience:
Experience working with Shopify is highly advantageous. 

The candidate should ideally understand: 

• Shopify stores and product catalogues 
• Shopify conversion tracking 
• Meta commerce manager 
• Product feeds 
• Google merchant center 
• Google Shopping 
• Dynamic/product advertising 
• E-commerce conversion funnels 
• Revenue and purchase tracking 

Experience with other e-commerce platforms will also be beneficial. 

Qualifications and certifications 
Required / highly preferred 
Google certifications 

• Google ads search certification 
• Google ads display certification 
• Google ads measurement certification 
• Google ads video certification 
• Google Analytics certification 

Meta: 

• Meta Blueprint certification(s) 

Additional platform certifications are advantageous, including: 

• TikTok academy 
• LinkedIn marketing labs 
• Microsoft advertising certification 
• Pinterest academy 

Technical skills:
The ideal candidate will have experience with: 

• Meta ads manager 
• Google ads 
• TikTok ads manager 
• LinkedIn campaign manager 
• Pinterest ads 
• Microsoft advertising 
• Google analytics 4 
• Google tag manager 
• Looker studio / data studio 
• Supermetrics 
• Google merchant center 
• Shopify 
• Meta business manager 
• Meta pixel and conversions API 
• Conversion tracking 
• Excel / Google sheets 

Strong spreadsheet skills, including the ability to work with formulas, pivot tables, and large datasets, would be an advantage. 

We're looking for someone who is: 
Analytical 
You enjoy working with data and can identify the story behind the numbers. 

Curious:
Digital advertising changes constantly. You should genuinely enjoy learning about new platforms, features, strategies, and technologies. 

Commercially minded:
You understand that clicks and impressions aren't the end goal. You understand how paid media contributes to leads, sales, revenue and business growth. 

Proactive:
We want someone who doesn't simply report problems. You should be able to identify an issue, investigate it, and propose a solution. 

Detail-oriented: 
Small errors in tracking, budgets, targeting, or campaign setup can have significant consequences. Attention to detail is essential. 

Creative:
Paid media isn't purely analytical. You should understand creative performance and be able to provide meaningful input into ad concepts, messaging, hooks, and formats. 

Comfortable with multiple clients: 
Agency experience is highly advantageous. You should be able to manage multiple accounts, budgets, industries, and priorities simultaneously. 

A strong communicator:
You should be able to explain complex paid media concepts in a simple way to clients and internal teams. 

Experience 
Minimum requirements:

• 2+ years of hands-on paid media experience preferred. 
• Strong experience with Meta ads. 
• Strong experience with Google ads. 
• Practical experience managing paid campaigns from setup through to optimisation, and reporting. 
• Experience working with performance metrics and marketing analytics. 
• Experience managing campaign budgets. 
• Google certifications. 
• Meta Blueprint certification. 

Advantageous: 

• 3+ years of paid media experience. 
• Agency experience. 
• Experience managing multiple clients simultaneously. 
• E-commerce experience. 
• Shopify experience. 
• Experience managing significant monthly advertising budgets. 
• Experience with lead generation and e-commerce campaigns. 
• Experience with tracking implementation and troubleshooting. 
• Experience with Meta CAPI. 
• Experience with Google merchant center. 
• Experience presenting campaign performance to clients. 
• Experience developing paid media strategies rather than only executing campaigns. 

Key performance indicators:
Success in this role will be measured by your ability to: 

• Deliver against client KPIs. 
• Improve campaign efficiency and performance. 
• Identify and capitalise on growth opportunities. 
• Effectively manage advertising budgets. 
• Maintain accurate campaign tracking and reporting. 
• Provide meaningful performance insights. 
• Develop strategies that drive measurable business outcomes. 
• Maintain strong client relationships. 
• Continuously improve campaign performance through testing and optimisation. 

Bonus skills: 
The following would be advantageous but are not essential: 

• Experience with AI tools for paid media and marketing. 
• Basic knowledge of SEO and organic social media. 
• Basic HTML/CSS knowledge. 
• Understanding of landing page optimisation and CRO. 
• Experience with CRM platforms. 
• Experience with lead quality and offline conversion tracking. 
• Experience with server-side tracking. 
• Knowledge of GA4 audiences and event configuration. 
• Experience with Google merchant center and product feeds. 
• Experience with creative testing frameworks. 
• Experience working with looker studio dashboards. 
• Experience managing large-scale advertising budgets. 

The ideal candidate:
The ideal candidate is someone who can take a brief that says: