Performance Marketer

About the Role

We are looking for a Performance Marketing Manager to drive student lead generation for a group of educational institutions in the UAE.

This is a highly performance-driven role where success will be measured by the ability to generate a consistent volume of high-quality, conversion-ready leads at an efficient cost.

The ideal candidate should have hands-on experience managing performance campaigns across Meta, Google, YouTube and other relevant digital platforms, with a strong understanding of lead-generation funnels and the UAE market.

You will work closely with the admissions, sales/counselling and marketing teams to ensure that digital leads translate into applications, admissions and enrollments.

Key Responsibilities

Performance Marketing & Lead Generation

• Plan, launch, manage and optimize performance marketing campaigns across Meta Ads, Google Ads, YouTube and other relevant platforms.
• Develop lead-generation strategies for multiple institutions, programs and student segments.
• Manage campaigns across different stages of the student acquisition funnel.
• Continuously test and optimize audiences, creatives, messaging, landing pages, offers and campaign structures.
• Identify the most effective channels and campaigns for generating qualified student enquiries.
• Scale successful campaigns while maintaining acceptable CPL and lead quality.

Campaign & Budget Management

• Manage significant monthly advertising budgets across multiple institutions/campaigns.
• Allocate budgets based on campaign performance, lead quality and conversion potential.
• Monitor campaign performance on a daily basis and take corrective action quickly.
• Control CPL, CPA and overall customer acquisition costs.
• Build forecasts for lead volumes, CPL and expected conversions based on budgets.

Lead Quality & Conversion

• Go beyond generating leads and take ownership of lead quality and downstream conversion performance.
• Work closely with admissions/sales teams to understand:
• Lead-to-contact rate
• Contact-to-qualified-lead rate
• Qualified-lead-to-application rate
• Application-to-admission rate
• Admission-to-enrollment rate
• Identify sources, campaigns, audiences and creatives generating poor-quality leads.
• Optimize campaigns based on actual admissions/enrollment data rather than CPL alone.
• Develop feedback loops with the admissions team to improve campaign targeting.

Tracking, Analytics & Reporting

• Set up and maintain accurate conversion tracking across advertising platforms.
• Work with GA4, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel/Conversions API, CRM and other analytics tools.
• Ensure accurate attribution of leads to campaigns, ad sets, keywords, creatives and channels wherever technically possible.
• Build and maintain performance dashboards and reports.
• Analyze campaign data to identify trends, opportunities and inefficiencies.
• Present clear weekly/monthly performance reports with actionable recommendations.

Landing Pages & Funnel Optimization

• Work with the creative, content and web teams to improve landing pages and lead-generation funnels.
• Conduct A/B testing of:
• Landing pages
• Forms
• Headlines
• CTAs
• Creatives
• Offers
• Lead qualification questions
• Identify and reduce drop-offs throughout the digital acquisition funnel.

Creative Strategy

• Develop performance-driven creative briefs based on campaign data.
• Work with designers, video editors and content teams to produce high-converting ads.
• Test different creative angles, formats, hooks and value propositions.
• Identify winning creative concepts and scale them across relevant campaigns.
• Stay updated on advertising trends and changing platform algorithms.

UAE Education Market

• Develop a strong understanding of the UAE education market and student acquisition landscape.
• Understand different student segments, including UAE residents, expatriates and international students where relevant.
• Adapt campaigns to different institutions, courses, locations and student demographics.
• Research competitor advertising, positioning, offers and acquisition strategies.
• Identify emerging opportunities across digital channels for student recruitment.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The role will be evaluated primarily on measurable business outcomes, including:

• Qualified leads generated
• Cost per lead (CPL)
• Cost per qualified lead (CPQL)
• Lead-to-qualified-lead conversion rate
• Lead-to-application conversion rate
• Application-to-admission conversion rate
• Cost per acquisition (CPA)
• Enrollment/admission contribution
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), where applicable
• Overall student acquisition cost
• Campaign scalability and efficiency

Important: The objective is not simply to generate a high number of leads. The focus is on generating high-quality leads that have a strong probability of converting into applications and enrollments.

Required Experience & Skills

• 3–7+ years of hands-on performance marketing experience, preferably in lead-generation businesses.
• Strong experience with Meta Ads and Google Ads.
• Experience managing substantial paid-media budgets.
• Proven track record of generating leads at scale.
• Strong understanding of funnel optimization and conversion tracking.
• Experience with CRM-based lead tracking and performance analysis.
• Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills.
• Experience with GA4, Google Tag Manager and conversion tracking.
• Ability to interpret campaign data and turn insights into actionable decisions.
• Strong understanding of audience segmentation, retargeting and lookalike strategies.
• Experience with landing-page optimization and A/B testing.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.

Preferred Experience

Candidates with experience in any of the following sectors will be preferred:

• Education / EdTech
• Higher education
• Schools / Universities
• Professional training
• Healthcare
• Real estate
• Financial services
• Other high-volume lead-generation businesses

Experience targeting the UAE/GCC market will be a strong advantage.

Personal Attributes

We are looking for someone who is:

• Highly data-driven and commercially minded
• Comfortable being accountable for numbers
• Proactive and execution-oriented
• Strong at problem-solving
• Comfortable working with large budgets and multiple campaigns
• Curious and constantly testing new approaches
• Able to work independently from India while collaborating with teams in the UAE
• Focused on business outcomes rather than vanity metrics
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, target-driven environment

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 3–6 months, the successful candidate should be able to:

• Establish a predictable and scalable student lead-generation engine.
• Improve lead quality while maintaining or reducing CPL.
• Identify the highest-performing channels, audiences and campaigns.
• Build reliable campaign and conversion reporting.
• Establish a strong feedback loop between marketing and admissions.
• Improve conversion rates throughout the student acquisition funnel.
• Scale lead generation while maintaining sustainable acquisition costs.