Associate Director - Performance Marketing

Business Unit: upGrad – Higher Education

Department: Marketing

Designation: Associate Director - Performance Marketing

Experience: 10+ Years

Location: Bangalore, Karnataka

About the Role:

Looking for a highly skilled and experienced Performance Marketing Leader for upGrad. As the Associate Director of Performance Marketing, you will play a pivotal role in fostering data-driven profitable growth and expanding our reach to learners across India. With a proven track record in managing large-budget campaigns across ad platforms, you will lead a dynamic team to design and execute multi-channel strategies leveraging existing paid media channels and the new emerging digital platforms. You will work closely with creative and content teams to sharpen communication, as well as partner with the product team to improve the funnel. Your analytical mindset will guide data-backed decisions to optimize acquisition, engagement, and retention strategies, ensuring ROI-driven outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Develop and execute Performance Marketing Strategies: Design and implement data-driven marketing strategies across paid media, search, display, and social media to drive learner acquisition, engagement, and retention.
2. Budget Management and ROI Optimization: Manage large marketing budgets effectively, ensuring maximum return on investment by continuously monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing campaigns.
3. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with revenue, product, sales, creative, and content teams to refine messaging, enhance user experience, and improve the marketing funnel for higher conversion rates.
4. Data Analysis and Insights: Always be on top of the numbers and track key performance metrics, generate actionable insights, and make informed decisions that drive campaign performance.
5. Team Leadership and Development: Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team, fostering a data-driven and growth-oriented culture.
6. Innovation and Experimentation: Stay updated on industry trends, test emerging digital platforms and tools, and implement innovative marketing solutions to maintain a competitive edge in learner acquisition.

Experience:

1. 10+ years of experience in performance and growth marketing.
2. Proven experience in managing large-scale campaigns across platforms like Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn Ads.
3. Strong analytical mindset with expertise in data interpretation, performance analysis, and generating actionable insights.
4. Experience in working closely with product, content, creative, and sales teams to build integrated marketing strategies that optimize the customer journey.
5. Prior experience in the education, edtech, or consumer leadgen-based industry is a plus.
6. Bachelor's degree in marketing, Business, Engineering, or a related field is required. MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification is preferred.