Acquisition Manager (Paid Media & Ecommerce)

Arc · United Kingdom · £40k – £55k · posted today ago

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About this role

Revenue team · Reports to the Head of Revenue · Remote first

The role

Arc makes precision engineered aluminium and titanium cases for the devices people use most, sold as an object rather than an accessory. The business has grown quickly on one hero product, trades worldwide with the US and UK as its core markets, and reaches most of its customers through paid media.

The role has two halves, and they are equally important. The first is buying the traffic: performance media is the largest single investment in the business and the primary engine of new customer growth. The second is trading the website that converts it. Arc's site is where almost every commercial decision lands, and it is the place with the most immediate headroom: how the range is presented and explained, how launches are executed, how the delivery and service proposition is shown, and how well the whole journey converts.

This is the first dedicated internal owner of both. You will not be buying media day to day, and you will not be building pages. You will set the strategy, trade the site week to week, direct our agency and development partners, and build the measurement that lets Arc invest with confidence. It suits someone who wants to own a channel outright and shape how it runs.

What you are accountable for

The cost and volume of new customer acquisition: how efficiently Arc converts media investment into new customers, in every market it trades in.
The performance media investment: how it is planned, allocated across markets, and phased across a trading year with pronounced peaks.
Trading the website: the site as a commercial asset. How it converts, how the range is presented, and how well it performs through the moments that matter.
The quality of acquisition measurement: the definitions, the reporting and the confidence the business can place in them.
The contribution of our agency and development partners: the output we get, the value we receive, and how the relationships develop.

What you own

Trading the website

The commercial performance of the site: what is featured, where it sits and when it changes
Homepage, landing page and collection merchandising, and how the range is sequenced and presented
Product page effectiveness, including how well the product is explained and sold to someone meeting the brand for the first time
Onsite search, navigation and product discovery
Basket and checkout performance, and removing friction through to purchase
Making the delivery, shipping and service proposition visible at the points where it influences a decision
Launch readiness and execution on site, so that major product moments land properly in every market
Promotional execution on site, and working with operations on availability and stock messaging
The weekly trading rhythm: reviewing performance, reacting to what is and is not selling, and feeding that back into media

Conversion, testing and development

The optimisation roadmap with our CRO partner, and the discipline to reach conclusions rather than abandoning tests midway
Test hypotheses and prioritisation, based on where the commercial opportunity actually sits
Prioritising the development backlog with our web partner, and being the commercial voice in that relationship
Site performance reporting: conversion by market and device, funnel drop off, and page level performance

Media strategy and investment

The annual and quarterly media plan across paid social, paid search and emerging channels
Allocation between markets, and the case for shifting investment toward the strongest returns
Phasing across the year, capitalising on the launch windows that concentrate demand and buy most efficiently
The balance between generating demand and capturing it, including growing search in line with the branded demand the brand is already creating

Agency direction

Setting the brief, the targets and the reporting rhythm
Weekly performance conversations and quarterly business reviews
Shaping account structure, campaign architecture and audience strategy
Assessing value delivered and guiding how the partnerships develop

Account structure and creative deployment

How campaigns are built, and how to get the most from the auction
How creative is deployed, rotated and refreshed
The concept pipeline: how much genuinely new creative is produced, and how often
Briefing the brand and influencer side, and being clear about what performance needs
Tracking discipline, so that the data arriving is clean and comparable

Measurement and attribution

The acquisition reporting pack: what is measured, how often, and for whom
Consistent metric definitions, so that trends can be trusted over time
Building an incrementality testing programme, and interpreting it rigorously
Reconciling platform reported performance with orders the business banks
Maintaining an agreed acquisition cost ceiling by market

New channels

Evaluating channels Arc does not yet use, building the case, designing the test and making the recommendation either way

Where this role starts and stops

This role owns the journey up to and including the first purchase, and the website that carries it. The majority of Arc's traffic is new to the brand, so the site's primary commercial job is converting people who do not yet know it. Trading and conversion are acquisition measures, and whoever is accountable for the cost of a customer needs control of the page that converts them.

The Retention Manager owns the customer database and the lifecycle after purchase. Where the two meet:

Onsite merchandising and cross sell modules: you own what appears on site and how the range is sequenced. Retention owns cross sell through lifecycle messaging.
Email and SMS capture on site: Retention owns the mechanic and the offer. You own placement and its effect on conversion.
Audiences built from customer data: Retention owns the segments. You own how they are applied in platform.
Paid activity aimed at existing customers: you execute it, measured jointly on repeat revenue rather than acquisition cost.
Pages for returning and logged in customers: Retention briefs the requirement. You own the roadmap and build priority.
Promotional offers: you own acquisition offers. Retention owns lifecycle offers. Policy is set with the Head of Revenue.

Crossover is expected and healthy. Where ownership is not obvious, the test is simple: which measure moves if this works, and who is accountable for it. The Head of Revenue settles anything genuinely ambiguous.

Working with our partners

Partners: campaign build and day to day buying. You: strategy, and the plan the buying serves.
Partners: bid, budget and audience management in platform. You: investment allocation by market and by season.
Partners: platform reporting and recommendations. You: deciding which recommendations are acted on.
Partners: producing performance creative variants. You: setting the creative brief and securing supply.
Partners: running optimisation tests. You: hypotheses, prioritisation and interpretation.
Partners: building and maintaining the site. You: deciding what gets built, in what order, and why.

How the role is measured

Targets are set with the Head of Revenue and reviewed quarterly.

Cost per new customer, by market, against an agreed ceiling
New customers acquired per unit of media investment
Cost of sale, meaning media as a proportion of net revenue
Contribution after media
Site conversion rate, by market and by device
Revenue per session, and the gap between markets
Add to basket and checkout completion rates
Average order value on first orders
Trading performance through launch windows
Channel mix, and how well investment tracks where demand sits
Incrementality tests designed, completed and acted upon
Volume of genuinely new creative concepts tested
Optimisation tests completed and concluded

Practical terms

Reporting line: Head of Revenue
Level: Manager, with a clear route to Head of as the channel and team grow
Location: Remote first. UK or European time zones, with a quarterly in person meet up
Team: Agency and development partners from the outset, with additional headcount planned as the channel matures
Salary: £40,000 to £55,000 base salary, dependent on experience

Requirements

The calibre we are looking for

Has owned a paid social and paid search budget at meaningful scale in a direct to consumer or ecommerce business, and been answerable for its performance
Has traded an ecommerce site commercially: merchandising, conversion and launch execution, rather than simply briefing a developer and waiting
Genuinely numerate. Can build and defend an acquisition cost and contribution model, can tell when platform reporting has drifted from commercial reality, and understands incrementality well enough to design and interpret a test
Has directed a performance agency rather than worked alongside one. Has set targets, shaped structure and held partners to account constructively
A self starter who is comfortable building process in a small, fast moving team