Performance Marketing Manager, Consumer Lending

NerdWallet

8d•Remote

About The Position

NerdWallet is seeking a paid media lead to drive customer acquisition across multiple financial services verticals through SEM, YouTube, display, OpenAI, and other platforms. This hands-on and strategic role owns the paid marketing roadmap, campaign execution and optimization, and partnership with analytics, business, creative, and engineering teams. It calls for strong analytical, creative, and monetization skills, initiative, and a forward-looking approach to paid marketing in the age of AI. The position reports to the Managing Director and is remote within the United States. The manager will build and optimize campaigns, use AI tools to develop creative and insights, evaluate performance and measurement, guide creative and funnel testing, communicate results to stakeholders, and develop platform and competitive insights. The role also supports testing and scaling paid marketing in new verticals and revenue streams.

Requirements

At least 5 years of paid search experience, ideally in lead generation.
Proven experience using AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini to accelerate marketing functions, gain data insights, and optimize creative processes.
Forward-looking vision for marketing in the age of AI and video, including tactics for reaching consumers as search behavior shifts beyond standard search engines.
Demonstrated video marketing experience and a track record of driving performance through short-form video, emerging ad formats, and platforms such as YouTube.
Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Track record of scaling paid search, preferably to seven figures in monthly spend, while maintaining or improving CPA/CAC and ROAS.
Experience managing toward lead generation, revenue, ROAS, CPA/CAC, or funnel-based goals.
Ability to build paid media strategy from the ground up, including campaign structure, testing, measurement, creative, and optimization.
Strong analytical skills and comfort working with platform and backend business data.
Experience troubleshooting tracking, attribution, or reporting discrepancies.
Experience writing creative briefs and providing feedback to creative teams or external partners.
Strong project management skills across multiple concurrent verticals and workstreams.
Clear, confident communication skills, including the ability to translate data into recommendations for non-technical audiences.

Nice To Haves

Experience and success outside Google or Bing.
Experience in financial services, including insurance, lending, wealth, banking, investing, mortgage, home equity, or other regulated categories.
Experience with lead generation funnels, prequalification or quiz flows, marketplace models, or affiliate and partner revenue models.
Experience optimizing toward backend events such as funded loans, booked appointments, or matched leads.
Experience with server-side tracking and conversion signal quality.
Experience with UGC creative, creator partnerships, or video production workflows.
Comfort working with legal, compliance, or brand review processes in regulated industries.

Responsibilities

Own paid marketing strategy, execution, and performance across multiple verticals, aligning campaigns with growth targets, funnel dynamics, and audience needs.
Build campaign structures across SEM, YouTube, display, OpenAI, and other platforms; set objectives, bidding strategies, audiences, budgets, and conversion events.
Manage campaigns end-to-end, including setup, quality assurance, pacing, troubleshooting, and optimization.
Build testing plans for new verticals, bidding strategies, conversion events, creative approaches, and funnel experiences.
Use AI tools to accelerate marketing functions and develop creative, data insights, landing pages, and other solutions.
Monitor and diagnose click-through rate, conversion rate, revenue, monetization, data and tracking, funnel friction, and lead-quality issues.
Make budget and pacing decisions based on performance trends and business priorities; stay current on platform, algorithm, privacy, and advertising product changes.
Own recurring performance reporting and communicate results, trends, learnings, risks, and next steps to stakeholders and leadership.
Partner with data, analytics, and engineering teams to define measurement needs and map conversion events.
Troubleshoot discrepancies between platform and backend data, including attribution, event firing, duplicate events, and timing.
Help build measurement frameworks focused on lead quality and business outcomes, not just volume.
Lead creative strategy across verticals, including messaging angles, hooks, scripts, and static, video, and UGC concepts.
Write creative briefs and review assets for clarity and platform fit, providing feedback through concept, script, and production stages.
Build creative testing roadmaps and translate results into recommendations.
Evaluate landing pages and funnels for message match, conversion flow, and drop-off; recommend and support tests of landing pages, advertorials, lead forms, quizzes, and prequalification flows.
Ensure creative, landing pages, and tracking are aligned before launch.
Manage relationships with platform representatives and evaluate their recommendations against NerdWallet's goals and data quality.
Track competitor creative, offers, and funnel approaches and feed findings into strategy.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and dependents.
Flexible vacation time off, 11 holidays, and a holiday company shutdown.
New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed through adoption or foster care.
Mental health support.
Paid sabbatical after five years.
Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA plans with a monthly NerdWallet contribution.
Monthly wellness, cell phone, and (for remote employees) Wi-Fi stipends.
Work-from-home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy for remote employees.
Employee Resource Groups and team events, including hackathons and company-wide events.
Eight hours of volunteer time off per quarter and a company match for charitable donations.
401(k) with a 4% company match.
Access to new financial products and tools.
Financial wellness guidance and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner through Northstar.
Disability and life insurance with employer-paid premiums.