Senior Performance Marketing Manager

Chess.com is a global gaming, technology, and content company focused on helping people play, learn, and enjoy chess. The Senior Performance Marketing Manager will own and scale paid acquisition across multiple channels, establish rigorous measurement frameworks, optimize creative and AdTech partnerships, and guide ROI-backed investment decisions.

Responsibilities:

• Own and scale a performance marketing engine with real momentum. The foundations are already in place and working. App Store and Android Ads are running highly efficiently, and Meta and YouTube video are proving out as channels with a clear path to target. You'll take full ownership of this portfolio and drive the acceleration and scale that comes next
• Set the bar for measurement rigor. Build out best-in-class incrementality testing, saturation modeling, and 7-day ROAS and LTV frameworks. We should always know precisely what our spend is buying us, so we can confidently push harder where it's working
• Scale creative production. Partner with our content and partnerships teams to bring best practices from other UGC agencies to ensure high ROAS on a hybrid creator + performance strategy. Build the testing infrastructure to find winners fast
• Optimize through DSPs and AdTech partners. Manage and grow our relationships with partners like LiftOff, AdFuel, and Eyeo to squeeze more performance out of every channel
• Shape our long-term investment strategy. Partner with leadership to translate channel performance into LTV- and ROI-backed budget plans. Grow spend where the returns support it, and have the judgment to pull back or reallocate spend the moment efficiency slips, so every dollar keeps working for the business
• Operate in public. As a globally remote company spanning many time zones, async Slack communication is how decisions get made. Work out loud in channels: share results and reasoning transparently, flag what's working and what isn't, and pull in the right people by name to keep things moving
• Manage the operational details. Own budgets, vendor contracts, and ad account setup across platforms (Meta, Google, App Store, DSPs). Keep attribution and tracking (AppsFlyer and friends) clean and trustworthy
• Build close ties with our social media and growth teams. Stay plugged into what's happening across the chess calendar and the broader business: tournaments, viral moments, product launches, seasonal swings. Read when we're heading into a boom (or viral moment) versus a quiet stretch, and flex spend accordingly between defensive, standard, and aggressive postures

Requirements:

• First off, you love to play chess and want to help others discover that same joy
• you have extensive experience running paid acquisition for a consumer app or subscription business
• You're comfortable being the person in the room who insists on a clean incrementality test before anyone scales spend
• You have the operator's instinct for performance marketing
• You move fast between channels, creative, and data
• You know when a metric is telling you something real versus noise, and you can turn a promising early signal into a durable, scalable channel
• You have the expertise to grow and own a budget into the 8-9 figures, while having the judgment and integrity to say when spend is getting inefficient and should be pulled back
• 5+ years in performance marketing or paid user acquisition
• You have a track record of taking a channel from test to scale, and the judgment to know when to hold, cut, or reallocate spend as efficiency changes
• Real experience with incrementality testing, saturation analysis, and LTV/ROAS modeling
• You don't just report on these metrics
• You know how to build and defend them
• Hands-on channel expertise across Meta, Google/App Store Ads, YouTube, and DSP/AdTech platforms, plus fluency with mobile attribution tools like AppsFlyer
• Creative taste maker, familiar with content and social media trends
• High-velocity written communicator
• You communicate clearly and concisely at speed, operate primarily in writing, and can move between tactical channel optimization and board-level ROI conversations in the same day
• Background in gaming, subscription, or other high-engagement consumer apps, ideally with millions of daily users
• Experience scaling creative production through UGC agencies, creator marketplaces, or an in-house creator network
• A track record of syncing paid spend with organic demand cycles
• You tie budget decisions to product launches, seasonal moments, or community/viral events rather than running a flat, always-on plan
• Experience discussing budget and ROI cases with executive leadership or a board