Performance and Media Buying Manager

Performance & Media Buying Manager - Sri Lanka

Company: Arena365

Location: Sri Lanka

Reporting to: Head of International Growth

The opportunity

We're looking for a highly commercial, hands-on Performance & Media Buying Manager who understands how to turn marketing spend into depositing customers, and knows the difference between impressive-looking marketing numbers and actual business performance.

Key responsibilities

• Build and execute the paid acquisition strategy for Arena365 in Sri Lanka.
• Hands-on management of paid social, search, display, programmatic and other video channels.
• Identify new paid acquisition channels and opportunities rather than relying exclusively on the obvious platforms.
• Build campaign structures, audiences, targeting strategies and testing frameworks.
• Manage budgets and allocating spend towards the campaigns and products with highest commercial returns.
• Work with our creative and brand teams to develop advertising specifically designed for Sri Lankan audiences.
• Run continuous testing across acquisition, messaging, propositions, formats, audiovisuals and more.
• Understand where customers drop out between impression, click, registration, deposit and repeat play, and working across teams to improve it.
• Monitor campaign performance and identify opportunities Arena365 can exploit.
• Scaling successful campaigns quickly and cutting unsuccessful activity without being emotionally attached to it.
• Producing clear, commercially focused reporting for the Head of International and senior management.

Your scoreboard

We don't judge performance marketing by impressions. Your primary measures will include: FTDs, CAC, Registration-to-deposit conversion, NGR, ROAS, Retention, and Payback.

Requirements/qualifications

• Strong hands-on experience managing meaningful digital advertising budgets.
• Demonstrable experience acquiring customers through performance marketing.
• Deep knowledge of the Sri Lankan digital consumer and media landscape.
• Strong understanding of Meta and other major performance platforms, alongside the wider digital channels.
• Excellent analytical instincts and confidence working with acquisition funnels, attribution and commercial KPIs.
• Experience designing and running structured creative and audience testing.
• The ability to explain why performance changed rather than simply reporting that it changed.
• Strong commercial judgement when around when to scale, optimise or stop spending.
• The ability to challenge an approach when the numbers don't support it.