Paid Growth Strategist

Are you ready to be a big part of something big?

At carsales, we’re all about making buying and selling a great experience. Since 1997, we’ve been evolving with the new economy to help people choose how they move today and tomorrow.

When it comes to your career, we want to offer meaningful opportunities that empower you to make a lasting impact. But for that to happen, we strive to feel small, small enough to stay agile, learn across teams, and connect authentically with each other.

With a vision to be the global leader in online vehicle marketplaces, we’re transforming how people buy and sell across the world. We discover new ideas and bring them to life. We continue to grow, and we continue to evolve and we’re not afraid to take bold steps to get there.

The Paid Growth Strategist sits within the Paid Media Growth Marketing team and reports to the Senior Manager, Paid Media. In this role, you’ll own the strategy, planning, implementation, optimisation and analysis of brand and performance focused paid media campaigns that deliver against key business metrics. You’ll provide regular audience, market and industry trends and insights to relevant stakeholders. This role requires you to mentor a team of paid media specialists, sharing expertise, improving knowledge and developing best practices.

We embrace hybrid working combining the flexibility of remote work with the energy and connection of in-person collaboration. We champion flexibility and offer a range of policies and leave options to support your wellbeing.

What’s on offer

• Recognition as one of Australia’s Best Workplaces™ by Great Place to Work®, a Family Friendly Workplace, a WORK180 endorsed employer.
• A highly engaged, collaborative team where you’ll learn from exceptional talent.
• 24 weeks paid parental leave for primary caregivers, four weeks for secondary caregivers, and six weeks paid gender-affirming care leave.
• Regular hackathons, continuous learning opportunities, and wellbeing initiatives that support your mental, emotional, and physical health.

What you’ll be doing

As the Paid Growth Strategist at carsales, you’ll be responsible for identifying and executing growth initiatives across both our buy and sell product portfolios. You’ll combine brand and performance thinking, use data to uncover new opportunities, and partner closely with Marketing and Product teams to test, learn and scale what works.

You’ll

• Own end-to-end paid media strategy and execution across search (SEM), social and programmatic channels – balancing brand and performance to deliver efficient growth.
• Work alongside Marketing Automation and SEO teams to build cross-channel compounding strategies
• Build and maintain a clear testing roadmap (audiences, creative and channel mix), turning hypotheses into learnings you can scale.
• Define audience segmentation approaches (including CDP activation where relevant) to improve acquisition efficiency and conversion across web and app.
• Partner with Brand/Creative to develop and iterate on creative that performs, including testing variations (e.g., UGC/influencer-led content) aligned to growth hypotheses.
• Manage budgets and pacing, optimise to agreed performance targets, and proactively recommend investment shifts based on results and opportunity.
• Identify, build and execute search strategies using tactics such as feed-based optimisations and custom bidding.
• Translate performance into clear insights and actions, providing regular reporting, recommendations and decision support to key stakeholders.
• Coach and uplift paid media specialists through knowledge sharing, development and best practice documentation (this role has no direct reports).

What we’re looking for

• Proven experience developing paid media strategies, translating business objectives into clear audience, channel and investment approaches, and linking performance directly to broader business and growth outcomes
• Hands-on execution and optimisation of brand and performance campaigns across search, social and programmatic platforms (Meta, TikTok, Google Ads, SA360, DV360), including ongoing optimisation to balance scale and efficiency
• Strong experience with campaign experimentation, including A/B testing, creative testing, and performance optimisation frameworks to continuously improve outcomes
• Proven ability to use creator content (influencer and UGC) to enhance paid performance, drive engagement, and inform creative testing and iteration strategies
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to interpret complex data sets, translate insights into clear recommendations, and inform decision-making through structured performance reporting and funnel optimisation
• Confident managing budgets and prioritising spend to maximise ROI, balancing efficiency with growth across both web and app environments
• Strong stakeholder communication skills, able to clearly articulate performance, trade-offs and strategic recommendations, and influence decisions through concise, data-backed storytelling
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain strong relationships with agencies, vendors and external media partners, ensuring alignment and performance delivery
• Experience driving growth across both web and app environments, with a focus on improving acquisition, activation and engagement
• Experience segmenting and activating audiences via CDPs (e.g. Adobe Experience Platform) is desirable
• Commercially focused mindset, with a clear understanding of how paid media performance contributes to business outcomes and long-term growth
• Collaborative operator who builds strong relationships across Marketing, Product, Data and Technology, working effectively across teams to deliver outcomes
• Growth mindset, actively seeking new channels, approaches and optimisation opportunities to drive continuous improvement

We know not everyone will meet every requirement, and that’s okay. If you’re excited about the role and believe you can make a difference, we’d love to hear from you.

A few other things we want you to know...

• As an equal opportunity employer, carsales welcomes applications from individuals of all backgrounds, identities, abilities, and life experiences. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.
• If you have a disability or require adjustments to participate fully in the recruitment process, please let us know - we’re here to support you.
• We understand the importance of work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements, including part-time options. If you’d like to explore this, just ask during the process.
• We’re also a proud Circle Back Initiative employer, which means we commit to responding to every applicant.
• Successful candidates joining the carsales team will need to complete a National Police Record check and must have full-time Australian working rights.

So come join us - because every role plays a vital part in our journey toward something big!