Role: Growth & Performance Specialist
Company: Hook + Ladder Digital Agency (hldigital.ca) — Canadian growth & performance marketing agency
Type: Full-time, remote. 100% English, client-facing. Overlap with North American business hours.
The role in one paragraph
Hook + Ladder runs growth and performance marketing for a portfolio of client accounts out of Canada. The anchor account is a multi-location B2C restaurant/retail brand with 46+ locations — national brand budget running alongside local store-level campaigns, plus new store openings that each need their own launch plan. You will own paid media and lifecycle email for a set of accounts end to end: you build the campaigns, you run them, you report on them, and you present and defend the strategy to the client in English, live. This is a hands-on operator role. It is not oversight, not strategy-only, and not "I briefed an agency."
What you'll do
• Build, launch and optimize paid campaigns yourself across Google Ads (Search), Meta Ads and TikTok Ads — account structure, audiences, creative testing, bidding, budget pacing, platform-specific QA.
• Design full-funnel plans (TOF / MOF / BOF) with a budget split per channel that holds up under scrutiny — not spend scattered across six channels.
• Split national brand budget vs. local store-level budget across a 46+ location footprint, and build launch plans for new store openings.
• Own lifecycle email: segmentation, triggers, multi-flow automations, A/B testing and reporting — in Klaviyo and Paytronix (or directly comparable platforms).
• Measure and report in GA4, including in-store / offline attribution: offline conversion imports, geo holdout tests, connecting online spend to in-store revenue.
• Present performance and recommendations directly to clients, in English, and defend your reasoning on the spot.
Non-negotiables
Every one of these has ended a finalist's process here. Please read them honestly before applying.
Recent, hands-on paid advertising on live accounts. You are building and optimizing campaigns yourself right now — Google Search, Meta and TikTok. Recency is the gate: policy compliance, oversight or strategy without recent execution does not qualify. If you can't walk us through the platform-specific setup and QA checklist you personally use for a Meta campaign, this is not your role. Advertising is the #1 priority of this position, from day one.
GA4 in daily use. Not "familiar with." A finalist was declined for avoiding GA4.
Fluent, client-facing spoken English. You will present and defend strategy live to Canadian and US clients. Your resume, portfolio and case study must be in English.
Agency or multi-account experience. Several clients at once, context-switching, direct client communication. Candidates from many years inside a single company, or purely in-house in one vertical, have consistently struggled with the adaptation curve here.
Real email marketing depth — at least 1 year hands-on. Segmentation, triggers, automated flows, testing, reporting. Klaviyo or Paytronix strongly preferred. Email is highly valued by the team and the clients and it's an area we want to grow — but it does not compensate for a gap in advertising. Strong email with weak paid media will not pass.
Your own work, defended live. The process includes a case study and then a functional interview whose explicit purpose is to cross-check that the case study is yours. Using AI as an assistant is fine; using AI as a substitute for real-world experience is disqualifying. Candidates have been declined for being unable to answer basic execution questions about their own submission.
Strong pluses
• Multi-location B2C experience — restaurants, food & beverage, franchise, or retail with a physical footprint. This is the profile in our definition of the role.
• Offline / in-store attribution work (offline conversion import, geo holdout testing).
• A clear specialization that brings something the team doesn't already have.
• Strong, structured communication: leading with the KPIs that actually matter, not a wall of metrics.
What we look at on your resume, before skills
• Job stability. A pattern of short tenures or frequent jumps stands out and we will ask about it.
• Seniority fit. This is a hands-on individual-contributor role. If you currently manage teams or hold a senior title at a larger company, come ready to explain why this is the right move for you and not a step back.
• A credible answer to "why this role, now." We will ask, and a vague answer is a real risk to your candidacy.
Hiring process
Screening with Accrety — short call plus a video intro. We send the client a match report and your video upfront.
Client review with the hiring manager.
Case study, one week. This is the main filter. Expect: structured paid media, email depth, every ask in the brief addressed, coherent budgets, clear reporting, your own thinking.
Functional interview, 45 minutes, live and in English, with the hiring manager and the Client Success Manager.
Three professional reference checks — people who are reachable and who remember your work well. A finalist lost this role at exactly this step.
Offer — start date and compensation confirmed in writing.
Responsiveness is part of the evaluation. In the final stages, reply within 24 hours. One finalist who the team liked was dropped after roughly a week of silence on a follow-up.
Compensation: equivalent to CAD $3,500 / month (≈ USD $2,500 / month), full-time.
