🚀 Senior Meta Media Buying Lead
Full-Time
Competitive Salary: ZAR 45,000 – 60,000 per month | Dependent on Experience
📍 Remote | South Africa
Lead Meta performance at scale. Build the systems. Develop the team. Drive the results.
Placed by Scaled – connecting exceptional South African talent with world-class global companies.
What happens when you take someone who has genuinely operated Meta at scale and give them ownership of the strategy, the team, and the systems behind it?
You get someone who doesn't just manage campaigns.
You get someone who knows how to scale profitably, what to test next, when to kill what isn't working, and how to build a team capable of doing the same.
We're hiring a Senior Meta Media Buying Lead to join a fast-growing performance marketing business working with ambitious companies across the UK and North America.
This is not an execution-only media buying role.
We're looking for someone who has genuinely operated at scale — managing six-figure+ monthly Meta ad spend, leading media buyers, developing testing frameworks, analysing large volumes of campaign data, and building repeatable systems that consistently drive performance.
You'll take ownership of overall Meta strategy and performance while working closely with creative, marketing, and leadership teams to continually improve results.
If you've spent years in the Meta Ads Manager trenches, know what it takes to scale significant spend profitably, and can bring structure, accountability and strategic thinking to a growing media buying team, this could be your next opportunity.
🚀 What You'll Be Doing
You'll take ownership of Meta performance across the business, combining hands-on expertise, strategic thinking, data analysis and team leadership.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Owning overall Meta advertising strategy and performance across multiple accounts, brands and offers.
- Managing and optimising six-figure+ monthly Meta ad spend, with a focus on profitable and sustainable scaling.
- Analysing performance across large volumes of campaigns to identify what should be scaled, killed, iterated or tested further.
- Developing structured testing strategies across creative, audiences, offers, hooks, messaging and campaign structures.
- Building repeatable media buying processes, frameworks and systems that can be adopted across the wider team.
- Leading and managing a team of media buyers, providing clear direction, reviewing performance and holding individuals accountable to agreed KPIs.
- Setting performance benchmarks and KPIs for individual media buyers, campaigns and client accounts.
- Coaching and developing media buyers, improving both their technical Meta expertise and strategic decision-making.
- Reviewing account performance and identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, profitability, scalability and consistency.
- Working closely with creative teams to turn campaign data and customer insights into new concepts, angles, hooks, messaging and creative iterations.
- Establishing structured feedback loops between media buying and creative teams to ensure performance insights directly influence future creative.
- Identifying patterns across multiple accounts, brands and offers and turning those insights into actionable strategy.
- Developing and continuously improving media buying SOPs, processes and reporting systems.
- Staying ahead of changes within Meta's advertising platform, identifying new opportunities and adapting strategies accordingly.
- Taking ownership of performance rather than simply executing campaigns based on someone else's direction.
✅ What We're Looking For
We're looking for someone who has genuinely operated at scale and can bring proven experience, systems and frameworks into the business.
You'll likely bring:
- 3+ years of hands-on experience running Meta Ads at a high level.
- Proven experience managing six-figure+ monthly Meta ad spend, ideally consistently over a sustained period rather than only during short-term scaling periods.
- Experience leading and managing a team of media buyers, including reviewing performance, setting direction and holding the team accountable.
- Strong understanding of how to scale Meta campaigns profitably while maintaining performance at significant spend levels.
- Experience developing and overseeing structured testing strategies across creatives, audiences, offers, hooks and messaging.
- Strong creative strategy experience, with a clear understanding of what makes ads perform and the ability to translate performance data into actionable creative direction.
- Experience building repeatable media buying processes and systems for a team rather than relying purely on individual intuition.
- A highly data-driven approach, with the ability to analyse performance across large volumes of campaigns and identify what should be scaled, killed or iterated.
- Experience setting KPIs and performance benchmarks for individual buyers, campaigns and accounts.
- Proven ability to coach and develop media buyers, improving both their technical Meta knowledge and strategic decision-making.
- Strong understanding of lead generation and/or direct-response advertising.
- Experience working in an environment with high volumes of creative testing across multiple accounts, brands or offers.
- The ability to take ownership of overall Meta performance and strategy rather than simply being given campaigns to execute.
- Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work closely with creative teams to turn campaign data into new concepts, angles, hooks and iterations.
- Excellent commercial judgement and an understanding of how media performance ultimately translates into business results.
- A track record of building systems, frameworks and processes that enable teams to perform consistently at scale.
Experience working in a high-growth performance marketing agency, direct-response environment, lead generation business or similar high-volume paid media environment would be highly advantageous.
🌟 You'll Thrive In This Role If You...
- You've genuinely managed Meta spend at scale and know what changes when you're managing six-figure monthly budgets.
- You can look at an account and quickly identify what's working, what's broken and where the biggest opportunities are.
- You naturally move between strategy and execution rather than relying on someone else to tell you what to do.
- You understand that scaling isn't simply about spending more — it's about maintaining economics while finding new opportunities for growth.
- You enjoy building systems and processes that make a team better, rather than being the only person who knows how to get results.
- You're comfortable challenging assumptions and letting performance data guide decisions.
- You enjoy developing people and can coach media buyers to become stronger strategic operators.
- You're commercially minded and understand the relationship between CPMs, CTRs, CPCs, conversion rates, CPA, ROAS and ultimately profitability.
- You're naturally curious about creative and constantly ask "What should we test next?"
- You thrive in environments where accountability, experimentation and continuous improvement are expected.
- You want genuine ownership over performance and the opportunity to influence how the media buying function operates.
🌍 Why Join?
You'll be joining a fast-growing performance marketing business where media buying is central to the growth strategy.
This is an opportunity to take genuine ownership of Meta performance, influence the direction of the wider media buying function, and build the systems and processes that enable a growing team to operate at a higher level.
You'll work alongside experienced marketers, creative specialists and leadership teams across multiple industries and markets.
Your experience won't simply be used to manage campaigns.
You'll have the opportunity to shape strategy, develop people, improve systems and directly influence commercial performance.
If you've genuinely operated at scale and you're ready to bring that experience into a business where you can have a significant impact, we'd love to hear from you.
📅 What Happens Next?
1. Apply
Submit your application through the Scaled platform.
2. Record Your Video Profile
If your experience looks like a strong match, we'll invite you to complete a short video profile. (Don't forget to check your spam folder!)
3. Meet the Scaled Team
Jump on a quick conversation with our team so we can learn more about your experience, leadership style and career goals.
4. Meet the Client
If shortlisted, you'll progress through interviews with the hiring team, including a deeper discussion around your Meta experience, performance history and approach to scaling.
5. Receive an Offer
If it's the right fit for both sides, we'll guide you through the offer and onboarding process.