Media Buyer & Performance Marketing Lead

ABOUT SMART FOUNDRY

Smart Foundry is Smart Africa Group's venture studio — built to think, validate, build, and scale. We develop in-house startup products that solve real African challenges, forming strategic partnerships to grow them beyond borders. Wakaly is one of our flagship platforms, digitising field activation across African markets.

About the Role

The Media Buyer & Performance Marketing Lead maximises the effectiveness and efficiency of media investments through strategic planning, media buying, performance marketing, optimisation, and reporting.

The role plans, negotiates, purchases, executes, and reports on media campaigns across both offline and online channels, ensuring every campaign delivers measurable impact and strong return on advertising spend.

It serves as the primary liaison between media owners, publishers, advertising platforms, clients, and internal teams to ensure effective execution, budget management, and performance reporting.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop integrated media strategies and comprehensive plans aligned with client objectives, audiences, and budgets across offline and online channels.
• Conduct audience analysis and market research, and recommend channel mix, budget allocation, and flighting schedules.
  Plan, negotiate, purchase, and manage traditional media placements — radio, TV, print, outdoor, transit, cinema, sponsorships, and activations.
• Build and maintain relationships with media owners, broadcasters, publishers, and advertising vendors, negotiating rates and value additions.
• Plan, launch, monitor, and optimise digital campaigns across platforms such as Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Google Ads, and programmatic networks.
• Manage campaign setup, audience targeting, budgets, bidding strategies, and creative deployment in line with platform best practices.
• Develop and execute performance marketing campaigns for lead generation, customer acquisition, traffic, e-commerce sales, app installs, and engagement.
• Run A/B testing on creatives, audiences, landing pages, and bidding strategies, and optimise campaigns through data-driven decisions.
• Produce campaign reports, dashboards, and performance summaries for clients and management, with actionable insights and recommendations.
• Verify campaign delivery against approved plans, ensure contractual and regulatory compliance, and conduct post-campaign reconciliation.
• Act as the primary media and performance contact for assigned clients, supporting retention and account growth.
• Manage media budgets and expenditures, track commitments and purchase orders, and support reconciliation and invoice verification.
• Monitor media, consumer, and digital marketing trends, and identify emerging platforms and opportunities.
  

Qualifications & Experience

• Degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business, or a related field.
• Solid experience in media buying and performance marketing across both traditional and digital channels.
• Proven track record managing paid campaigns and media budgets to measurable outcomes.
• Hands-on experience with major advertising platforms and analytics tools.
  

Skills & Competencies

• Media planning, negotiation, and buying across offline and digital channels.
• Performance marketing, campaign optimisation, and A/B testing.
• Strong analytical skills and proficiency with advertising and analytics platforms.
• Budget management and vendor/publisher relationship management.
• Excellent communication, reporting, and client-facing presentation skills.