Director of Performance Marketing

Job Description

Job Description

About Karbon

Karbon is the global leader in AI-powered practice management software for accounting firms. We provide an award-winning cloud platform that helps tens of thousands of accounting professionals work more efficiently and collaboratively every day. With customers in 40 countries, we have grown into a globally distributed team across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines. We are well-funded, ranked #1 on G2, growing rapidly, and have a people-first culture that is recognized with Great Place To Work® certification and on Fortune magazine's Best Small Workplaces™ List.

We are looking for a Director of Performance Marketing to lead Karbon's paid and digital growth engine at a pivotal moment. AI is not on the horizon for marketing - it is here. Buyer discovery is increasingly happening through AI-native surfaces. The next generation of search is agentic. This role demands a leader who is not watching these changes unfold, but actively building strategy and systems to get ahead of them.

You will own paid media strategy and investment, lead Karbon's approach to AI-native and agentic search, drive the website as a high-converting commercial asset, and architect lifecycle campaigns that grow revenue across the full customer journey. Critically, you will also be expected to build a team that uses AI to work smarter - automating intelligently, experimenting faster, and scaling output without scaling headcount proportionally.

Paid Media Strategy & Execution

• Own Karbon's paid media portfolio with agency support across SEM, paid social, display, retargeting, content syndication, and review platforms - leveraging AI-powered bidding, audience modeling, and creative optimization to maximize performance
• Manage a multi-million dollar demand gen and advertising budget and maintain the highest standards for ROAS and payback period efficiencies
• Apply AI-driven tools and platforms to improve targeting precision, reduce CAC, and scale what works
• Partner closely with Sales and RevOps to align paid investment with pipeline targets - using predictive analytics and AI-assisted forecasting to sharpen planning
• Build rigorous measurement frameworks and attribution models, incorporating AI-assisted analysis to surface insights faster and connect spend to revenue outcomes with greater confidence

Website & Digital Engagement

• Own karbonhq.com as a high-performing commercial asset - along with leading the team responsible for traffic quality, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and pipeline contribution and web development.
• Deploy AI-powered personalization, dynamic content, and intelligent chat to improve on-site engagement and accelerate the path from visit to conversion
• Lead experimentation at scale - using AI-assisted testing tools to run more experiments faster, identify winning variants sooner, and continuously compound conversion improvements
• Ensure the site is structured and tagged for maximum discoverability by both traditional crawlers and AI ingestion pipelines, treating technical site health as a strategic competitive lever
• Own Karbon's presence on G2 and other review platforms as both a paid and organic performance channel, covering category sponsorship, profile optimization, review generation programs, and the deployment of G2 assets (badges, comparison pages, buyer intent signals) as conversion tools across the site and campaigns.

AI-Native Search Strategy: SEO, GEO, AEO & Agentic Search

• This is a defining responsibility of the role. Own and lead Karbon's strategy across the full modern search stack - traditional SEO, generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO), and agentic search channels
• Drive Karbon's visibility and authority inside AI-native discovery surfaces - including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Copilot, and the growing ecosystem of AI agents that research and recommend software on behalf of buyers
• Develop a structured approach to being cited, referenced, and recommended by AI models - understanding how large language models retrieve and surface brand information, and building content and technical strategies that improve Karbon's presence in those outputs
• Anticipate and build for the agentic web: as AI agents increasingly handle research, comparison, and vendor shortlisting on behalf of human buyers, ensure Karbon's digital footprint is optimized to be discovered, understood, and recommended by those agents
• Collaborate with content, product marketing, and engineering to continuously evolve site architecture, structured data, and content strategy in response to how AI models index and interpret information

Growth Campaigns & Customer Lifecycle

• Design and execute integrated growth campaigns across the full customer lifecycle - from AI-assisted prospecting and first-touch acquisition through expansion and retention
• Use AI tools to accelerate campaign development: faster creative iteration, smarter audience segmentation, AI-generated copy variants tested at scale, and intelligent send-time and channel optimization
• Build and optimize nurture programs powered by behavioral signals and AI-driven lead scoring - ensuring the right message reaches the right prospect at the right moment
• Partner with product marketing, customer success, and sales to develop campaigns that grow pipeline at the top of funnel and accelerate revenue within the existing customer base
• Own Karbon's buyer intent data strategy, selecting and managing intent platforms (such as G2 Buyer Intent, Bombora, or 6sense), and operationalizing intent signals across paid targeting, outbound prioritization, and lifecycle campaign triggers to ensure the team is acting on in-market behavior in real time.

AI-Powered Demand Generation

• Champion AI adoption across the demand generation function. Identify, evaluate, and implement AI tools and processes that meaningfully improve lead to set speed, quality, and output - from creative demand gen production and workflows to analytics and reporting
• Build and document AI-enhanced workflows that allow a lean team to operate with the output of a much larger one: scaling content, campaigns, and experimentation without proportional headcount growth.
• Stay current on the rapidly evolving AI tool landscape, from LLM-powered marketing platforms to autonomous campaign agents, and bring relevant innovations to the team before competitors do
• Foster a culture of intelligent experimentation: encourage the team to test new AI capabilities, share learnings, and continuously raise the bar on what modern marketing operations look like

• 8+ years of performance marketing experience , with at least 3 years in a senior leadership role in a B2B SaaS environment
• Deep B2B vertical SaaS experience is required - you understand the nuances of marketing to a specific professional audience and have owned pipeline and revenue targets in a SaaS context
• A genuine practitioner of AI in marketing - not someone who talks about AI, but someone who uses it daily, builds with it, and has meaningfully changed how their team works because of it
• Demonstrable expertise in AI-native and agentic search - you understand how GEO, AEO, and agentic discovery channels work, why they matter, and how to build strategy around them; this is a hard requirement, not a nice-to-have
• Proven track record in paid media strategy - managing significant budgets across SEM, paid social, and programmatic, with command of AI-powered ad platforms and performance optimization
• Experience owning website performance as a commercial metric - with measurable CRO outcomes and a track record of deploying personalization and AI-assisted optimization
• Data-driven and analytically rigorous - you build attribution models, question default dashboards, and make decisions grounded in evidence rather than instinct alone
• A strong cross-functional leader who can align content, product, engineering, and sales around a coherent digital and AI search strategy
• Clear and confident communicator - able to translate AI strategy and performance data into executive-ready narrative and business impact
• Experience in accounting, professional services, or practice management software is a plus, but not required

Why Work at Karbon?

• Gain global experience across Australia, New Zealand, UK, and Canada
• Strong benefits package including:
• Flexible Time Off with an encouraged 4 weeks use per year
• Company paid medical for you and eligible spouse/partner and dependents
• Paid dental and vision and eligible spouse/partner and dependents
• 401(k) with company matching
• Flexible Spending Account
• Up to 8 weeks paid parental leave
• Work-from-home stipend
• Work with (and learn from) an experienced, high-performing team
• A collaborative, team-oriented culture that embraces diversity, invests in development and provides consistent feedback
• Be part of a fast-growing company that firmly believes in promoting high performers from within

As we hire across various locations within the USA we are required by law to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role.

The range provided is broad and takes into consideration a wide range of factors that are reviewed when making a hiring decision, such as physical location/cost of living in that location, years of experience, skills, and other business needs.

It is not typical for a candidate to be hired at or near the top of the pay range and each compensation decision is dependent on each individual case. The base salary is one component of the total compensation package, which for some roles may include a target bonus, for some roles very competitive equity grant, and very generous benefits. While we believe competitive compensation is a critical aspect of you deciding to join us, we do hope you also spend time considering why our mission, purpose and values are right for you. We are creating something transformational here, and we hope you are as excited about the future as we are!

The estimated base salary range for this role is:

$170,000—$195,000 USD

Karbon embraces diversity and inclusion, aligning with our values as a business. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single criteria. If you've made it this far in the job description but your past experience doesn't perfectly align, we do encourage you to still apply. You could still be the right person for the role!

We recruit and reward people based on capability and performance. We don't discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, lifestyle, age, educational background, national origin, religion, physical or cognitive ability, and other diversity dimensions that may hinder inclusion in the organization.

Generally, if you are a good person, we want to talk to you.

If there are any adjustments or accommodations that we can make to assist you during the recruitment process, and your journey at Karbon, contact us at View email address on ziprecruiter.com for a confidential discussion.

At this time, we request that agency referrals are not submitted for this position. We appreciate your understanding and encourage direct applications from interested candidates. Thank you!