Who is Understory?

Understory is a vertical-focused software solution built for experience businesses - from kayak tours to cooking classes. With our operating system, experience creators manage their operations, grow their bookings, accept payments and run their business with more clarity and less stress.

We move fast, change course when needed, and expect everyone to bring proactive solutions on a daily basis. You will learn faster here than almost anywhere else, because the challenges are real and the pace is high.

This is not about clocking in and out. The right candidate will receive a lot of trust and flexibility - and it's all about building something that matters to creators around the world, and shaping a company that can redefine an industry. If that excites you, you will feel at home. If it does not, this will not be the right place for you.

We have recently raised a €12m Series-A funding round, and are scaling fast. With customers in 10+ countries and a growing presence in the US, our focus is global, our ambition is high, and our team is all in on building the go-to solution for experience creators worldwide.

About the role

We are looking for a Performance Marketing Lead to design, run, and scale high-impact acquisition campaigns. You’ll be hands-on in the platforms, deeply analytical, and relentlessly focused on turning ad spend into revenue. While no one is fluent in every channel, you are strongest in paid social and confident in testing and scaling into others. You’ll use AI as a core multiplier across your workflow, and work closely with product, sales, and brand to make sure our growth engine is both measurable and meaningful. If you’re excited about building a scalable performance engine that fuels international growth, this role is for you.

What you'll do

• Own paid acquisition: Plan, launch, and optimize campaigns across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and emerging channels to drive qualified leads and conversions.
• Maximize efficiency: Manage budgets with precision, hitting targets while scaling channels. 
• Continuously optimize: Test audiences, creative, bids, landing pages and lead magnets to push performance forward across the funnel.
• Turn data into clarity: Analyze funnel performance, uncover insights, and build dashboards that make results actionable across the team.
• Use AI as a core multiplier: Apply AI to accelerate creative generation, automate testing, predict performance, and optimize spend.
• Automate workflows: Connect ad platforms, HubSpot, and analytics tools with AI-driven rules — e.g. pausing underperforming ads instantly.
• Collaborate for impact: Partner with product, growth, and sales to align campaigns tightly with pipeline and revenue goals.
• Forecast and allocate: Contribute to building models that dynamically distribute spend across channels and predict pipeline impact based on spend patterns, seasonality, and historical conversion rates. 

What you won't do

• Focus on vanity metrics. This role is measured by pipeline and revenue impact.

• Work as a pure strategist. You’ll be hands-on in platforms and experimentation daily.

• Run campaigns in isolation. Your work will be tightly integrated with broader growth initiatives. You'll also work closely with our Content Lead and Film Producer who provide the creative fuel while you tune the engine.

We think you'll thrive if you…

• Have a proven track record of running performance marketing at scale in B2B SaaS.
• Are strongest in paid social, while also knowing your way around paid search, retargeting, and demand capture tactics.
• Have experience across outbound (sales), inbound (marketing), and product-led growth.
• Use AI to multiply your impact — automating the repetitive so you can focus on high-leverage decisions.
• Love data and are comfortable building reports and models to track performance and guide spend.
• Are motivated by ambitious growth goals and the challenge of building a performance engine that can scale internationally.

What it’s like to work at Understory

We are building the leading platform for experience businesses - and we approach that with the same energy and ambition as the people we serve.

At Understory, you’ll join a team that moves fast, thinks long-term, and takes pride in doing work that matters. We are product-minded, mission-driven, and serious about quality - whether that is in the product, the strategy, or how we work together.

We care deeply about outcomes, not hours. We trust each other to lead, take action, and keep evolving - as individuals and as a company. There is room to grow here, and the chance to help shape something truly category-defining.

Start date

What matters most is finding the right fit. We’ll align on a start date together.

If you have any questions about the role or the process, feel free to reach out to Audrey@understory.io.