Performance Marketing Lead (Contract) at Cardflight

We are hiring a Performance Marketing Lead to own acquisition execution and measurement end to end. This role is responsible for generating profitable attention, traffic, and qualified leads through a mix of paid channels, performance partnerships (affiliates and referrals), and scalable distribution. You will run day-to-day campaign operations, leverage AI throughout your process, build repeatable growth experiments, and maintain rigorous attribution from click to CRM to revenue outcomes. This is a builder role, not just of channels and programs, but of how modern acquisition gets done. You'll bring tools, workflows, and a point of view we don't have today and raise the ceiling for what a lean team can produce. You must have proven you can take a channel or acquisition program from scratch and scale it. Success is measured in business results, not activity metrics. You will build and own: • A diversified acquisition engine that produces qualified leads consistently • Reliable attribution and reporting that ties spend to opportunity and revenue outcomes • An experimentation cadence that scales winners and kills underperformers quickly — with the discipline to do both fast • A performance partnership channel (affiliates, referrals) that becomes a meaningful source of pipeline • An AI-powered operating model that raises the team's ceiling. Your choice of tools, and you’ll build the workflows that generate results and show us what's possible What You'll Own: Paid Acquisition (60%) • You own paid acquisition from spend to revenue outcome. That means hitting payback period targets, improving unit economics over time, and making disciplined channel decisions based on what the data actually says • Daily optimization: bid strategies, audience refinement, creative testing, landing page variants • Weekly decision-making: scale, iterate, or kill based on actual MAC and conversion data • You manage the budget like it's your money because we track every dollar to closed revenue Performance Partnerships (20%) • Build and manage affiliate/referral programs that generate qualified merchant leads • Recruit partners, negotiate terms, create offers that convert • Own tracking infrastructure so we know exactly what drives what • Merchant comparison sites, industry aggregators, referral networks—if it performs, you scale it Growth Experiments (20%) • Find channels our competitors haven't discovered or exhausted yet • Test unconventional tactics: Reddit communities, vertical-specific forums, niche directories • Launch rapid experiments with clear hypotheses and kill criteria • Build and run agentic AI workflows that compress testing cycles — automated variant generation, performance reads, and iteration loops with minimal manual intervention What Success Looks Like: You achieve MAC/payback periods at target and keep it there or, better. You do that by staying close to the data, killing what isn't working without sentiment, and doubling down on what is. The budget here isn't fixed but grows as the unit economics justify. You run a constant testing loop. There's always an experiment running, always a hypothesis being validated or killed. You're not waiting for permission to try something new, and you're not holding on to campaigns out of inertia. You feed sales leads that are actually worth their time. You stay close to close rates and disqualification reasons, and you let that feedback reshape targeting, qualification filters, and channel mix. If sales are burning hours on bad leads, that's your problem to fix. Over time, you build a diversified acquisition engine, not one channel with everything riding on it. Paid search anchors it early, but affiliates, partnerships, and unconventional channels earn their place by performing, not by existing. The scoreboard is simple: merchants acquired, MAC by channel, lead-to-approval rate, and payback period. If those move in the right direction, you get more to work with. If they don't, we find out why and fix it fast. Who You Are: You will be measured on outcomes that matter: MAC by channel, monthly merchants acquired, lead-to-customer conversion rate, LTV:MAC ratio, and payback period. Not impressions. Not engagement. Not clicks. Revenue. Must Haves: • 3-5+ years running profitable paid acquisition in B2B SaaS, fintech, payments, or similarly competitive markets, experience with application or underwriting a plus • You've personally managed tens of thousands in monthly ad spend and can show the MAC, conversion rates, and ROAS you achieved • Built something from zero to scale, not just optimized existing programs • Deep ad platform fluency: campaign structure, bidding strategies, Quality Score optimization, audience layering • Attribution competence in a cookieless environment, first-party data strategy, server-side tracking, CRM integration, modeled and multi-touch attribution • Affiliate bidding and partnership experience, you've recruited partners, structured offers, and tracked performance • Comfortable with constraints, you've made small budgets work, not just managed large ones as this is about efficiency first • Agentic workflows, you've built or orchestrated multi-step AI pipelines that run tests, read outputs, and iterate. Not prompting a chatbot for headlines; actually compressing work that used to take days into hours • Velocity, your testing throughput is demonstrably faster because of how you use AI tools, and you can prove it with results. You also know where AI breaks down and you validate before you act Don't Apply If: • You need a big team or agency to execute • You talk primarily about "brand building" or "awareness" • You've only worked with massive budgets at large companies, or work at a Fortune 500 company. Ever. • You can't explain attribution • You describe yourself as a "growth hacker" • You're uncomfortable with high accountability to revenue metrics • Your "AI fluency" means you use ChatGPT to write subject lines Why You'll Love Being A Part Of Our CardFlight Team: • US location-neutral work environment • Home-office equipment stipend • Flexible paid time off • Employee Engagement (Lunch & Learns, team building events) • Learning & Development culture • Comprehensive health benefits • Competitive compensation and company ownership/stock options • And more!! As part of providing a great new‑hire experience and setting you up for success, all new hires are required to attend an in‑person onboarding session on their first day of employment. During this session, you’ll meet with a member of our People Team to help guide your onboarding, connect with a few local employees, and get an introduction to our culture and processes. The company covers all costs for this onboarding, including reasonable travel expenses, meals, and hotel accommodations. You will be asked to arrive the day before your official first day (typically a Sunday), and hotel expenses will be covered through the night of your onboarding day. You can choose one of the following onboarding locations (unless special accommodations are required, which can be discussed if applicable): • Atlanta, GA • Lincoln or Omaha, NE • Nashville, TN • New York City, NY Who we are: Whether they’re building great payment software or collaborating with a client, every CardFlight employee is committed to empowering small businesses to accept electronic payments with ease. Our team works primarily remote in over 25 US states with the ability to work in any US state and is passionate about delivering easy to use software to help small businesses accept payments from their customers. Joining our team means that you will be part of a fast-moving company, work collaboratively with others, and have a direct impact on making payments simpler for small businesses. Our signature product, SwipeSimple, is used by 125,000+ small businesses across the country. SwipeSimple is a software solution that enables small businesses to accept payments seamlessly via phone, tablet or computer. SwipeSimple is sold through a partner network comprising financial institutions, merchant service providers, and independent sales organizations. The solution is also sold directly by CardFlight through SwipeSimple Connect. To Apply: Send us two things: • Your resume (keep it to one page) • A cover letter that includes one paid growth program you built, including how it started, how you grew it, and what it produced. Be specific about the numbers. Contractor ENGAGEMENT OVERVIEW Engagement Type Independent Contractor (1099) Initial Term 6 months, renewable Total Compensation Target $150,000 (base retainer + incentives) Location Remote The Engagement CardFlight is looking to engage an independent Performance Marketing contractor to own acquisition execution and measurement end to end. This contract role is responsible for generating profitable attention, traffic, and qualified leads through a mix of paid channels, performance partnerships (affiliates and referrals), and scalable distribution. The contractor will run day-to-day campaign operations, leverage AI throughout the process, build repeatable growth experiments, and maintain rigorous attribution from click to CRM to revenue outcomes. This is a builder engagement. The contractor brings tools, workflows, and a point of view CardFlight does not have today. As an independent contractor, you set your own schedule and work methods provided deliverables and performance benchmarks are met. You must have proven you can take a channel or acquisition program from scratch and scale it. Scope of Work Paid Acquisition (approx. 60% of effort) • Own paid acquisition from spend to revenue outcome — hitting payback period targets, improving unit economics, and making disciplined channel decisions based on data • Daily optimization: bid strategies, audience refinement, creative testing, landing page variants • Weekly decision-making: scale, iterate, or kill based on actual MAC and conversion data • Manage budget with full accountability to closed revenue metrics Performance Partnerships (approx. 20% of effort) • Build and manage affiliate/referral programs that generate qualified merchant leads • Recruit partners, negotiate terms, create offers that convert • Own tracking infrastructure for precise attribution of what drives what • Scale merchant comparison sites, industry aggregators, and referral networks that perform Growth Experiments (approx. 20% of effort) • Identify channels competitors have not discovered or exhausted • Test unconventional tactics: Reddit communities, vertical-specific forums, niche directories • Launch rapid experiments with clear hypotheses and kill criteria • Build and run agentic AI workflows that compress testing cycles Deliverables & Success Metrics Performance will be evaluated against the following measurable outcomes. These metrics form the basis for incentive compensation calculations described below. A key metric is success will be Merchant Acquisition Cost (MAC), or pay back period KPI Definition Review Cadence Merchants Acquired New approved merchant accounts attributed to contractor-managed channels Monthly MAC (Cu by Channel Total spend divided by acquired merchants per channel Weekly Lead-to-Approval Rate % of leads generated that convert to approved merchant accounts Monthly LTV:MAC Ratio Customer lifetime value relative to acquisition cost Quarterly Payback Period Months to recover MAC from gross margin Quarterly Compensation Package Total target compensation is $75,000 for the initial 6-month term, structured as a base retainer plus performance-based incentives. This structure aligns contractor earnings directly with the business outcomes that matter most: merchants acquired, unit economics, and channel diversification. Component Summary Component Amount Notes Base Monthly Retainer $7,500/mo =$45,000 over 6-month term; paid 1st of each month Merchant Acquisition Bonus 13,475 Performance-tiered; paid monthly in arrears MAC Efficiency Bonus $5,000 Quarterly; based on MAC improvement vs. baseline Channel Diversification Bonus $5,000 Paid at term end; requires 2+ non-paid-search channels Stretch Performance Bonus $5,000 Paid at term end if top-tier thresholds are hit Total Target Compensation (For 6 Months) $75,000 Base retainer + all incentives at target Incentive Detail • Merchant Acquisition Bonus Paid monthly based on the number of new merchants acquired through contractor-managed channels during that calendar month. Tiered structure: Monthly Merchants Acquired Bonus per Merchant Monthly Cap (this tier) < 20 (below threshold) No bonus — 20 – 34 (baseline) $200 per merchant $6,800 max 35 – 49 (target) $275 per merchant $13,475 max 50+ (overachieve) $350 per merchant Uncapped above 50 Note: "Merchant acquired" is defined as an approved merchant account with first transaction completed within 30 days of approval, attributable to a contractor-managed channel via agreed attribution model. • MAC Efficiency Bonus Paid quarterly. The current baseline MAC of 18 months is improved for each active channel. Bonus is earned based on improvement in blended MAC versus that baseline: MAC Improvement vs. Baseline Quarterly Bonus No improvement $0 5% – 9% reduction $3,000 10% – 14% reduction $5,000 15% – 19% reduction $8,500 20%+ reduction $12,500 • Channel Diversification Bonus Paid at the end of the 6-month term. Rewards building a durable, multi-channel acquisition engine — not over-reliance on a single source. • $2,500 — One non-paid-search channel generating 15%+ of monthly merchant volume by Month 6 • $5,000 (incremental) — Two or more non-paid-search channels each generating 10%+ of monthly merchant volume by Month 6 • $7,500 — requires both thresholds above to be met • Stretch Performance Bonus — Up to $15,000 Paid at the end of the 6-month term. Awarded if all of the following are achieved simultaneously in Month 6: • Monthly merchant acquisition rate is 50+ for two consecutive months (Months 5 and 6) • Blended MAC is 15% or more below the Month 1 baseline • Lead-to-approval rate is 25% or higher • At least one affiliate or referral partner generating 10+ merchants/month is active Contractor Requirements Must Have • 3–5+ years running profitable paid acquisition in B2B SaaS, fintech, payments, or similarly competitive markets; experience with application or underwriting is a plus • Personally managed tens of thousands in monthly ad spend with documented MAC, ROAS, and conversion rate results • Built acquisition programs from zero to scale — not just optimized existing ones • Deep ad platform fluency: campaign structure, bidding strategies, Quality Score optimization, audience layering • Attribution competence in a cookieless environment: first-party data strategy, server-side tracking, CRM integration, multi-touch attribution • Affiliate and partnership experience: recruited partners, structured offers, and tracked performance • Comfortable operating with budget constraints — efficiency first • Built or orchestrated multi-step agentic AI pipelines that compress work that used to take days into hours • Can demonstrate faster testing throughput as a direct result of AI tooling — and knows where AI breaks down Will Not Engage If • You require a team or agency to execute • Your primary focus is brand building or awareness metrics • You cannot explain attribution in detail • You describe yourself as a "growth hacker" • Your AI fluency means using ChatGPT for subject lines • High accountability to revenue metrics makes you uncomfortable Contractor Terms The following terms apply to this independent contractor engagement. A full Independent Contractor Agreement will be provided upon selection. Classification Independent Contractor (1099-NEC). Contractor is not an employee and is responsible for all applicable taxes, insurance, and business expenses. Equipment & Tools Contractor is responsible for providing their own equipment, software, and tools. No equipment stipend is provided under this engagement. Work Location Remote. Contractor may work from any US location. Payment Terms Base retainer invoiced monthly, net 15. Incentive payments within 15 business days of the close of the applicable measurement period. Confidentiality Contractor must execute a mutual NDA prior to commencement. All performance data, attribution models, and customer data are confidential. IP Ownership All work products, workflows, tools, and creative assets produced under this engagement are work-for-hire and owned by CardFlight. Termination Either party may terminate with 30 days written notice. CardFlight may terminate for cause immediately. Earned but unpaid incentives vest through the termination date. About CardFlight Whether building great payment software or collaborating with a client, every CardFlight employee and contractor is committed to empowering small businesses to accept electronic payments with ease. Our team works primarily remote across 25+ US states and is passionate about delivering easy-to-use software for small business payments. Our signature product, SwipeSimple, is used by 125,000+ small businesses nationwide — enabling seamless payment acceptance via phone, tablet, or computer. SwipeSimple is sold through a partner network of financial institutions, merchant service providers, and ISOs, and directly via SwipeSimple Connect. How to Engage To be considered for this contract engagement, submit the following: • Your resume or capability statement (1 page preferred) • A case study of one paid growth program you built: how it started, how you grew it, and what it produced — with specific numbers • Your target rate expectations and availability to start