Japan Growth Marketing Lead

About the Role/Specialty

As Growth Marketing Lead, you'll own Canva Japan's growth marketing end-to-end, from awareness and acquisition through to activation, conversion, retention and revenue, building data-driven strategies across the full customer journey. You'll directly manage our digital advertising channels in-house rather than through an agency, so you're close to the data and in control of every lever. You'll pair deep, practical advertising expertise with an experimental mindset and a genuine understanding of Japanese consumers, and you'll work with local and global marketing, creative, product, data and localisation teams to find and scale what works.

Goals you’ll achieve

0-6 month goals

• Take full, hands-on ownership of Japan's digital advertising channels, running day-to-day setup, optimisation and budget management directly in-platform.

• Build a clear view of the Japan funnel from acquisition to revenue, and identify the highest-impact growth opportunities from customer behaviour, market trends and campaign data.

• Stand up a structured testing roadmap across channels, audiences and creative concepts, with clear goals and measurement in place.

6-12 month goals

• Improve core efficiency metrics (CAC, CPA, ROAS and conversion rate) and show measurable incremental lift from paid investment.

• Scale the channels and campaigns that work, reallocating budget based on performance, incrementality and business impact.

• Partner with local creative to ship truly local ad concepts that lift conversion with Japanese audiences, and establish a clear read on which messages and formats drive results.

What you’ll do (responsibilities)

• Develop and execute Canva Japan's growth marketing strategy across acquisition, activation, conversion, retention and revenue growth.

• Manage the marketing budget and allocate investment based on performance, incrementality and business impact.

• Directly manage all digital advertising in-house across Meta, Google, YouTube, TikTok, X, Apple Search Ads and other relevant platforms, owning campaign setup, daily optimisation, performance analysis and budget management.

• Run campaigns across brand, consideration, app acquisition, website conversion, subscription and revenue objectives, defining audience, bidding, placement, attribution and measurement strategies.

• Track, analyse and report on performance against metrics like CAC, CPA, ROAS, conversion rate, video completion rate, revenue and incremental lift, and turn that data into clear budget and investment decisions.

• Build and run a structured testing roadmap across channels, audiences, creative concepts, landing pages and campaign objectives.

• Partner with the local creative team to develop and evaluate advertising concepts built specifically for Japanese audiences.

• Collaborate with local and global marketing, creative, product, data and localisation teams to identify and scale growth opportunities.

What we're looking for

• Around 7 or more years in growth, performance or digital marketing, with hands-on experience managing significant advertising budgets directly in-platform (across search, app, web, social and video) rather than overseeing an agency.

• Strong knowledge of attribution, analytics, experimentation, conversion optimisation and incrementality measurement.

• Strong analytical and business judgment, using performance data to make confident budget and investment calls that grow users and revenue.

• Proven ability to run campaigns end-to-end and independently, from developing the strategy and setting up campaigns to managing bids and budgets, analysing performance and implementing optimisations.

• A deep understanding of Japanese consumers, their media behaviour and the local digital platform landscape, and the ability to translate that into campaigns that resonate.

• A curious, proactive self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, evolving environment, is comfortable navigating ambiguity, takes measured risks and communicates effectively with both local and global stakeholders.

• Native-level Japanese and business-level English (both essential for this role).

What you will learn and how will you develop at Canva

• Build Canva Japan's in-house growth marketing engine from a position of genuine ownership, shaping how we invest and grow in one of our priority markets.

• Sharpen your craft in incrementality, experimentation and measurement, backed by meaningful budgets and strong global data and creative support.

• Grow into a market-level growth leader, working across local and global teams and helping set the standard for how Canva grows in Japan.