Director of Performance

Description

Papaya is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile gaming companies, delivering engaging, high-performing games to millions of players. Based in Tel Aviv, our mission is to create exceptional gaming experiences through outstanding product thinking, innovation, and execution.

We are looking for an experienced and strategic Director of Performance to lead our Performance Marketing organization and drive sustainable growth across Papaya’s portfolio of mobile games.

In this role, you will own the overall User Acquisition, Retargeting, and Performance Marketing strategy, leading a high-performing team and overseeing multi-million-dollar marketing budgets across multiple games, markets, and channels.

You will combine strategic thinking, deep performance expertise, strong analytical capabilities, and people leadership to identify growth opportunities, optimize investment, and continuously improve the efficiency and scale of our acquisition efforts. You will work closely with senior leadership and cross-functional teams across Marketing, Creative, Product, BI, Monetization, and Data to translate business goals into measurable growth.

Responsibilities

- Own and define the overall Performance Marketing, User Acquisition, and Retargeting strategy across Papaya’s portfolio of mobile games.
- Lead, mentor, and develop the Performance/UA organization, building a high-performing, data-driven team and developing future leaders.
- Own and optimize multi-million-dollar marketing budgets, ensuring efficient allocation across games, channels, markets, and platforms.
- Drive growth and profitability through continuous optimization of ROAS, LTV, CAC, retention, and user growth.
- Identify new growth opportunities, channels, platforms, and markets, and lead their evaluation and implementation.
- Set performance goals, KPIs, processes, and best practices across the organization.
- Oversee campaign strategy and performance across major self-serve platforms, while driving GTM and product marketing initiatives to support growth and successful product launches.
- Leverage data, attribution, experimentation, and market insights to make informed investment and growth decisions.
- Partner closely with Creative to shape creative strategy, testing frameworks, and the development of high-performing ad creatives.
- Work cross-functionally with Product, BI, Monetization, Data, and other stakeholders to identify opportunities and improve the full acquisition and monetization funnel.
- Build strong relationships with key advertising partners and stay ahead of industry trends, platform developments, and emerging growth opportunities.
- Establish a culture of experimentation, continuous learning, and data-driven decision-making across the Performance organization.
- Present performance results, business insights, forecasts, and strategic recommendations to senior leadership.

Requirements

- 7+ years of experience in Performance Marketing / User Acquisition, with significant experience in mobile gaming.
- 3+ years of people management experience, including leading managers and/or a multi-layered Performance/UA organization.
- Proven experience owning large-scale UA and Retargeting operations across multiple games, markets, and channels.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior leadership and drive alignment across multiple functions.
- Strong strategic, organizational, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced environment.
- Extensive experience managing and optimizing multi-million-dollar marketing budgets, with clear ownership of business and growth outcomes.
- Deep expertise in performance marketing metrics, including ROAS, LTV, CAC, retention, payback, and user growth.
- Extensive hands-on knowledge of major self-serve advertising platforms, including Social (,Meta, Tiktok…), DSP+SDK (Applovin, Unity, Liftoff, Moloco, Mintegral), content, CPE (rewarded traffic), ASA, CTV, and others.
- Strong understanding of mobile attribution and measurement, including platforms such as AppsFlyer and Adjust, and the broader mobile measurement ecosystem.
- Strong analytical and business acumen, with the ability to translate complex data into strategic decisions and clear business recommendations.
- Proven experience partnering with Creative teams to develop, test, and scale high-performing ad creatives.
- Strong understanding of experimentation, performance optimization, and growth strategy in a mobile gaming environment.
- Advanced Excel skills; experience with SQL, Tableau, or other BI tools is a strong advantage, along with a demonstrated ability to leverage AI and adopt new tools, technologies, and methodologies to improve analytical processes and efficiency.
- Fluent English, both written and spoken.