Set the first responsibility before settling on a title
A performance marketing manager may own paid acquisition for a defined channel. A growth marketing manager can work across acquisition, activation, and retention. Both titles vary by company. Describe the first result this person should help the team understand, the work they will do each week, and the decisions reserved for the founder or marketing lead.
For a startup, one named owner is useful only when a manager can review the work and the underlying data has a clear owner. If tracking does not distinguish signups from activated users, a marketer cannot infer the activation rate from a list of signups. State the gap in the brief and decide who can fix the event definition before using that metric to judge the hire.
A fictional startup intake with incomplete activation data
This example is fictional. It describes a hiring brief, not an Opus client or a result. A US software startup has an existing paid search program, a product signup flow, and a founder who still approves campaign changes. The team wants to hire one senior marketer.
- The founder names the first assignment: review paid-search lead quality and map what happens between signup and the first completed product action. The founder keeps budget and product-priority decisions.
- The marketing lead supplies campaign history and CRM definitions. The product owner confirms which product events are recorded. The brief lists activation reporting as unresolved until those owners verify the event and its source.
- The new manager can recommend a test and prepare the readout. The founder approves spend; the product owner approves product changes. The hiring manager books time to review the first plan and the evidence behind it.
This scope may fit a broader growth hire if the manager has experience with both channel analysis and funnel measurement. If the startup only needs one paid channel run, define its weekly workload and name the manager who will review it before deciding whether a full-time search fits.
Copy this into the role brief
- First responsibility and the customer or business decision it should inform.
- Current channel, CRM, and product data sources, with a named owner for each definition.
- Work included during the first quarter and work that stays with the founder, product, sales, or an agency.
- Authority to recommend changes, spend limits, and the person who approves budgets, claims, creative, and production releases.
- Manager, review cadence, required US working-hour overlap, and the time available for feedback.
- Evidence each finalist must show from work they personally owned, including the time window, baseline, data source, and their part in the result.
- Systems and account access required for the role, plus who keeps each account when the arrangement ends.
Ask for ownership evidence, not a channel list
Ask finalists to walk through one campaign or funnel change they directly owned. Have them separate their decisions from the team's work, identify the source and date range for the numbers they cite, and explain what attribution or tracking cannot tell them. A logo list or an unqualified revenue claim does not establish individual ownership.
The existing growth marketer hiring guide compares named providers and includes the complete fictional work sample and scoring rubric. Use that exercise when the role requires analysis across channels; do not ask candidates to repeat it if a narrower skill is the actual job. Use its provider comparison to distinguish a full-time placement from fractional support, then send the same completed role brief to the firms you shortlist.
Give the hire a manager who can make decisions
Before the search, reserve time for the person who will review plans and results. Confirm whether the hire can change campaign settings, propose a new test, publish claims, or request product work. Name the approver for each. Opus's placement model has your manager directing the full-time hire's day-to-day work; include the startup's own review and approval owners in the written role brief.