Top skills to feature
- Paid Search (Google Ads / Search Ads 360)
- Paid Social (Meta Ads / TikTok Ads / LinkedIn Ads)
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
- A/B Testing & Multivariate Testing
- Attribution Modeling (MTA / MMM)
- Performance Max / Demand Gen Campaigns
- Budget Pacing & Bid Strategy
- Landing Page Optimization
- Marketing Measurement & Incrementality Testing
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of advertising, promotions, and marketing managers to grow 6 percent from 2024 to 2034 — faster than the average for all occupations — with roughly 36,400 openings projected each year over that decade. Performance marketing is the segment drawing the most hiring activity right now, because every company that runs paid media needs someone who can show direct revenue attribution. Salary.com pegs the median Performance Marketing Manager at $124,404 in early 2026, with the 75th percentile above $155,000.
That demand cuts both ways. The volume of applicants for performance marketing roles is high, and more than 97 percent of Fortune 500 employers route applications through an ATS before a recruiter sees them. Performance marketing job descriptions are loaded with compound keyword phrases — “return on ad spend (ROAS),” “customer acquisition cost (CAC),” “Performance Max campaigns,” “incrementality testing” — that ATS systems score as exact strings. A resume that says “improved campaign efficiency” instead of “reduced CAC 28% through bid strategy optimization” will score below the filter threshold even when the underlying work is identical.
This page gives you a complete, ready-to-adapt sample resume, a section-by-section breakdown of every decision, ATS keyword guidance drawn from real 2026 performance marketing job descriptions, and the five mistakes that consistently eliminate qualified candidates.
Full Sample Resume
Marcus Chen Austin, TX · marcus.chen@email.com · linkedin.com/in/marcuschen-pm
SUMMARY
Performance Marketer with 6 years of experience owning paid acquisition across Google Ads, Meta Ads, and TikTok for DTC e-commerce and B2B SaaS businesses. Managed a combined annual media budget of $4.2M, achieving a blended ROAS of 4.1x and reducing customer acquisition cost (CAC) by 31% over two years through structured A/B testing, audience segmentation, and attribution model improvements. Deep hands-on experience with Performance Max, Meta Advantage+, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and GA4. Equally comfortable presenting incrementality test results to a CFO and troubleshooting pixel firing issues in GTM.
EXPERIENCE
Senior Performance Marketing Manager — Volta Commerce, Austin, TX January 2024 – Present
- Own $2.8M annual paid media budget across Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max) and Meta Ads (Advantage+ Shopping, Retargeting); achieved a blended return on ad spend (ROAS) of 4.3x in Q1 2026, up from 3.1x at hire date, contributing $1.2M in incremental revenue over the period.
- Ran a 12-week geo-based incrementality test that revealed $340K in annual budget waste from over-attributing retargeting conversions; reallocated spend to prospecting campaigns, reducing customer acquisition cost (CAC) from $58 to $40 (31% decrease) while holding monthly order volume flat.
- Built a conversion rate optimization (CRO) program covering 24 landing page A/B tests per year using VWO and Unbounce; top-performing variant lifted add-to-cart rate from 11.2% to 16.7%, producing a $190K revenue uplift in a single quarter without additional ad spend.
- Migrated analytics stack from Universal Analytics to GA4 + Google Tag Manager + BigQuery, establishing a first-party data pipeline that cut reporting lag from 48 hours to real-time and enabled same-session cross-channel attribution unavailable in the legacy setup.
Performance Marketing Manager — Fieldline SaaS, Remote May 2021 – December 2023
- Managed $1.4M annual paid search and paid social budget targeting mid-market B2B buyers; reduced cost per qualified lead (CPQL) from $312 to $198 over 18 months through keyword sculpting, negative keyword expansion, and audience exclusion lists refined via CRM data sync.
- Launched LinkedIn Ads for the first time at the company, building a full-funnel program (Thought Leadership ads → Conversation Ads → Retargeting); LinkedIn became the #2 pipeline-contributing channel within 9 months, generating 22% of closed-won revenue in the account-based marketing (ABM) motion.
- Implemented multi-touch attribution (MTA) modeling using Rockerbox, replacing last-click reporting; the model shifted budget allocation toward mid-funnel touchpoints and improved marketing-sourced pipeline by 18% in the first two quarters post-launch.
- Partnered with the product team to instrument in-app free-trial conversion events in GA4, enabling first-party bidding signals for Google Ads smart bidding; trial-to-paid conversion rate improved from 6.4% to 9.1% within 90 days of switching bid strategy.
Paid Media Specialist — Brightpath Agency, Chicago, IL August 2019 – April 2021
- Executed paid search and paid social campaigns for 11 DTC clients with individual budgets of $15K–$120K/month; maintained average ROAS of 3.6x across the portfolio against a client benchmark of 3.0x.
- Introduced weekly budget pacing dashboards in Looker Studio for all client accounts, reducing over-spend incidents from 7 per quarter to 0 over the following 6 months.
SKILLS
Paid Channels: Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max, YouTube), Meta Ads (Advantage+, Dynamic Ads), TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Display & Programmatic Analytics & Measurement: Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google Tag Manager (GTM), BigQuery, Looker Studio, Rockerbox, Triple Whale, Northbeam Optimization: A/B Testing, Multivariate Testing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Landing Page Optimization, Bid Strategy, Budget Pacing Core Metrics: ROAS, CAC, LTV, CPQL, MER, CTR, CVR, Incrementality Tools: Unbounce, VWO, HubSpot, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Shopify Analytics, Google Merchant Center, Meta Business Manager
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Administration, Marketing — University of Texas at Austin, 2019 Google Ads Search Certification (2026) · Meta Blueprint Certified Media Buying Professional (2025)
Why This Resume Works — Section by Section
Summary
The summary does three things in four sentences: establishes scope ($4.2M budget under management), anchors two headline numbers (4.1x ROAS, 31% CAC reduction), and signals the breadth that differentiates a performance marketer from a narrow channel specialist (measurement architecture, CRO, stakeholder communication). It deliberately avoids vague descriptors like “results-driven” or “passionate about data” — every claim is backed by a figure that appears in the experience section. The ATS-relevant compound terms — “return on ad spend (ROAS),” “customer acquisition cost (CAC),” “conversion rate optimization (CRO)” — appear in full-plus-abbreviation format on first use so both forms index.
Experience Bullets
Each bullet follows the same logic: action → lever pulled → outcome with a number. Notice that the outcome always specifies what moved and by how much, not just that something improved. “Reduced CAC from $58 to $40 (31% decrease)” is more convincing than “reduced CAC by 31%” because it shows the reader the absolute starting point — a $58 CAC is meaningful context for e-commerce, whereas a percentage alone could describe a trivial absolute change.
The bullets also name the specific platforms and features used — “Performance Max,” “Meta Advantage+ Shopping,” “Rockerbox” — because these are the exact strings recruiters and ATS filters search for in 2026. Generic terms like “paid media campaigns” match nothing in a targeted keyword search.
Skills Section
The skills section is structured by category rather than alphabetized, which makes it easier for a recruiter to scan and also helps an ATS that parses section headers. Channel names appear first because that is almost always the primary filter criteria in performance marketing searches. Metrics appear as a standalone category because recruiters frequently search for “ROAS” and “CAC” as standalone terms separate from tool names.
Education and Certifications
The BBA provides the baseline credential, but the platform certifications are listed inline on the same line because they carry weight in performance marketing in a way they do not in many other fields — Google and Meta update their certification curricula annually, so a current-year cert signals that the candidate is actively engaged with platform changes. List the year on certifications; an undated cert looks stale.
ATS Keyword Guidance for Performance Marketers
Performance marketing job descriptions in 2026 cluster around three keyword families. Your resume should contain representatives from each.
Channel and platform keywords are the first filter most recruiters apply. The terms that appear most consistently in current JDs are: Google Ads, Meta Ads, Performance Max, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Google Shopping, YouTube Ads, Demand Gen, programmatic advertising. If you have worked on any of these, name them explicitly — “managed paid social” is not a keyword match for “Meta Ads.”
Measurement and attribution keywords separate mid-level from senior candidates in ATS scoring. High-frequency terms: Google Analytics 4 (GA4), multi-touch attribution (MTA), marketing mix modeling (MMM), incrementality testing, Google Tag Manager (GTM), first-party data, conversion tracking, BigQuery, Triple Whale, Northbeam, Rockerbox. Attribution modeling is a skill gap in many performance marketing teams right now; naming your specific methodology (geo-holdout, synthetic control, last-click vs. data-driven) will stand out.
Metric and KPI keywords are what get surfaced in keyword searches by finance-savvy hiring managers and growth-stage companies. Include: ROAS, CAC, LTV, MER (marketing efficiency ratio), CPQL (cost per qualified lead), CTR, CVR (conversion rate), CPM, CPC. Write them as abbreviations in the skills section (where they scan cleanly) and as full compound terms in bullet points where context matters for readability.
Tool-specific terms that are appearing frequently in 2026 JDs: Shopify Analytics, Google Merchant Center, Meta Business Manager, Klaviyo (for DTC performance), HubSpot (for B2B), Salesforce (for B2B pipeline attribution), Unbounce, VWO, Optimizely. Include whatever you have used; omit tools you have not touched, because technical interview questions will expose gaps immediately.
One structural tip: performance marketing job descriptions frequently pair skill terms in the same phrase — “budget management and pacing,” “A/B testing and optimization,” “paid search and paid social.” When you mirror these pairings in your resume, you increase the likelihood that phrase-level matching (which some ATS platforms use in addition to individual keyword matching) produces a hit.
5 Common Mistakes Performance Marketers Make on Their Resume
1. Listing platforms without outcomes. A skills section that reads “Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads” tells a recruiter nothing that differentiates you from every other applicant. The platform list belongs in the skills section for ATS purposes, but every platform you managed should also appear in a bullet with a measurable result — ROAS, CAC, spend under management, or revenue contribution. If you cannot attach a number, write the scale (“managed $800K/month Google Ads budget”) as a minimum.
2. Using only abbreviations or only full terms. Writing “improved ROAS” ranks below the filter threshold for a recruiter who searched “return on ad spend.” Writing “improved return on ad spend” ranks below a recruiter who searched “ROAS.” Write both on first use: “return on ad spend (ROAS).” This applies to CAC, CRO, CTR, MTA, GA4, and every other compound term in the performance marketing vocabulary.
3. Claiming attribution credit you cannot defend. Performance marketers frequently overstate revenue contribution because last-click attribution inflates the apparent impact of lower-funnel channels. Hiring managers at sophisticated companies — particularly those who have done incrementality testing or built MMM models — will ask pointed questions about your attribution methodology in the interview. If your numbers come from last-click Google Analytics, say “last-click attributed revenue of $X” rather than presenting it as ground truth. It is more honest and it signals measurement sophistication.
4. Omitting budget scale. Budget under management is a proxy for seniority and scope that every performance marketing hiring manager reads for immediately. “$2.8M annual media budget” conveys in six words what a full paragraph about “ownership” and “strategic decision-making” cannot. If you have managed budgets at multiple employers, include the figure for each role. If your budget was small early in your career, include it anyway — a $50K/month budget managed efficiently is more credible than a vague claim of ownership.
5. Treating the resume as a job description rewrite. A bullet that reads “Responsible for managing paid search campaigns across Google and Meta to drive customer acquisition” is a job description, not an achievement. Recruiters have read thousands of these and skip them. The standard they are looking for is: what specific action did you take, what did you change or build, and what number moved as a result? Every bullet on a strong performance marketing resume answers all three questions in one sentence. If a bullet does not contain a number, it almost certainly needs to be rewritten or deleted.
Performance marketing hiring moves fast — roles at growth-stage companies frequently close in under two weeks. If you are actively applying, use a tool like OfferFlow to track each application, store the job description alongside your tailored resume version, and keep notes on the specific ROAS or CAC metrics you plan to highlight for each role. Having that context organized before a recruiter calls makes the difference between a coherent “here’s exactly what I drove” answer and a scramble to remember which company used which numbers.