Paid Social Specialist

About the role

Cognita is a global family of over 90 schools across 21 countries. As its Paid Social Specialist, you will build awareness and drive high-quality enquiries for Cognita schools across the Middle East and Asia, choosing the channels, audiences and creatives that work best for each school. You report to the Digital Marketing Manager and work within the strategy, targets and budgets set by the Head of Digital & Performance Marketing, alongside the Organic Social Executives, Brand and Creative teams and the wider Digital & Performance team.

Key responsibilities

• Deliver always-on and tactical paid social campaigns, from set-up and trafficking through to day-to-day monitoring.
• Optimise against awareness, enquiry and conversion targets, escalating risks and opportunities early.
• Control budget pacing by school, campaign and platform, and work with Finance to keep platform accounts and invoices paid.
• Recommend channels, audiences, placements and formats, staying channel-agnostic and led by performance evidence.
• Partner with Organic Social Executives and school teams to identify high-performing organic content and amplify it where it makes sense.
• Guide Brand and Creative teams on formats, messaging, calls to action and creative variations.
• Run a continuous test-and-learn programme across audiences, creative, placements and formats.
• Share weekly, monthly and termly reports with clear insight and next steps.
• Work with Paid Search and CRO Specialists, and with Sales and Parent Experience, to align media with website journeys and understand lead quality.

Required profile

• At least three years' experience in a digital agency running paid campaigns across multiple client accounts.
• Proven experience managing always-on and tactical paid social with both awareness and conversion objectives.
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing or a related field.
• Based in Dubai with a hybrid pattern, with flexibility across time zones and occasional travel across the Middle East and Asia.

Required skills

• Advanced, hands-on skills across Meta Ads, Google Ads and TikTok Ads, including targeting, optimisation, conversion tracking and budget pacing.
• Strong working knowledge of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
• Good creative judgement, attention to detail and clear stakeholder communication.
• Desirable: HubSpot experience, automated reporting or paid media automation tools, Meta/Google/TikTok certifications, and experience in education or another sector with a considered decision journey.