Head of User Acquisition
The Head of User Acquisition in the nutra vertical owns traffic volume and cost, ad profitability, and the scaling of channels used to acquire customers.
What a Head of User Acquisition does
The Head of User Acquisition is the leader responsible for the entire process of attracting buyers or leads in nutra projects, from choosing channels and hypotheses to budgets and final profitability. In nutra, where ad platforms tightly restrict creatives and copy and auction competition is intense, this role keeps traffic stable and margins from eroding as spend scales.
The position usually reports to the Commercial Director or the CEO of the product business and manages a group of media buyers, creative specialists, analysts, and sometimes a separate partner traffic unit. The role sits between product, finance, and marketing. It translates unit economics into concrete budgets and decisions about which offers, geos, and channels to scale and which to shut down.
For the company, this is a key management hub. Without it, teams split budgets across scattered experiments, lose control over ROMI, and become dependent on a single traffic source that can be blocked or become more expensive overnight.
Responsibilities
- Sets the acquisition strategy by geo, offer, and channel and aligns it with finance and product
- Allocates ad budgets across media buyers, affiliate networks, and direct ad accounts
- Monitors unit economics: target CPA, LTV, and margin for each flow and geo
- Builds the testing process for creatives, landing pages, and offers and is accountable for hypothesis speed
- Manages channel diversification to reduce the risk of blocks and dependence on one source
- Negotiates rates and terms with major partners, networks, and traffic sources
- Oversees antifraud checks, protection against invalid traffic, and quality control of leads and approvals
- Coordinates texts, creatives, and operating schemes with legal and compliance to meet platform rules and regulatory requirements
- Hires, motivates, and develops the team of buyers and analysts and sets KPIs for each member
- Prepares regular reporting for leadership: traffic, budget, and profitability forecasts for the next quarter
Skills
- Deep understanding of performance marketing and auction mechanics in contextual and social advertising
- Ability to build unit economics and turn them into traffic buying rules
- Analytical thinking: working with cohorts, attribution, and statistical significance of tests
- Knowledge of nutra offers, platform restrictions, and typical block risks
- Managing a multi-channel team and setting priorities
- Negotiating with partners and internal stakeholders
- Risk management: diversification, antifraud, and an action plan for account blocks
- Written and verbal communication with leadership, including data-driven decision briefs
- Understanding of product processes and the landing page funnel so bottlenecks can be spotted before they hit the budget
Tools
- Keitaro or a similar tracker for clicks, conversions, and attribution
- Google Analytics and Looker Studio for summary reports and dashboards
- Ad accounts on search and social platforms, such as Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager
- Affiliate platforms and networks for working with CPA offers
- SQL for data extraction and hypothesis testing
- Spreadsheets and BI tools for budget forecasting and unit economics modeling
- Jira or Trello for assigning tasks to the team and tracking tests
How performance is measured
- Volume of target actions (leads, purchases, approvals) at a given budget
- Average cost per acquisition (CPA) relative to the target value
- ROMI and margin of flows by geo and offer
- Share of traffic from diversified channels and speed of recovery after blocks
- Number of successful hypothesis tests per month and share of scaled decisions
- Percentage of invalid traffic and approvals after antifraud filtering
By vertical
Nutra
In nutra, the role focuses on working around strict platform restrictions and on creatives that pass moderation. The head balances scale against block risk, owns the cost of an approved lead, and ensures offers stay sustainable across geos where health product requirements and copy rules differ.
Levels
Head of / Director
At the Head of or Director level, the person is responsible for the entire acquisition channel and its financial result. They approve budgets and geo strategy, decide which areas to scale or close, make hiring decisions, and report directly to company leadership on profitability.
How to get there
People usually move into this role from media buying, a buying team lead position, or a performance marketing analyst role. Most important is a proven record of managing ad budgets with measurable results in CPA and ROMI, along with an understanding of how affiliate networks and traffic work in high-risk verticals. It helps to progress from executor to owner of a whole area: first running your own campaigns and hypotheses, then coordinating a team.
To grow, focus on building unit economics, working with attribution and test statistics, and mastering basic SQL and BI reporting. Risk management is also essential: how to respond to an account block, how to check traffic for fraud, and how to build processes with legal and compliance. These skills separate a manager from a strong executor.
A practical path is to take on more responsibility for budget and team, propose and defend geo and channel strategy to leadership, and build a track record of management decisions that delivered sustainable growth while keeping risk under control.
Next steps: Head of Performance Marketing, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Head of Growth, Director of Partnerships, Head of Affiliate Management
FAQ
How is a Head of User Acquisition different from a media buyer?
A media buyer launches and optimizes ad campaigns, while the Head of User Acquisition is responsible for the entire channel: strategy, budgets, team, and final profitability. They decide which geos and offers to scale and defend those decisions to leadership. The work happens at the level of a portfolio of areas, not individual campaigns.
Do you need to know programming for this role?
Deep programming is not required, but confident SQL skills and the ability to read data in BI tools are almost always needed. They allow you to test hypotheses independently, spot attribution problems, and avoid depending entirely on analysts. Understanding the basic logic of landing pages and tracking also helps when working with the team.
What determines income in this role?
Earnings usually depend on the size of the budgets managed, profitability results and traffic stability, and the company's compensation structure: a fixed salary, profit-based bonuses, or a share of results. The complexity of the vertical and willingness to take on block risk also matter.
Can you move into this role from another industry?
Yes, from adjacent fields such as e-commerce or traditional digital marketing, provided you have experience with paid traffic and measurable results. However, without an understanding of high-risk verticals and ad platform rules, adapting will be difficult. Many people take the path through a buyer or analyst position in nutra.
What mistakes are most common in this position?
Common mistakes include concentrating budget on one channel, having no plan for a block, scaling hypotheses without statistical validation, and weak antifraud control. A gap between marketing and finance is also a problem, when decisions are made without accounting for real margin after payouts and refunds.
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