Creative Strategist in Manchester

Aura is building a new kind of end-of-life company — one that brings clarity, warmth and modern thinking to a category most brands get wrong. We’re already one of the UK’s leading funeral plan providers, and we’re expanding into a broader platform for peace-of-mind planning.

Paid social is central to how we grow. We need someone who can turn customer insight into high-performing creative, run a relentless testing engine, and scale what works — all within a category that demands sensitivity, authenticity and emotional intelligence. This is not a posting role. It is not a support function. This is a senior, hands-on leadership position for someone who wants full ownership of creative strategy across paid social, with the commercial accountability that comes with it.

What you’ll own

• Paid social creative strategy
• Own the end-to-end creative strategy for paid social across Meta, TikTok, YouTube and emerging platforms
• Turn audience insight, personas and propositions into ad concepts that stop thumbs and drive action
• Build and run a high-velocity creative testing programme designed to learn quickly and scale winners
• Partner closely with performance marketing to align creative testing with commercial targets — MQLs, SQLs and revenue
• Translate performance data into creative insight, and creative insight back into measurable improvement
• Push creative boundaries while respecting the sensitivity and responsibility of the category

Creative production and velocity

• Deliver a consistent cadence of new concepts, variations, formats and hooks across platforms
• Own the creative pipeline from ideation through to production, QA and handoff to the performance team
• Use AI tools, templates and smart workflows to increase output without sacrificing quality or originality
• Manage external creative freelancers and production partners where needed

Platform expertise and experimentation

• Bring deep, instinctive understanding of how social algorithms, placements and formats influence creative performance
• Design creative for distribution as well as aesthetics — native, scroll-stopping, platform-appropriate
• Stay ahead of platform changes, new ad formats and emerging behaviours
• Use structured experimentation to reduce guesswork and increase learning velocity

Organic social and brand voice

• While paid creative is the core of this role, you will also have a hand in shaping Aura’s organic social presence and voice. This is a secondary responsibility that will grow over time, particularly as the company evolves its brand positioning later in the year.
• Contribute to the organic content strategy, balancing storytelling, education and cultural relevance
• Help build a distinctive Aura social voice that is compassionate, modern, confident and human
• Spot trends early and adapt them in a way that feels authentic and on-brand

Leadership and collaboration

• Work as a senior peer alongside Content, Design, Performance Marketing and Product
• Lead and develop junior social managers, creatives and freelancers as the function grows
• Set clear standards for creative quality, pace and commercial rigour
• Be hands-on where it matters while building towards a scalable, repeatable function

What success looks like

• In six months, you’ll know you’re succeeding when:
• Paid social creative performance is improving consistently month-on-month against defined commercial KPIs
• Creative testing is systematic, fast and insight-led — not reactive or ad hoc
• You have a clear, data-informed view of what creative messages, formats and hooks work for each audience segment
• The creative pipeline is running at velocity without bottlenecks or quality drops
• Aura is becoming one of the most distinctive and trusted voices in the end-of-life category

What we’re looking for

• Proven track record producing high-performing paid social creative that drove measurable commercial results
• Significant experience across Meta Ads (essential) and ideally TikTok, YouTube or other paid platforms
• Strong creative judgement paired with genuine commercial awareness — you understand CAC, ROAS and funnel metrics
• Experience working closely with performance marketing teams and optimising creative based on data
• Deep understanding of social platforms, algorithms, placements and audience behaviour
• Experience building or scaling creative testing programmes
• Comfortable operating with ownership, ambiguity and pace in a high-growth environment
• Bonus, not essential: Experience in a sensitive, regulated or trust-dependent category (health, finance, end-of-life, insurance)
• Experience with PMAX or broader Google Ads creative
• Familiarity with AI-powered creative tools, production workflows or testing methodologies
• Experience growing organic social channels meaningfully alongside paid activity

Who you are

• Creative, curious and deeply interested in people — what moves them, what they fear, what they need to hear
• Compassionate and emotionally intelligent, especially when navigating sensitive subjects
• Commercially minded and outcome-focused — you care about results as much as craft
• Comfortable taking responsibility, making decisions and owning the outcome
• Motivated by building something meaningful, not just something loud
• Someone who wants to use their creative powers for good