Creative Strategist, Paid Acquisition (6 month FTC)

Yoto is on a mission to give kids the magic of audio - and paid media is one of our most powerful growth engines. We're looking for a Creative Strategist to own the creative side of our paid acquisition efforts: not just briefing creatives, but building the system that makes every ad smarter than the last.

About Yoto

Yoto is a screen‑free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels - think Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Universal Music. We also create Yoto Originals like BrainBots.

What you’ll be doing

• Creative Audit & Strategy: Conduct a full audit of the existing Meta & TikTok account - cataloguing every ad that's run, surfacing what's worked, and building a clear picture of our creative history and learnings. Develop and maintain a structured hook and angle library, continuously refined using AI tooling to generate and score variants at scale. Own the creative calendar - tracking what's in production, what's entering the auction, and ensuring the pipeline is always stocked with fresh, hypothesis‑driven work.
• Brief System & Production: Design and own a brief template system for all paid creative production - one that gives designers and video producers everything they need to make great work without back‑and‑forth. Translate performance signals into concrete creative direction. Every brief should have a clear hypothesis, a defined audience, and a measurable goal. Work closely with our Creative team, and external creators to bring briefs to life - acting as the connective tissue between performance marketing and creative execution.
• Testing Framework & Performance Loop: Build and manage a weekly creative testing framework with clear hypotheses, a prioritised queue, and a structured cadence for reviewing results. Close the feedback loop between performance data and the next creative iteration - turning Paid Social insights, thumb‑stop rates, hook performance, and conversion data into actionable briefs. Work with the wider Acquisition team to ensure creative learnings inform targeting, audience strategy, and channel decisions.
• AI Infrastructure: Build and scale the AI infrastructure that powers the creative function - including brief generation, hook variant production, and creative scoring systems. Develop workflows and tooling (using Claude and other AI tools) that allow the creative strategy function to operate beyond your own capacity, so the team scales without losing quality. Stay current on AI developments relevant to creative production and bring new approaches to the team before competitors do.

What you’ll bring

• 3–5+ years in a creative strategy, performance creative, or creative production role, ideally within a DTC, consumer tech, or fast‑growth e‑commerce brand.
• Demonstrable experience with Meta & TikTok paid media - you can read a creative breakdown dashboard and know exactly what to do next.
• Experience building brief systems, testing frameworks, or creative operating models from scratch, not just inheriting them.
• Hands‑on experience using AI tools for creative work - whether that's Claude, ChatGPT, or other tooling for copy, ideation, or production workflows.
• Sharp analytical instincts - you're comfortable in Paid Social ads platforms, understand statistical significance, and can separate signal from noise.
• Strong creative judgement - you know a good hook when you see one.
• Highly organised and systems‑minded - you build processes that other people actually use.
• Clear, compelling communicator - your briefs are unambiguous, your presentations land, your feedback is actionable.
• Proactive and self‑directed - you don't wait to be told what to test. You come with a hypothesis.

Salary £50,000 – £60,000 based on experience (pro‑rate)

What you can expect from Yoto

• Flexibility: Hybrid working - expectation of 1 day a week on average in our London office, but you are welcome to come in more than this. Take advantage of our ‘work from anywhere’ policy to work from a different location for up to 6 weeks every year.
• Financial: Receive Income Protection, covering long term sickness for up to 2 years and company sick pay that increases with length of service. Life Assurance cover from day one of your service. Workplace Pension offering up to 3% employer contributions, following probation.
• Health & Wellness: Private Medical Insurance via Aviva, or a Wellbeing Allowance to be used for memberships, subscriptions, treatment or therapy. Access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) through WeCare and unlimited access to Dental advice and guidance via Toothfairy.
• Time Off: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays. On top of this, you also receive your birthday off, plus 1 extra day of holiday for every year worked after you hit your 2 year anniversary, up to 5 extra days.
• Helping Families: Variety of family‑friendly leave, including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, fertility, pregnancy loss and carers leave.
• People & Planet: Up to 2 volunteer days a year. A Book Allowance of up to £50 a year to contribute to your professional development.
• Fun Perks: You receive your very own Yoto player and starter pack of cards! Regular company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity

At Yoto, we love creating a world where childhood is rich with discovery and joy. We’re also passionate about building a workplace where everyone can thrive - both professionally and personally. We value flexibility and give our team the freedom to balance life and work in ways that suit them. We're committed to fostering a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported.