Creative Strategist, Growth Marketing (Istanbul, 12-month Contract)

Canva; Fatih; On-site; TRY 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Canva in Istanbul is seeking a Creative Strategist for Turkiye to drive paid and organic marketing growth with a hands-on, insight-led approach. You’ll work at the intersection of data, storytelling, and local nuance, influencing creative direction, agencies, and cross-functional teams without a direct reports line.

You’ll guide creative strategy across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, leveraging performance data and local cultural moments.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience in creative strategy or performance marketing.
• Strong knowledge of the Turkish market and Turkish language.
• Experience with platform-native formats and rigorous testing.
• Ability to work with global teams, agencies, and local execution.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creative flywheel from research to analysis, coordinating with regional and global teams.
• Analyse dashboards, diagnose underperformance, and design creative tests and attribution experiments.
• Define high-performing creative strategy for Turkish audiences across Meta, TikTok, Instagram, and emerging platforms.
• Own localization, UGC, and market insight to ensure on-brand content across platforms.
• Collaborate with in-house and agency teams, including media buyers and data science, to bring ideas to life.
• Support conversion across the funnel and CRO initiatives to improve acquisition journeys.

Job description

• Full-time

Job Description

Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and How You Can Work

This role is based in Istanbul, with a hybrid working arrangement. Our Istanbul hub is a place for collaboration and creative energy and we want you close enough to the Turkish market to genuinely feel it. You'll have the flexibility to work in a way that suits you, with meaningful time in the office to connect with the team.

About the Role

As the Creative Strategist for Turkiye, you'll be the creative performance engine behind Canva's paid and organic marketing in the region - working at the intersection of data, storytelling, and cultural nuance to drive real user growth. This is a hands‑on, insight‑led role where local knowledge, analytical curiosity, and creative excellence drive outcomes. You won't manage a direct team, but you'll have real influence — over creative direction, agency partners, and the cross‑functional teams who help bring ideas to life.

What You'll Do

• Lead the creative flywheel — own the full creative cycle (research, briefing, production, editing, and analysis), driving sprint cycles with regional and global teams and developing testable ideas grounded in user insights
• Analyse and optimise performance — dig into dashboards to spot winners, diagnose underperformance, and design creative tests, lift studies, and attribution experiments in close partnership with analytics teams
• Lead organic and paid social creative strategy — define what high‑performing creative looks like for Turkish audiences across Meta, TikTok, Instagram, and emerging platforms, building content systems informed by performance data and local cultural moments
• Own UGC, localisation, and market insight — brief and review creator content to ensure it's on‑brand and platform‑optimised, and bring genuine cultural fluency to every project
• Work with in‑house and agency teams — bridge external creative partners and internal stakeholders, working with media buyers, data science, the Europe Growth Marketing Lead, and agency partners across Brand, Product Growth, and Analytics
• Support conversion across the funnel — contribute to CRO initiatives to make acquisition journeys seamless, engaging, and high‑converting

What We're Looking For

You bring real, hands‑on experience in creative strategy or performance marketing and you know what it takes to build creative that actually performs. You understand platform‑native formats deeply, you're rigorous about testing, and you use data to sharpen your thinking rather than replace it. You have genuine knowledge of the Turkish market — not surface‑level familiarity — and you move comfortably between global teams, agency partners, and local execution. You're self‑directed, collaborative, and you take ownership of outcomes.

You're Probably a Match If

• You have extensive experience in growth marketing with a focus on creative strategy across paid and organic social (Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram)
• You have a strong eye for platform‑native creative and the frameworks to test, learn, and scale it
• You're confident using performance dashboards, data tools, and measurement frameworks (including MMM and attribution) to drive decisions
• You have genuine, deep knowledge of the Turkish market and are fluent in Turkish and English — additional languages are a bonus
• You have strong experience briefing and iterating creative in cross‑functional sprints
• You have a growth mindset — analytical, curious, and comfortable with ambiguity

About the Group/Team

Our Europe Marketing Group drives market‑specific growth across performance marketing, brand, social, community engagement, and more. We work at the intersection of creativity and data, combining global thinking with genuine local understanding to drive meaningful outcomes in our priority markets. We grow through experimentation, creative excellence, and a deep belief that getting the creative right is the fastest path to sustainable growth.