The Three-Hire Performance Team Sequence
Build a paid team in order: data-driven generalist, then creative, then a dedicated data scientist
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
A hiring order for standing up an in-house performance-marketing team. Start with a data-driven generalist ('growth marketing specialist/manager') who can find signal in noise and wear many hats. Add a creative (graphic-design/branding-leaning) so performance and creative work hand-in-hand. Then add a fully dedicated data scientist who builds the analyses and incrementality infrastructure the generalist can't. Copywriting stays collaborative between the marketer and creative.
Origin
Timothy Davis's recommended team-building sequence from scaling paid teams at Shopify, Pinterest and via consulting.
Core principles
- 01The first hire's core skill is data judgment (signal vs noise), not platform mechanics, because mechanics can be taught
- 02Give a general title first because early team members must wear many hats; specialize only as the team scales
- 03In-house creatives usually beat agencies on tone-matching and rapid iteration with no monthly-hour caps
- 04Copy should be collaborative — the marketer isn't the target audience and is often wrong about what converts
How to run it
- 1
Hire a data-driven growth generalist
First hire someone who can get into the platforms and, above all, separate signal from noise in the data. Give them a broad title (growth marketing specialist/manager) since they'll wear many hats.
Pro tip Start these hiring conversations around $50k/month spend, since it takes ~3 months to hire anyway — though the threshold flexes with funding.
- 2
Hire a creative (graphic design / branding)
Add a creative who leans graphic-design and branding so performance and creative work hand-in-hand across the awareness-consideration-purchase funnel, giving them free rein to be creative while holding them to converting users.
Pro tip In-house creatives match tone and iterate faster than agencies, which are capped by monthly hours and budget.
- 3
Hire a dedicated data scientist
Add a fully dedicated data scientist to build incrementality tests, reports and analyses a generalist can't produce — the person who builds the environment that makes the whole team look good.
In the wild
Davis wrote what he thought was a perfect ADT ad cramming every value prop into Google's headline-and-two-descriptions limit. It lost to a bare competing ad that just said '$0 setup fee, $0 install fee'. He then applied that learning back to the value-prop ads.
→ The minimal ad won on conversions and CTR; the team folded the lesson into future copy — proving copy should be collaborative and tested, not left on the cutting-room floor.
Common mistakes
Assuming the marketer knows what copy will convert
The marketer is usually not the target audience; a 'perfect' ad they love can flop, so copy must be collaborative and always tested.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders or growth leaders scaling paid in-house past the point an agency/consultant can carry it
Not ideal for
Very early or low-spend companies better served by an agency or consultant until they hit the hiring threshold
From the transcript
“someone data driven that can get into the platforms the next is is uh going to be creative uh because I need those two now…”
“then third would be a dedicated data scientist a fully dedicated person because they can help you with things like the incrementality testing”
“the performance marketer should be able to write most of the ads but I can't tell you how how many times in my career where…”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to performance marketing
Timothy Davis (Shopify)