From Finance to Freedom: How I Built a Digital Nomad Career in Performance Marketing (And Why You Should Too)

Hey, I’m Nico. You know me as the founder of PARADISED and instructor of the online course. But what actually allows me to live and travel full-time as a Digital Nomad is my work as a freelance Performance Marketer. You might know it as paid advertising or media buying. It’s the skill behind the ads you see on Instagram, Google, or TikTok.

In this article, I want to show you why Performance Marketing is not just a powerful, in-demand skill, but also a great starting point if you want to build a location-independent lifestyle and a true remote career.

What is Performance Marketing?

Performance Marketing is exactly what it sounds like: marketing that’s measured by performance. “Performance” in a scientific sense means something you can track and evaluate, and that’s at the core of what I do.

Unlike print or branding campaigns where you might never know what actually worked, performance marketing allows us to trace every sale back to its source. We use key metrics like Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Mille (CPM), Click-Through Rate (CTR), and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to constantly evaluate how efficiently our ads perform.

That’s the job: We build and scale profitable ad campaigns across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, and any other channel where media space is for sale. So every time you scroll past an ad, someone like me is behind the scenes—strategizing, setting it up, and optimizing it.

But it’s not just about clicking buttons in an ad manager. I develop the entire advertising strategy: I write scripts, map out funnels, define target groups, and adjust every detail . creative, targeting, placements, and budget to maximize our clients’ profit. Because we can directly measure outcomes like cost per lead, cost per sale, and ROI, our value in the company becomes clearly visible.

That’s also why performance marketers aren’t usually paid just by the hour. Depending on the setup, we earn a flat fee, a percentage of the ad spend, a cut of the revenue, or a price per qualified lead. The more profit we generate, the more we’re worth – and that’s what makes it such an exciting, merit-based profession.

How I got into Performance Marketing

It was never my plan to work in marketing. I actually studied finance—pretty dry stuff—and originally wanted to go into consulting. That changed when I realized how much I enjoy traveling and living freely on my own terms. So I started looking for jobs that could offer me that kind of flexibility.

My entry point was organic social media. I designed posts, wrote captions, and managed profiles for small restaurants, clubs, and local businesses in Germany. Through that, I got in touch with paid advertising—often, we’d “boost” well-performing posts to make clients even happier. That’s how I picked up the basics of setting up ads, mostly focused on branding and reach.

Every now and then, a client with an online shop would come to me wanting to run ads to directly sell products. I took those jobs on the side—sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. I was figuring things out as I went.

The real turning point came in April 2024, when a bigger client from the coaching field reached out through my network. That was when I really dove into paid ads and started learning how to run them effectively. I began to understand the value of well-structured funnels and the impact that every word can have in a carefully crafted copy—whether it’s for an ad, a video, or a landing page.

All of that came together in the first campaigns I ran for them. And they worked—not just by getting views, but by actually delivering leads and results. The client appreciated the more in-depth approach, which went far beyond “just setting up an ad.” For the first time, I also saw how my income could grow with the client’s budget. When a campaign performs well, clients are happy to invest more—meaning your own revenue grows without adding more hours. Your value increases with the results.

Since then, I’ve been focusing on paid advertising for lead generation and built my entire offer and my team around that.

Why Performance Marketing is great for Digital Nomads

Digital Nomads want freedom—and ideally, no classic 40-hour workweeks. But the main dilemma for freelancers is this: you usually trade time for money. You get paid by the hour, which means no hours worked = no income = no travel. (Sad, right?)

The solution is to increase your hourly rate, so you can work less and still afford your lifestyle—and ideally, more.

Performance Marketing adds another layer to this. Of course, you still have to work—setting up ads, writing copy, creating reports and funnels—but the way you charge is value-based, not time-based. That makes your work scalable.

Here’s what that means in practice:
Let’s say a client gives you a 30% cut on a €10,000 ad budget. That’s €3,000 for one month. If the campaign is set up properly, it can run for a long time with minimal adjustments—yet still deliver steady results. So instead of trading more time for more money, you trade impact for money.

With the right setup, your income grows without needing to put in significantly more hours. And since the client gets a real, measurable return (more leads, more profit), they’re often happy to scale—and to pay you accordingly. Your value increases with the results.

The equation is simple:
→ The client earns the most.
→ Meta, Google, or TikTok get their cut.
→ And you, as the performance marketer, get a fair share in-between.

Everyone wins.

Basically, I could already sustain my lifestyle very well with my biggest performance marketing client, that generates me several thousand euros monthly for maybe 10 hours effort per week. (for him earning more than 10 times of that in profit for those ads). That’s what makes this business model so powerful.

Is Performance Marketing a Good Entry point for Digital Nomads?

Depends. Setting up an ad is easy. Writing a decent copy with ChatGPT? Also doable. And a converting funnel? You can just model one that already works. These are all things you can learn online—via YouTube videos, paid courses, or a good mentor.

So what’s the hard part? Knowing in advance which funnel, which ad, and which messaging will actually work for a specific business model. Because there are thousands of industries and countless combinations. That’s where experience comes in—especially for products that are harder to sell due to niche markets or heavy competition. And that experience is exactly what’s missing when you’re just starting out.

How can you work around that? Focus on clients with a strong product—something that basically sells itself. In that case, even a decent funnel will bring solid results. And those results are exactly what you need to build your reputation.

Because once you can say:”I set up a funnel that made €100k for a client in your niche.” The reaction is simple:
“I’m in. Let’s do the same for me.”

The good news: The market for performance marketing is huge. Every business needs visibility. Consumers spend hours every day online—on social media, Google, YouTube. And every company, no matter the size or industry, benefits from paid advertising. Whether it’s a local restaurant, an online shop, or a B2B service provider—there’s a strategy that works for them.

My conclusion: Yes. Performance marketing is a great starting point for digital nomads, because you can learn everything you need online. But: Be careful about which clients you choose. Don’t start with someone whose product is weak or whose business is already struggling. Go for those with an amazing offer that already creates buzz—even with a simple ad and a basic funnel.

Start with these clients. They’ll give you results you can showcase, and help you build a scalable, steady income while gaining the experience you need to work with bigger clients later on.

Performance Marketing – Why it’s not for everybody

You know my mantra: everyone can learn the hard skills in digital marketing. I did too, as a career changer. But here’s why performance marketing still isn’t for everyone:

If you were the kid in school who hated numbers, or the adult who avoids Excel whenever possible—paid advertising might not be your thing. Roughly 30% of my daily work is digging through data: KPIs, campaign breakdowns, and long management dashboards that span hundreds of rows.

And if you’re someone who wants to go the safe and steady route. Maybe with fixed retainers and predictable outcomes. Organic social media could be a better fit. Every ad campaign comes with a risk of failure, and not always for reasons you can control: sudden market shifts, weaknesses in the client’s product, or platform algorithm changes. Sometimes performance drops from one day to the next, without any warning.

And here’s the paradox: What makes you valuable, being measured, can also become your biggest challenge. In performance marketing, your results are tracked in real time. If your numbers drop, it can lead to uncomfortable conversations, or in the worst case, cancellations. Especially with clients who micromanage or expect immediate wins. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve been there more than once.

Now compare that to organic social media: It’s way smoother. Soft KPIs. Long-term contracts. Fixed monthly payments. No daily metrics—just beautiful Instagram feeds and gradual progress. But it also comes with less scalability and, honestly, less entrepreneurial drive. The upside is more limited.

So in the end, you have to choose for yourself. But if everything I just said sounds more exciting than stressful, chances are—you’re exactly the kind of person who will thrive in performance marketing.

My Upsell Trick: Add Performance Marketing to Your Service Stack

Knowing the basics of Performance Marketing gives you a huge upselling opportunity. As I’ve mentioned, every business needs paid advertising—and you can seamlessly add it as an extra service, also if your main specialization is not paid advertising.

• You’re an organic social media manager? Offer post boosts to increase reach.
• You’re a landing page designer? Add a Google Ads boost to drive traffic directly to the top of search results.
• You’re a consultant? Offer a tested ad setup to your clients—and earn a percentage of the ad budget or results.
  
  

As you can see, Performance Marketing isn’t just a great path for Digital Nomads—it also has huge scaling potential. It can be a very profitable business model that allows you to earn more without working crazy hours.
Of course, that only works if you can handle pressure and are comfortable with numbers.

Ready to dive deeper?

In my online course I talk about Performance Marketing and other Digital Marketing specialisations to kickstart your Digital Nomad journey. You want to get more specific? Then feel free to book a 1:1 call with me. I’d be happy to share my expertise and tips with you!