Creative Strategist

Placement Type:


Permanent

Salary:


$75,000-105,000 Salary

Start Date:


Oct 5, 2026

Creative Strategist - Performance Marketing
Remote - U.S.
Compensation: $75K-$105K DOE


The Opportunity


Our agency client is hiring multiple Creative Strategists & Sr. Creative Strategists with each role aligned to a specific client vertical. Current needs span areas including Fashion, Lifestyle, Consumer Services, CPG, and other consumer-focused categories. Each strategist will serve as a subject-matter expert for their assigned vertical, bringing a strong understanding of the audience, category dynamics, competitive landscape, and the types of creative that perform in that space. While there is some crossover across consumer and e-commerce categories, we are ultimately looking for one strong strategist per vertical who can combine category expertise with performance-driven creative thinking.

• This role sits at the intersection of creative strategy, paid media, audience research and performance marketing. You'll look beyond whether an ad is visually compelling to understand why it is-or isn't-working, what the consumer is responding to, and what the creative team should develop next.
• You'll use performance data, audience and persona research, competitive intelligence, market trends and client business objectives to develop new creative concepts and structured testing strategies designed to drive measurable growth.
• This is not a media buying role, and it is not a traditional brand-only creative role.
• The right person is a creative strategist first who is comfortable enough with data and paid-media platforms to make informed creative decisions.

What You'll Do

• Lead creative strategy across a portfolio of client accounts within a dedicated industry vertical
• Understand client business objectives and translate them into clear creative strategies
• Analyze creative performance data to identify what is working, what is not and why
• Navigate platforms such as Meta Ads Manager and other paid-media environments to evaluate creative-level performance
• Translate performance insights into new campaign concepts, testing hypotheses and creative briefs
• Conduct audience, persona and ideal-customer-profile research
• Research competitors and analyze the creative they are running across platforms such as Meta, TikTok and Google
• Identify messaging themes, visual hooks, emotional hooks, formats and emerging creative trends
• Develop high-level campaign concepts that can extend across audiences, channels and platforms
• Create structured creative testing roadmaps designed to isolate what is driving performance
• Develop and evaluate A/B and multivariate creative tests
• Use testing results to continually refine messaging, concepts, formats and visual direction
• Write and develop hooks, scripts, messaging frameworks and direct-response concepts
• Translate strategy into clear briefs that designers, editors and other creative partners can execute
• Review creative work and provide specific, actionable feedback
• Partner closely with paid media, analytics, account management, production and creative teams
• Present creative strategies, performance insights and recommendations to clients
• Manage multiple accounts and projects simultaneously in a fast-moving agency environment
• Challenge assumptions and provide strategic recommendations when a client's initial request may not address the underlying business need
• Use AI and internal technology to improve research, analysis, ideation and workflow efficiency

What We're Looking For

• Professional experience in creative strategy within an agency environment
• Strong understanding of performance creative and direct-response marketing
• Demonstrated ability to connect performance data to creative decisions
• Experience developing creative concepts based on audience, competitive and performance insights
• Working proficiency with Meta Ads Manager and/or similar paid-media platforms
• Ability to understand and interpret performance metrics such as CTR, CPA, ROAS, conversion performance and related creative KPIs
• Experience developing structured creative testing strategies and roadmaps
• Understanding of A/B and multivariate creative testing
• Experience conducting audience, persona, ICP and competitive research
• Strong creative concepting skills and the ability to develop original campaign ideas
• Ability to translate strategic thinking into clear creative direction
• Strong understanding of messaging, hooks, visual storytelling and consumer behavior
• Experience working directly with designers, editors, production teams and other creative partners
• Client-facing experience and confidence communicating strategic recommendations
• Ability to manage multiple accounts, projects and priorities in a high-volume agency environment
• Strong problem-solving skills and business acumen

Industry Experience


Creative Strategists are aligned to specific client verticals, including areas such as:

• Fashion & Apparel
• Lifestyle
• Consumer Services
• Consumer Packaged Goods
• Other consumer-focused categories

Relevant category experience is highly valued. Strong strategists with transferable e-commerce and consumer-brand experience may be considered across related consumer verticals.


Specialized areas such as B2B and lead-generation marketing require more directly relevant experience because the audience, conversion journey and creative strategy differ significantly from consumer e-commerce.


What Strong Performance Looks Like


A strong Creative Strategist can look at a business problem and move through the entire thought process:


Business Objective → Consumer Insight → Data → Hypothesis → Creative Concept → Test → Result → Learning → Next Creative Direction


You should be able to answer not only:


"What performed?"


but also:


"Why did it perform, and what should we create next because of what we learned?"


Portfolio / Work Examples


A traditional creative portfolio is not required in every case, but candidates should be prepared to discuss specific examples of their work and strategic thinking.


Strong examples may demonstrate:

• The business or marketing challenge
• Audience or consumer insight
• Research and competitive findings
• The strategic hypothesis
• Creative concept and execution
• Testing approach
• Performance results
• What was learned
• How those learnings influenced the next round of creative

We are particularly interested in understanding how you think, how you arrive at creative ideas and how you translate strategy into clear direction for the creative teams executing the work.


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