Associate Director, Creative Strategy

Roles open in: Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Salt Lake City, San Diego The Role Associate Director of Performance Creative Strategy who leads with data, thinks in systems, and knows how to turn performance signals into better creative. You will play a critical role in shaping creative strategy through real-time performance insights. By analyzing and evolving work based on what is actually driving results, you will translate learnings into clear inputs for upstream strategy. Your deep understanding of how paid media works across platforms and how creative drives performance is essential. You are fluent in creative analysis and testing methodologies, with a strong instinct for identifying patterns in data and translating them into actionable next steps. You build and scale testing roadmaps, connect disparate performance signals, and turn learnings into new creative directions that drive incremental impact. You are a strong leader and partner, comfortable guiding a team of strategists, working with senior clients, and collaborating closely with creative, media, and analytics teams to maintain an always‑on feedback loop. The role reports directly to the Director of Creative Strategy and partners closely with the Associate Director focused on creative briefing and messaging strategy. Together, you connect what should be made with what is proven to work. What You’ll Do Own the development and evolution of creative testing roadmaps, grounded in clear hypotheses and business objectives. Lead ongoing creative analysis, identifying patterns, performance drivers, and areas of opportunity across campaigns and platforms. Translate raw data and performance outputs into sharp, actionable insights that inform new creative directions. Define and implement testing methodologies (A/B testing, creative lift studies) that drive measurable learning and iteration. Establish and maintain a continuous learning loop, ensuring insights are captured, synthesised, and fed back into creative development. Strategic Application & Ideation Turn performance insights into scalable creative ideas and test concepts designed to unlock growth. Partner with creative and strategy teams to ensure concepts are rooted in proven signals, not just intuition. Identify opportunities to scale winning creative patterns across audiences, markets, and platforms. Contribute to evergreen and campaign-based creative strategies with a strong POV on what will drive performance. Manage and mentor a team of Creative Strategists and Senior Creative Strategists, elevating analytical rigor and strategic thinking. Coach teams on how to go deeper in performance analysis, creative auditing, and insight generation. Lead internal workshops and knowledge shares to up‑level team capabilities in testing, measurement, and creative effectiveness. Set a high bar for how data is interpreted, communicated, and applied to creative work. Act as a senior strategic partner to clients, confidently presenting performance insights, learnings, and testing plans. Lead working sessions with clients to workshop performance trends, testing frameworks, and optimisation opportunities. Partner closely with Media and Analytics teams to ensure alignment on measurement frameworks and performance signals. Collaborate with the Associate Director of Creative Strategy (briefing/messaging) to connect performance insights with upstream strategy and execution. AI & Scaled Insight Generation Use AI to go beyond surface-level analysis, identifying patterns and signals across large creative datasets that would be difficult to uncover manually. Apply AI-driven approaches to creative auditing, enabling faster, more comprehensive understanding of what is driving performance. Integrate AI into testing and learning workflows to accelerate iteration and improve decision-making. Stay on top of emerging tools and push the team to adopt smarter, more efficient ways of working. What You Bring 7+ years of experience in performance marketing, creative strategy, growth strategy, or a related field (agency experience preferred). 2–3+ years of experience managing and developing high-performing teams. Deep understanding of paid media ecosystems, including Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, Snap, Reddit, and programmatic. Strong expertise in creative analysis, with the ability to extract meaningful insights from complex or imperfect data sets. Experience building and scaling testing roadmaps, including A/B testing and creative lift methodologies. Proven ability to translate performance data into clear, actionable creative direction. Confidence in client-facing environments, with strong communication and storytelling skills grounded in data. Ability to operate in fast-paced environments, balancing multiple workstreams while maintaining rigor and clarity. What We Offer Healthcare, Dental, and Vision coverage PTO Paid Company Holidays DEPT® is an equal opportunity employer (EOE). We are committed to an inclusive and barrier‑free recruitment and selection process and workplace, regardless of anyone’s identity, background, beliefs, lifestyle or disabilities. DEPT® participates in E‑Verify, meaning your Form I‑9 information will be sent to the federal government to confirm you are authorised to work in the U.S. Salary US Remote Range: $108,600 — $135,000 USD #J-18808-Ljbffr Dept Holding B.V.