Head of Marketing

Job Description

Job Description

First, a note from the Founder

Hi. I'm Edward. Twenty-five years ago, my dad and I started ROAD iD in his basement with two credit cards and a fax machine. (Yes, a fax machine. It was a different time.)

Since then, we've built a portfolio of eCommerce brands that people genuinely love: ROAD iD, DOG iD, and Rack Rabbit. We've done it the hard way and the fun way, which turn out to be the same way: by delivering a product, service, and journey so blindingly awesome that customers can't help but share it.

Now I'm looking for someone to run the marketing machine. Not the brand soul. The machine. Let me explain the difference, because it matters, and because the right person is going to love it.

Our brands are founder-forward. Many of the emails come from me. The voice is often mine. That's not about ego, it's strategy, and it works because we believe that customers want to buy from real people, not companies, not brands. People. So, at every touchpoint, we attempt to sound, feel, and act like actual people - whether that’s a “Founders Fodder” email from me, an expertly crafted customer service reply from Bethany, or a perfectly packed shipment from Becky.

That’s the soul: it’s nonnegotiable and it’s our biggest unfair advantage. The machine is everything that scales it: the budgets, the systems, the forecasts, the team, the creative supply chain, the numbers. That’s what I’m handing you.

What we need is a partner who can take that asset and build a world-class growth engine around it. You'll interact with me directly and often. I intend to be your best resource, a curious colleague, and your biggest cheerleader.

The role

We call this seat the Marketing Operator. You'll lead our entire marketing, eComm, and creative organization: three brand-dedicated Marketing Managers, an eComm team, and a Creative team led by our Creative Director. Five direct reports.

Half this job happens at a whiteboard. The other half happens in the arena. We're hiring for both halves, and we'll be able to tell if you only brought one.

Here's the mission in numbers. Our product development engine is strong and humming; 25 years of it, in fact. What we're building now is the acquisition engine to match. Today, we spend six figures a month on performance marketing. Our ambition is to profitably scale that to seven figures a month across our three brands. If you've made that climb before, that knowledge is what we're hiring.

Your accountabilities:

• LMA (Lead, Manage, hold Accountable) for the marketing, eComm, and creative teams. We run on the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). If you know what an L10 is, high-five. If you don't, I promise that you’re going to love it.
• Brand-level growth strategy . Where are we going, and how are we going to get there? You'll make the trunk-level decisions, like deciding that a “Creative Supply Chain” is the most important lever we have, and then putting the right team in place to pull it.
• Budget ownership and forecasting . You control the marketing budget across all three brands. Here's the fun part: we have a theoretically endless budget for profitable ad spend. Find profitable spend and we will fund it. Your job is knowing the difference. And because you own the spend, you own the marketing side of the forecast: you'll deliver spend and revenue projections to leadership and finance, and you'll be the one explaining the variance, in either direction.
• Agency and vendor accountability . You own a significant chunk of our external partner ecosystem. Hire them, hold them accountable, fire them when needed.
• Sounding board and coach for your team leaders. You love to teach and level people up. This is not optional. It's a big part of the job.
• Special project leadership . New channels, new tests, new brands. Spot the opportunity, then unlock it. 
• The scorecard . You'll own the marketing measurables and be marketing’s voice on the leadership team where you’ll help make root-level decisions. 

Tools in the toolbox

You won't be starting from scratch. You'll be inheriting an arsenal. On our team, you'll have access to:

• Decades of data . Over 15 million items sold, packaged, and shipped to millions of customers over 25 years. Every test you want to run, we probably have some context to add.
• A steady stream of creative fuel . Real customer testimonials arrive regularly: a raised hand that got quick treatment, lives saved, a priceless chance to say goodbye. Most brands have to manufacture emotional creative. Ours shows up in the inbox.
• A customer-sentiment heartbeat . A daily review digest keeps the whole team's ear to the ground, so you'll never be more than 24 hours from what customers are feeling.
• Trusted brands . Over 100K five-star reviews and counting. Social proof is a conversion asset most marketers spend years building. Yours comes pre-loaded.
• An organized team . We run on EOS and live in Asana. You'll spend your energy on strategy and growth, not on figuring out who owns what.
• A debt-free, profitable company that's ready to scale . Your budget won't evaporate mid-quarter because of a board meeting or a banker. When you find profitable spend, the money to fuel it is ready to deploy.
• An engaged founder who cares deeply about your success . I'm not a figurehead. I'm a daily resource, a sounding board, and I'll be in the arena with you.
• A history of beating the odds . We were founded into the wreckage of the dot-com crash. Since then we've survived a global financial crisis, a pandemic and the supply chain chaos that followed, the death of print, the collapse of organic reach, iOS 14.5, tariffs, and every Facebook algorithm change ever shipped. Fewer than 1 in 200 businesses reach the revenue we've reached, and almost none do it for 25 years while doing something meaningful in the world. We're built for survival. You'll be building on bedrock.

What you'll be measured on

For each brand: aMER, Contribution Margin after Ad Spend, and Team Health. Yes, Team Health is a real measurable here, not a poster in the break room.

Requirements

Who you are

• A DTC eCommerce expert with a strong performance marketing backbone . We believe Meta is the tip of the spear for our brands' success, and creative scale is how we unlock growth. You've had your hands on the wheel scaling a brand from low eight figures to mid-to-upper eight figures. You've lived this climb and have likely done it in a hard goods (low LTV) business. You know what works and breaks at each stage because you've built and fixed it.
• Fluent in the Tools of the Trade . Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, Klaviyo, Shopify, the usual suspects. You don't need black belts in all of them; you need enough fluency to ask the right questions, smell a problem before the dashboard confirms it, and roll up your sleeves when someone's on PTO and the sale starts Friday.
• Left Brain + Right Brain . You have strategic chops and you're deeply process-driven. You can whiteboard a positioning strategy in the morning and fix a broken workflow in the afternoon, and you enjoy both.
• AI-forward, deeply human . AI is not coming for your job. But people who effectively leverage it are. Because you agree, you've already built real AI workflows and you can show them to us. You hunt for problems AI can solve. You'll have our IT/Dev team as a resource, but the appetite has to be yours. At the same time, we're a fanatically personal company, and we intend to stay that way. AI amplifies our humanity here; it doesn't replace it.
• Hungry and energetic . You want a seat where your decisions actually move the numbers, and where the ceiling rises as you do. You're an unapologetic go-getter.
• A Voracious Learner . You don't study DTC because it's your job; you study it because you can't help yourself. There's a good chance you have a rotation of eComm podcasts on 1.5x, a carefully pruned list of operators you follow on X, and strong opinions about at least one attribution debate.
• A coach at heart . Your greatest hits are the people you've developed, not just the campaigns you've shipped.

Who you are NOT

• A Permission Seeker . You don't need buy-in and reassurance before moving. That said, you know how to bring a team along with you. There's a difference between waiting for consensus and building alignment, and you know exactly where that line is.
• A Thinker Who Doesn't Ship . Strategy matters here, and you'll own it. But strategy that sprawls across quarters and never becomes a launched campaign, a fixed funnel, or a better process is just expensive daydreaming.
• A Specialist . You know your way around Ads Manager and can competently make changes, but it isn’t your dream to live inside it all day. This seat runs the whole machine, not just specific pieces.
• A Big-Company Operator . If you need a RevOps team, three analysts, and a monthly offsite to function, this will feel like “roughing it.”  We're scrappy. On purpose.
• A Bulldozer . Some leaders arrive with a 90-day plan to rebuild everything in their own image. Not here. Our systems have 25 years of compound learning baked into them: EOS, our processes, our promo rhythms. They work. Your job is to run them first, understand them second, and evolve them third, in that order. If a fence is standing in a field, figure out why it's there before you tear it down. We love better. We're allergic to different for its own sake.
• A Scissor Runner . You move fast, but never haphazardly.
• A Slow-Roller . Not a bowling reference. This is a person who is slow to act and slower to decide. We move fast around here. We have a bias toward now, not "someday."

How this seat works

You'll initially report to both me (the CEO/Visionary) and Tony (our VP of Operations/Integrator). As trust builds, I'll step back from day-to-day LMA and stay involved as a coach, mentor, and sounding board for Marketing, because frankly, it's one of my favorite things to do.

The team you'll lead

A talented team of A Players with over 50 combined years of Road ID Brands experience. 

• Three Marketing Managers , one dedicated to each brand, each accountable for their brand's promo calendar, Meta media buying, Google agency liaison, brand partnerships, and email/SMS.
• The eComm Team , accountable for our four eComm pillars (Content Management, Friction Fighting, Remark-ability, and CRO), plus Chewy merchandising and brand team liaison.
• The Creative Team , led by our Creative Director, accountable for creative strategy, on-brand assets, and running the Creative Supply Chain: our system for delivering good, fast, cheap, diverse, and plentiful assets for the Meta accounts.

Benefits

Who we are

Road ID Brands is an over 25 year old, founder-led company headquartered in Covington, KY. Our Cornerstone is Purpose Over Profit, and we mean it: a portion of every order is donated to causes we believe in. Our Core Values are Be Remark-able, Fanatically Personal, Care Deeply, Ear to the Ground/Eye to the Sky, and Cheerfully Serious. If those read like corporate wallpaper to you, we'll both be happier if you keep scrolling. If they read like a dare, let's talk.

Our list of benefits includes . . .

• The unique opportunity to make a real difference. At ROAD iD, we don’t make and sell widgets. Instead, we take pride in providing a product that literally saves lives.
• Competitive Health Care Plan (3 Medical plan options available, along with Dental & Vision).
• Life Insurance (Basic, Accident, and AD&D).
• Competitive PTO based on years of service.
• Short Term & Long Term Disability Insurance Plans.
• Competitive 401K program with company match and full vesting by your first work anniversary.
• Annual Wellness/Fitness reimbursements of up to $400 each calendar year towards your physical, mental, or financial wellbeing.
• $200 team member purchase allowance annually. 
• $50 charitable donation to your favorite charity or  to offset the adoption fees of a shelter pet.
• Professional Development Opportunities, including tuition discounts through UC Online.
• 9 paid holidays per year 
• Team member discount programs through My Path Perks Discount Marketplace, VIU, and WesBanco
• A fun and rewarding work culture of collaboration, and flexibility (including reduced Summer Hours) for work/life balance
• Compensation depends on your experience. We’re interested in both young-and-hungry and seasoned-and-hungry candidates. If you’ve been there, done that, compensation will scale accordingly.