Creative Strategist

Overview Placement Type: Permanent Salary: $75,000-105,000 Salary Start Date: Oct 5, 2026 Our innovative agency partner, collaborating with Aquent, is seeking visionary strategists to redefine performance marketing for leading consumer brands. This is an unparalleled opportunity to drive measurable growth and shape the future of creative strategy, directly impacting how top-tier brands connect with their audiences. You will be at the forefront of combining data-driven insights with compelling creative execution, pushing boundaries and setting new standards in the industry. About the Opportunity Step into a pivotal role where your strategic vision will directly influence the success of diverse consumer brands. This position is for a dynamic individual who thrives at the intersection of creative strategy, paid media, audience research, and performance marketing. You won't just evaluate ads; you'll uncover the 'why' behind their performance, understanding consumer responses to guide the next wave of impactful creative. You will leverage performance data, in-depth audience research, competitive intelligence, and market trends to craft innovative creative concepts and structured testing strategies that deliver tangible, measurable growth for clients. This is not a traditional media buying or brand-only creative role; it's for a creative strategist first, who is adept at using data and paid-media platforms to make informed, high-impact creative decisions. What You'll Do Lead creative strategy across a portfolio of client accounts within a dedicated industry vertical. Translate client business objectives into clear, actionable creative strategies. Analyze creative performance data to pinpoint what's working, what's not, and the underlying reasons. Navigate paid-media environments, including platforms like Meta Ads Manager, to evaluate creative-level performance. Transform performance insights into innovative campaign concepts, testable hypotheses, and comprehensive creative briefs. Conduct in-depth audience, persona, and ideal-customer-profile research. Research competitors and analyze their creative strategies across platforms such as Meta, TikTok, and Google. Identify compelling messaging themes, visual and emotional hooks, effective formats, and emerging creative trends. Develop high-level campaign concepts that can seamlessly extend across various audiences, channels, and platforms. Create structured creative testing roadmaps designed to isolate key performance drivers. Develop and evaluate A/B and multivariate creative tests to optimize outcomes. Utilize testing results to continuously refine messaging, concepts, formats, and visual direction. Write and develop engaging hooks, scripts, messaging frameworks, and direct-response concepts. Translate strategic thinking into clear briefs for designers, editors, and other creative partners. Review creative work and provide specific, actionable feedback that elevates quality. Partner closely with paid media, analytics, account management, production, and creative teams. Present creative strategies, performance insights, and recommendations to clients with confidence. Manage multiple accounts and projects simultaneously in a fast-paced agency environment. Challenge assumptions and provide strategic recommendations to address underlying business needs effectively. Leverage AI and internal technology to enhance research, analysis, ideation, and workflow efficiency. Qualifications Professional experience in creative strategy within an agency environment. Strong understanding of performance creative and direct-response marketing principles. Demonstrated ability to connect performance data directly 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 methodologies. Experience conducting audience, persona, ideal customer profile (ICP), and competitive research. Strong creative concepting skills and the ability to develop original campaign ideas. Ability to translate strategic thinking into clear, actionable 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 in communicating strategic recommendations. Ability to manage multiple accounts, projects, and priorities in a high-volume agency environment. Strong problem-solving skills and business acumen. Preferred Qualifications Relevant category experience in consumer verticals such as Fashion & Apparel, Lifestyle, Consumer Services, Consumer Packaged Goods, or other consumer-focused categories. Strong strategists with transferable e-commerce and consumer-brand experience are highly valued and may be considered across related consumer verticals. Understanding of the distinct creative strategy needs for specialized areas like B2B and lead-generation marketing, and how they differ from consumer e-commerce. How You'll Make an Impact You will be instrumental in solving complex business problems by connecting insights to action. A successful candidate can navigate the entire strategic thought process: from defining a Business Objective to uncovering Consumer Insight, leveraging Data, forming a Hypothesis, developing a Creative Concept, implementing a Test, analyzing the Result, extracting Learning, and guiding the Next Creative Direction. Your impact will extend beyond simply identifying "what performed" to deeply understanding "why it performed, and what should we create next because of what we learned." While a traditional creative portfolio isn't always required, you should be prepared to discuss specific examples of your work and strategic thinking. We are particularly interested in understanding your thought process, how you generate creative ideas, and how you translate strategy into clear, executable direction for creative teams. About Skill: Skill connects the best professional, IT, engineering, financial and administrative talent with the world's biggest brands. Our eligible talent get access to benefits such as health benefit contributions, retirement plans with match and flexible spending accounts. Skill is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics. We're about creating an inclusive environment-one where different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are valued, and everyone can contribute, grow their careers, and thrive.