Performance Creative Strategist

Location: Remote — US or Canada Type: Contract to start (month-to-month), with the intent to convert to full-time as we grow The role in a nutshell: Pearmill is a performance creative agency that works with startups, scale-ups, and mid-market brands — with a client roster that skews B2B, SaaS, and tech (alongside fintech, healthcare, and more). Our clients trust us to be the engine behind their paid social and search creative, and our strategists are the people making that engine run. In this role, you'll own the creative thinking on multiple accounts at once — concepting ads, writing briefs, studying what's performing, and pushing the next round to be smarter than the last. You'll work across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google, and more. You'll collaborate daily with media buyers, designers, and motion artists. You'll use AI tools every day to move smarter and faster — from audience research and competitive analysis to concepting, generation, and iteration. And you'll see your ideas go live with real budgets behind them, reaching millions of people. If you like the intersection of creativity, data, and speed, this is the role. This is a role for someone who can hit the ground running — an experienced strategist who's done this at an agency and doesn't need much ramp time to start shipping strong briefs. Summary: The Performance Creative Strategist is where the work lives. They own the day-to-day creative thinking on their accounts — concepting, scripting, building creative frameworks, and partnering with designers and motion artists to bring ideas to life.

They study what's performing, develop hypotheses, and push the next round of creative to be smarter than the last. Critically, the Creative Strategist is the bridge between media buying and creative execution. They sit between the Growth team (who owns channel performance) and the Design/Motion team (who builds the assets) — translating insights from performance data into actionable creative direction, and translating creative ideas into clear briefs that execution teams can run with. If a Paid Social Manager says "CPAs are rising and hook rates are dropping on Meta," the Creative Strategist knows what that means creatively and can brief the next round accordingly. If a designer has a strong visual instinct, the Strategist helps frame it as a testable hypothesis. This is also a client-facing role. Creative Strategists are expected to communicate directly with clients — presenting creative rationale, walking through upcoming rounds, explaining testing strategies, and fielding feedback in real time. You're not waiting for a CD to relay the message; you're in the room (or on the call) owning the conversation on your accounts. Key Responsibilities Brief Writing & Concepting - Write clear, actionable creative briefs — the primary deliverable of this role. Briefs include ad concepts, copy direction, visual/stylistic references, scripts or storylines, and format specs - Concept, script, and build creative frameworks for multiple client accounts - Develop hooks, ideas, and test concepts grounded in performance data — every idea should have a "why" - Frame creative ideas as testable hypotheses: "We think [concept] will outperform [current] because [insight]" - Use AI daily to deepen and accelerate concepting — conduct audience research, collaborate on new angles, draft copy options, explore potential visuals and concepts, and pressure-test ideas before they go into a brief Creative Analysis & Testing - Conduct asset-level creative analysis: what worked, why, and what to do next.