Director, Performance Marketing

Job Summary:

The Director, Performance Marketing leads paid client acquisition activation across planning, creative, media, and test-and-learn programs, driving rigor, speed, and measurable business impact. This role partners closely with Sales Desk, Field/Advisors, CX, Technology, and Digital teams to develop and activate insight-driven campaigns that support growth across priority client segments.

Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, this role is responsible for leading activation planning, multi-channel execution, campaign experimentation, and cross-functional coordination to ensure marketing programs deliver against business objectives.

This role partners closely with the Digital team to ensure Mariner.com and related digital experiences effectively support acquisition, engagement, and conversion—aligning campaign messaging with on-site content, user journeys, and conversion pathways.

The Director focuses on ensuring messaging, channels, and digital experiences align with audience insights and business priorities. They help maintain a centralized test-and-learn repository, contribute to the experimentation roadmap, and ensure learnings are documented and shared to inform future activation.

The ideal candidate brings experience in cross-channel performance marketing and activation, paired with a strong bias toward execution, optimization, and continuous learning.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Activation Strategy & Execution

• Lead the planning and execution of client acquisition activation across paid channels, while driving strong collaboration across owned and earned channels.

• Translate growth strategy into actionable activation plans aligned with campaign and segment goals

• Partner with Media, Analytics, and Finance to guide activation and test-and-learn investment decisions, including prioritization of spend across channels, initiatives, and experiments.
• Lead campaign briefing and collaborate with creative teams on messaging and asset development
• Ensure creative and messaging are informed by audience insights and optimized for channel performance
• Partner with media and analytics teams to review performance and identify optimization opportunities
• Support strong communication and alignment across Marketing, Sales Desk, Field/Advisors, CX, Technology, and Digital teams
• Partner with the Digital team to align acquisition efforts with Mariner.com content, engagement strategy, and on-site user journeys
• Ensure landing experiences and on-site pathways support campaign objectives and conversion goals
• Incorporate digital engagement signals into activation planning and optimization decisions

Test-and-Learn & Optimization

• Design and execute test-and-learn initiatives, including hypothesis development, test setup, evaluation criteria, and budget considerations
• Define test KPIs aligned with campaign and business outcomes (e.g., leads, conversions)
• Apply core testing and measurement principles (e.g., control vs. exposed, confidence thresholds) to ensure credible insights
• Develop test briefs in partnership with creative, media, analytics, Sales Desk, Field/Advisor, and Digital teams
• Maintain a centralized repository of test learnings and support sharing of insights across teams
• Translate test results into practical recommendations for messaging, creative, audience targeting, channel mix, and on-site experience optimization

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Marketing leadership to support campaign priorities and activation timelines
• Collaborate with Sales Desk and Field/Advisor teams to align activation efforts with downstream conversion needs
• Work with CX, Technology, and Digital teams to incorporate experience and engagement insights into activation planning

Creative, Media & Digital Integration

• Ensure performance data, testing insights, and digital engagement signals inform campaign optimization and on-site improvements
• Collaborate across media, creative, analytics, and Digital teams to support cohesive full-funnel execution
• Provide creative feedback informed by channel performance, testing results, and user engagement behavior

Required Education and Experience:

• 8–10+ years of experience in performance marketing, digital marketing, or integrated marketing (in-house or agency)
• Experience executing multi-channel acquisition campaigns across creative and media partners
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple initiatives and deadlines in a fast-paced environment
• Experience supporting or running digital-first testing and optimization programs
• Proven ability to collaborate with senior stakeholders and cross-functional partners
• Clear communicator who can translate insights into actionable recommendations

Preferred Education and Experience:

• Experience in financial services, wealth management, or other regulated industries
• Human-centered or experience-led marketing mindset
• Familiarity with marketing analytics tools, media dashboards, and testing methodologies

Skills:

• Strong understanding of full-funnel performance marketing and how paid, earned, and owned channels work together
• Ability to turn strategy into practical, executable activation plans
• Experience leading or influencing cross-functional teams and agency partners
• Hands-on experience with test-and-learn approaches and performance optimization
• Working knowledge of marketing measurement, experimentation, and lift analysis
• Familiarity with digital engagement strategy, including websites, content, and user journeys
• Experience partnering with Digital or web teams to align marketing activation with on-site experience
• Ability to interpret performance and engagement data and apply insights to optimization efforts
• Comfort working within CRM, marketing automation, and digital analytics platforms to evaluate performance, support experimentation, and connect activation efforts to downstream outcomes.
• Strong communication, organization, and prioritization skills

The physical demands described here are representative of those requirements employees must meet to perform the essential functions of this job with or without reasonable accommodations. While performing job functions the employee is regularly required to sit, stand, write, review and type reports, compile data, operate a pc, communicate, listen, and assess information. The employee may move about the office complex, may travel to other office locations and may lift, push, pull or move 10 - 15 pounds. Visual requirements include distant, close and color vision, and ability to adjust focus

Work Environment:

This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as laptop computers, photocopiers and smartphones. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Our compensation reflects the cost of talent across multiple US geographic markets. The base pay for this position across all US geographic markets ranges from $140,000.00/year to $185,000.00/year. Pay is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Eligibility to participate in an incentive program is subject to the rules governing the program, whereby an award, if any, depends on various factors including, without limitation, individual and organizational performance. Roles may also be eligible for additional compensation and/or benefits.

EOE/M-F/D/V