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One of the coolest NY ecommerce jobs around!
We are working with Ashford.com in their search for a PPC and Display Marketing Manager based in trendy Brooklyn, NY — birthplace of Adam Sandler, Woody Allen, Eddie Murphy, and Marisa Tomei.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Funny story about this search: About two weeks ago, Ashford.com’s new President called me about a handful of potential searches. I was out of the office when I took his call so I didn’t have an opportunity to pull up his LinkedIn bio as we began our discussion. After exchanging pleasantries, we got down to business and he asked me to step him through my qualifications for helping him topgrade his team.
My experience with Presidents (even excellent ones) has been that the vast majority know TONS about business but relatively little about ecommerce. With that in mind, I answered his questions as simply as I could, schooling him respectfully in the basics of ecommerce staffing. My rap was kind of 101-ish, if you know what I mean. Well, it turns out that Ashford.com’s new President is none other than Engle Saez, the former CMO of both Blue Nile and Eddie Bauer, who was also an SVP of Marketing at Starbucks.
It was like lecturing Ted Williams on hitting.
Anyway. Engle was extremely gracious and listened politely for about 20 minutes before saying that I knew my stuff. But he could have squashed me like a bug if he’d wanted to. I relate that story to candidates because it’s always nice to know you’ll be working with somebody who is phenomenally well experienced, smart, and has a sense of humor. Plus, Engle has a really exciting vision for the business.
So here’s the 411 on this role:
Ashford.com seeks a paid marketing manager to help acquire new leads and customers through online pay-per-click and cost-per-acquisition campaigns. The basic idea is that you’ll be in charge of all external, online acquisition marketing, managing the strategy, execution, and optimization across channels.
The firm has two very talented individuals who have managed this function with a great deal of success, but the team could use a bit more technical expertise on the team. Obviously, the digital performance advertising space has changed a lot in the past three years, and this role is mostly about taking the “tribal knowledge” of the existing team and modernizing it.
We’re looking for someone who has run successful pay per click programs and understands the ins and outs of targeting, day parting, working with agencies, and so forth. This role is not a workout or turnaround. There’s a lot to like about what’s happening with performance marketing at Ashford.com. Mostly, Engle wants to “supersize” the team’s results by matching their skills with external technical expertise for a more clinical approach to performance marketing.
Can you mentor others? Great! Keep reading …
Right off the bat, you’ll have one of these people reporting to you, so it’s important that you be able to mentor and coach your new direct report. You will lead a team of two. The existing team has run some excellent campaigns – yet there have been a few clunkers as well. (There always are.) You’ll be given a list of the team’s campaigns that didn’t work, and you’d be well advised to revisit or rework some of those campaigns.
Again, this is a smart, business-oriented team.
Additionally, you will be accountable for improving the marketing efficiency of your area. Meaning, Ashford.com wishes to spend X% of their revenue on marketing, and it will be up to you to turn the marketing spigot on or off within that range. This is an “in the trenches” role, so you’ll need to come prepared to actually do the work.
We’ve got plenty of information that we can share with highly qualified candidates on the firm’s marketing budget, bidding tools, agency relationships, strategies, and more. We have greatly enjoyed working with Engle, and we have learned a lot about marketing on our calls with him. If you really want to take your marketing knowledge to the next level, Ashford.com would be right up there with NYU.
The only difference is Ashford.com will pay you handsomely. NYU will charge you an arm and a leg. If you’d like to know more about this opportunity, please apply below.
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Responsibilities:
- Manage the strategy and setup of all paid campaigns.
- Measure and optimize Ashford.com’s paid marketing using vendor-specific dashboards, Google Analytics, and Omniture landing page sources reports.
- Research and test partnerships with new vendors to expand Ashford.com’s reach and/or lower cost-per-acquisition.
- Collaborate with marketing teammates to maintain a consistent brand voice and message across all paid programs.
- Stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends and potential new channels and strategies to keep us ahead, including updates to social media marketing, attribution, and programmatic media buying.
- Develop the pay per click marketing spend to meet marketing Efficiencies. (This involves the realization that the candidate must meet their paid search goals as a percentage of revenue spent)
- Monitor and report weekly on the performance of various marketing channels and campaigns.
- Contribute data-driven content regularly to the firm’s blog and other channels based on customer behavior data and other learning.
- Collaborate with both frontline marketers and senior leaders to both accurately forecast and craft the right strategies, campaigns, and tests to run.
- Develop vision for analytics architecture, various predictive models, and efficient workflow across marketing.
- Analyze and interpret what behaviors and patterns make customers successful and more likely to be retained by the company.
- Maximize these successful approaches and run tests to improve them.
- Find new opportunities to applaud, support, and ultimately retain Ashford.com’s customers.
- Craft strategies to better nurture the firm’s customers toward actions the company wishes them to take — and ensuring these actions (product adoption, event signups, trainings, etc.) are actually in Ashford.com’s customers’ best interests.
- Create and implement new projects and develop creative ideas that help improve customer success — from customer content and communication, to the firm’s approach, to marketing automation.
Requirements:
- BA/BS or equivalent working experience.
- In-depth knowledge of the various paid marketing channels and technologies, including paid search, retargeting, social network advertising (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more), and content distribution and placement networks like Outbrain and Taboola.
- Excellent communicator with ability to sell and convince. You will manage all relationships with vendors and ensure Ashford.com gets the most efficient cost possible.
- Experience handling marketing budgets and forecasting/reporting results.
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