Director of Digital Marketing (Southeast USA)

SOUTHEAST USA – With more than 100 ecommerce searches each year, EcommerceRecruiter.com is the leading contingency-based recruiting firm serving the NRF, IR-1000, and B2B communities. To opt-in to our popular “Ecommerce Job of the Day” email, click here. One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around! ALLAN’S COMMENTS: In their search for a world-class Director of Digital Marketing, we are working with a major footwear retailer based in the southeast USA. We’ve worked with these folks many times before, and they’re amazing. NOTE: This is an onsite role and the location can be shared with qualified and interested candidates. Relocation is expected with assistance. About the Role This opportunity centers on a Director of Digital Marketing role at a major footwear retailer at a high-stakes inflection point. The organization has brought its digital marketing capabilities fully in-house and is now investing in strategic leadership to elevate performance across paid, owned, and earned digital channels. This position offers a unique chance to help scale the digital business from a “sustain and maintain” phase to a high-performance, integrated growth engine. The incoming director will oversee a robust team of digital channel managers, including specialists in SEO, paid search, social, affiliate marketing, and performance shopping. Each team member has technical depth, but the team needs a unifying leader—someone who can integrate strategy across silos, deepen alignment with ecommerce and IT, and help to upgrade the company’s attribution model from last-click to multi-touch. This is not a role for a passive optimizer. It’s a fit for someone who combines hands-on digital expertise with strategic foresight, technical fluency, and organizational maturity. The business has strong leadership buy-in to invest in tools, analytics, and cross-functional integration—but the roadmap must be earned through influence. Key near-term challenges include: Conducting a comprehensive performance audit of all paid and organic channels Identifying and correcting gaps in SEO ownership, particularly as it relates to site infrastructure, content, and local search/store related content Bringing a strategic lens to digital merchandising and vendor-fulfilled products, including recommendations for selectively allocating media spend Actively partnering with ecommerce, merchandising, CRM, Analytics and IT to improve customer journey consistency and data visibility across systems Establishing credibility as a cross-functional leader capable of driving both results and organizational clarity The ideal candidate is a performance marketing expert with broad exposure to digital strategy, ideally gained from both agency and retail-side roles. They’ll have experience managing integrated teams, building attribution models, and launching cross-channel campaigns informed by analytics. Mastery of tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Google Search Console, as well as other digital marketing platforms, and Excel is essential, as is a facility for vendor selection and integration management. Candidates with experience navigating legacy systems and aligning multiple stakeholders around a unified digital vision will thrive here. Success in this role will require more than technical prowess: The company culture demands someone who communicates with clarity, exhibits data-backed confidence, and isn’t rattled by ambiguity or slow-moving legacy systems. Change happens here, but it’s fastest when paired with strong internal communication, clear ROI, and collaborative planning. This is an on-site role with relocation support. The incoming Director will report to a seasoned digital leader: It’s an opportunity to join a growing team, with C-level support to scale digital from low single digits to 10–15% of the firm’s total business. Candidates who have built performance teams, taught digital marketing, or navigated organizational transformation are especially encouraged to apply. You won’t believe how much we know about this search … I spent a ton of time on the phone with the client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include … The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role. The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every ecommerce job has these — and this one’s no different. What your average day/week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard ecommerce job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality. The leading and lagging KPIs that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you’ll keep score. The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this ecommerce job. I have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. My industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Allan Seibert, at (404) 281-2025 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Digital Marketing Strategy and Leadership Lead, coach and mentor a high-performing team of digital marketing professionals. Foster a culture of performance, innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning. Develop and implement an integrated digital marketing roadmap aligned with company growth objectives, with clearly defined KPIs and measurable outcomes. Collaborate closely with brand marketing, ecommerce, creative, and technology stakeholders to ensure alignment across messaging, promotion strategy, and campaign delivery. Work with internal project managers to ensure campaign deadlines and milestones are achieved on schedule. Effectively manage budgets and allocate resources to maximize ROI across marketing initiatives. Channel Execution & Optimization Oversee the daily activities of digital marketing managers and channel specialists responsible for paid media, social and SEO. Leverage tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Google Search Console, Meta Business Suite, and email analytics to optimize spend and content across digital platforms. Own paid media platforms having a keen eye for scaling profitably. Cross-Functional Impact Champion a results-driven, customer-first culture across all digital marketing programs. Serve as a key contributor to the company’s broader brand and growth strategy through actionable performance insights and media recommendations. Required Qualifications: 8+ years in digital marketing with 4+ years leading teams and agencies; proven ownership of multimillion-dollar budgets. Full-funnel expertise across brand and performance; deep hands-on knowledge of paid search, paid social, programmatic, and CRO. Strong analytics and experimentation mindset; experience with MMM/MTA, incrementality testing, and cohort/LTV modeling. SEO/content strategy and measurement experience. Excellent leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and communication skills; can translate data into clear decisions. Tools you’re comfortable with (or similar) Media: Google Ads/SA360, Google Merchant Center, Microsoft Ads, Meta, TikTok, DV360/The Trade Desk, YouTube, Amazon Ads, CTV, Adobe Analytics SEO: Ahrefs/SEMrush, Screaming Frog; feed management (Feedonomics). Responsibilities: Strategy and planning Build and own the annual digital marketing plan, channel mix, and budget across upper- and bottom-funnel programs. Set KPI frameworks by funnel stage; forecast pipeline/revenue and manage to CAC, ROAS, MER, and LTV:CAC targets. Develop the experimentation roadmap (creative, audiences, bids, landing pages); champion incrementality testing and MMM/MTA. Channel leadership (see funnel/channel ownership below) Guide channel managers on media strategy, targeting, and optimization cadence. Analytics and attribution Build executive reporting on performance, learnings, and next actions. Team and vendors Mentor, coach and develop a high-performing team. Manage martech vendors on SLAs and ROI targets. Funnel and channel ownership Upper-funnel (awareness and interest) Paid social prospecting: Meta, TikTok, and other related platforms Programmatic display and video: worked with manager to drive effectiveness and scale. CTV, streaming, and other top-of-funnel digital media channels Influencer/creator marketing: oversee strategy and execution of brand co-op partnerships. Organic/owned: SEO top-of-funnel content, community, organic social. Brand amplification and content syndication. Bottom-funnel (consideration and conversion) Paid search/SEM: Google/Bing, Performance Max, Shopping/PLA, RLSA/DSA. Retargeting/remarketing across web and social; dynamic product ads. Affiliate/partner marketing (CJ) and referral programs. Key KPIs Upper-funnel: reach and frequency, VTR/VCR, unique new users to acquisition, engaged sessions, incremental site traffic Bottom-funnel: CVR, CPA/CAC, ROAS/POAS, MER, margin contribution, pipeline and revenue contribution. Applications for this ecommerce job are being coordinated by Allan Seibert. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Allan for additional information that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.