Associate Director, Creative Strategy

Job description

Code3 is an integrated marketing agency, powering business growth for digital disruptors and Fortune 500 leaders alike. Our power is at the intersection of Connections, Creative and Commerce – that's what is in our DNA. By harvesting insights and utilizing audience data, we work with our clients to develop scroll-stopping content and creative that performs and elevates the brands we work with across all digital media platforms. Our people are energized by challenges and sprint to find unorthodox solutions. We plan, activate and measure as one team, and we're not afraid to push boundaries and test our way to success. Coders are Relentless, Gritty, Nimble humans who are always striving to be better. As an Associate Director of Creative Strategy at Code3, you'll set the creative strategy vision across a portfolio of midsize accounts and lead the team that brings it to life. This role is equal parts strategist, client partner, and people leader: you architect the testing agendas and creative roadmaps that drive performance, you own the room with clients, and you manage and develop a small team of strategists and designers who execute alongside you. You think performance-first and story-always, translating data into insights, learnings, and clear next actions that move accounts toward their strategic goals. You're fluent in the language of Meta, TikTok, and emerging paid platforms, and you're already building AI into your team's workflows to concept faster, generate variations at scale, and sharpen instincts rather than replace them. You take ownership, obsess over the details, and love raising the bar in a quickly moving environment. **What you'll do:** - Own paid social creative strategy across a portfolio of mid to large size accounts: ad format recommendations, persona development, messaging angles, and hook frameworks built for Meta, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, and other paid social platforms - Exert mastery of paid social (Meta, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, etc.) to drive creative performance for clients of mid to large size - Design and operate complex paid social testing agendas and calendars across multiple accounts, defining what gets tested, why, in what order, and what a win looks like, and keeping them on track through shifting priorities - Manage, mentor, and develop a small team of strategists and designers: setting priorities, reviewing and elevating their work, and growing their strategic and creative skills - Serve as the senior client-facing voice on respective accounts for creative strategy: leading presentations, walking clients through what happened, why it happened, and what to do next, and building trusted advisor relationships - Drive midsize accounts to strategic success by connecting creative decisions to business outcomes, spotting risks and opportunities early, and steering the creative roadmap accordingly - Increase performance with metric evidence by pushing your team to embrace best practices, new ad formats, and a performance-first execution method - Turn performance data (thumbstop, CTR, ROAS, CPA) into insights, learnings, and actions that directly inform the next round of creative and copy across your accounts - Oversee the quality of strategies, briefs, hooks, headlines, and scripts produced by your team, ensuring every deliverable executes against the strategy you set - Champion AI tools and workflows across research, concepting, copywriting, and variation development to increase creative volume and velocity without sacrificing quality - Collaborate with media, analytics, and account teams to bring campaigns to life from brief to launch - Partner with clients to understand their brand, goals, and performance benchmarks, and translate that into strategy that delivers - Keep up to date with paid social trends, platform updates, ad formats, and competitor creative, and make sure your team does too **Who will love this role:** - A player-coach: you're still sharp on the craft of strategy and copy, and you get real energy from developing the people around you - A strategist who loves to write and a writer who loves the numbers: you get genuinely excited connecting creative decisions to performance outcomes - A natural storyteller with data: you can walk a client through what happened, why it happened, and what to do next, and have them leave the room more confident than they entered - A systems thinker who loves running structured testing programs at scale and keeping many moving pieces organized across accounts - A born collaborator: you constantly seek outside input, see constructive criticism as a superpower, and model that mindset for your team - An experimenter at heart: you're actively building AI into your team's strategic and creative process to drive efficiencies and expand creative boundaries **You should have:** - 6+ years of experience in paid social creative strategy and copywriting, with a demonstrated mastery of paid social creative strategy: you know which formats, hooks, and structures win for which objectives on Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Pinterest, and why - Experience working on large-spend accounts ($500K+ per month in paid media) that require a high volume of creative ad units, plus the frameworks to concept, produce, and test at that scale - Experience managing or mentoring strategists, designers, or other creatives, with a track record of growing their skills and output - A history of leading client relationships and driving midsize or larger accounts to strategic success - Deep experience building and operating structured creative testing frameworks and calendars across multiple accounts simultaneously - A proven ability to read performance data and turn it into insights, learnings, and actionable creative recommendations - Extensive experience building and presenting client-facing decks that articulate creative performance and strategy - Working knowledge of ad formats, creative testing frameworks, and persona development - Hands-on experience using AI tools in a strategic or creative workflow - Excellent presentation, communication, and stakeholder management skills - Experience pitching prospective new clients **Nice to have:** - Google (Demand Gen, PMax, YouTube) creative experience - Retail creative experience **Perks and Benefits**: - Full medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as generous retirement program - Thoughtful parental leave and return program - Flexible Time Off, holidays, quarterly Company “Recharge” Days, and holiday closure in December - Ongoing learning and development opportunities - Commitment to transparent DEIB practices Code3’s people are what set us apart. We’re dedicated to hiring, retaining, and developing a diverse group of remarkable Coders because we know it’s the way things should be. By prioritizing our commitment to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and safe environment, we are living our mission of fueling the growth of our people. It’s this focus that empowers Coders to not only achieve great work for our clients, but also propel their own development forward and upward. We strongly encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds and all identities to apply even if you don’t feel that you meet all of the requirements above! If you have any special needs that we can accommodate, please reach out to our team at [recruiting@code3.com](mailto:recruiting@code3.com) so we can make accommodations. Salary Information: The base salary range for this position is $113,000-$135,000 and is commensurate with candidate experience and location. Position also offers a bonus based on company and client success. *For candidates that are based in California, we encourage you to review this important information for California residents* [*here*](https://code3.com/code3-california-worker-privacy-statement)*. For best results, open the link in a new tab*