Director, Performance Marketing

Job description

WHO WE ARE Help Scout started in 2011 with a simple premise: support software should treat customers like people, not tickets. 3+ billion conversations later, more than 10,000 companies use Help Scout to grow relationships with customers of all types, from clients to patients and beyond. Now we’re in a new chapter: not only building AI that gives teams more space to focus on the customer experience, but also reimagining how we operate in an AI-native world. That means shipping and learning faster, without compromising on craft. Great work here carries a strong opinion and sweats the details, regardless of the tools we use to drive it. We’ve been a fully remote team https://articles.helpscout.com/blog/remote-culture/ since day one, with 120+ teammates now all over the world. It’s a culture where you’ll be trusted to take ownership, stay curious, and raise the quality of work around you. It comes with clear expectations and a team that will push you to do some of the best work of your career. If that kind of challenge gives you energy, we’d love to meet you. Please note: For this role, we are only able to hire in the United States. ABOUT THE ROLE As the search landscape shifts and our market gets more crowded, Help Scout is investing more than ever in paid and performance marketing to accelerate signups, expand brand awareness, and diversify how we reach customers. It's an exciting time to be here. We've got a best-in-market product story, strong creative assets, and stellar copywriting. What we need now is a strategic owner to take our performance marketing motion from early-stage to a durable growth engine that fuels our self-serve, product-led, and sales-assisted growth. You'll report to the VP of Marketing, setting and executing the strategy for how Help Scout invests in paid channels while building deep partnerships across Marketing, Sales, Product, Support, and company leadership. In this role, you will: - Own performance marketing strategy. Set the quarterly and long-term strategy for how paid, lifecycle, and conversion work together to hit the signups number, defining what's needed from each channel and building the plan B when something's off. You'll be the person leadership turns to for the full picture of paid performance. - Move Help Scout upmarket. Own iteration of ad copy, creative, bidding strategy, and budget allocation across paid search and display, and set the bar for how we drive both our horizontal motion for volume and our vertical motion for larger deals. - Build the business case for new channels. Identify and evaluate new channel investments, paid social, affiliate, direct mail, OOH, and drive alignment with leadership on where to place new bets and how to measure them. - Partner on pipeline outcomes. Work closely with Sales and RevOps to connect paid spend to pipeline and revenue, not just top-of-funnel volume, and make sure channel investment decisions reflect what's actually converting downstream. - Partner to grow organic and paid in harmony. Work with content, social, SEO, and AEO to make sure paid and organic acquisition reinforce each other rather than compete for the same ground. - Represent Help Scout's performance marketing point of view. Bring an informed perspective on where the paid landscape is heading, and use that expertise to keep Help Scout ahead of a crowded, competitive market. - Own our presence in AI-driven discovery. As search shifts toward AI overviews and LLM-based answers, you'll define how Help Scout shows up in that landscape alongside traditional paid and organic search. - Shape the future of the function. This is currently an individual contributor role with agency support. You'll build the roadmap for what performance marketing needs to look like over the next 12-18 months, including where headcount should come in as the motion scales. ABOUT YOU - You have at least 7+ years in performance or growth marketing, including experience owning strategy for a B2B SaaS company. - You have significant experience in paid/performance marketing, with a track record of owning strategy for B2B SaaS companies – not just executing campaigns. - You're an expert across paid channels and know the search landscape and the benchmarks that matter (PPC, CPM, ROAS), and you can identify which channels and investments matter most for the business right now. - You have a scrappy, results-driven mindset. You're comfortable working with ambiguity, a modest budget, and a lean marketing team, and you know how to out-creative the competition while also spending in the right way to drive results. - You have strong analytical skills, with deep experience in tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and attribution platforms, and you know how to turn data into a clear recommendation for leadership. - You know how to run rapid experimentation and adapt strategy based on what the data tells you – and you have a plan B ready before you need it. - You use AI tools daily to improve your output, and you can point to specific examples where AI changed the speed, quality, or scale of what you delivered. - You have excellent verbal and written communication skills, know how to communicate and build relationships across a remote, async organization, and can present insights and strategy to senior leaders and cross-functional teams. - Bonus: you have experience managing an agency and/or direct reports to execute a paid marketing strategy. COMPANY VALUES HAPPY TO HELP Help is in our first name! We show up for each other — not out of obligation, but because we’re invested in the team’s collective success. We share knowledge freely, lead with generosity, and practice empathy with our teammates, customers, and community. CRAFT OVER CONVENTION Our success relies on the quality and craft https://paulstamatiou.com/craft of the work we put into the world. The status quo simply won’t work. So we insist on narrow focus, sweating every detail, and relentless pursuit of customer delight. PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION Achieving our true potential — collectively and individually — requires constant progress and forward momentum. By creating a culture of curiosity and openness, we aim to create a safe space for mistakes, the ability to identify them quickly, and use them to get better. OWN THE OUTCOME Own the outcome means taking full responsibility for the results of your work, decisions, and contributions. It reflects a mindset of accountability, proactiveness, and follow-through. If you “own the outcome,” you don’t just complete tasks, you ensure your work leads to meaningful results, and take initiative to solve problems rather than passing them along. Read more about how we define, share, and live these values here https://articles.helpscout.com/blog/aligning-culture-with-values/. BENEFITS AND PERKS - Competitive salary and an internal, transparent salary formula based on market data - Flexible time off – you choose the holidays and vacations that make sense for you - 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents, including adoption and foster care - A home office stipend to help you get set up and productive - A co-working stipend up to $300 a month if you choose to work out of your house - A yearly professional development stipend of $1,800 to help you grow in your craft - If you’re in the U.S. or Canada, we offer top tier health insurance for you and your dependents. HIRING GUIDELINES: All roles at Help Scout are fully remote. Some positions have specific location requirements. For roles outside the U.S. and Canada, we work with teammates as independent contractors under country-specific agreements. We do not sponsor visas. Teammates must already be authorized to work from their home country. We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion https://www.helpscout.com/dei/. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We have read the studies and understand that diverse teams build better products, bring more perspective to the table, contribute to a company’s financial success, and help foster a more inclusive environment for all employees, but the bottom line is that it's the right thing to do. To provide you with the best experience, we can support you with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Simply inform our recruitment team during your conversation with them. A NOTE ON THE USE OF AI IN OUR INTERVIEW PROCESS While we understand that AI is an important tool in a modern skillset, we ask that you do not utilize AI assistants live on our interviews. Of course, use any tools you need to prepare! But we'd like for you to have a real human-to-human conversation with our team. On our end, we utilize a platform called Brighthire as a notetaker and review tool to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process. Beware of scammers! All legitimate communication from Help Scout regarding your application will come directly from an @helpscout.com http://helpscout.com email address and through our applicant tracking system, Ashby. We will never ask for personal financial information or conduct interviews outside of these official channels.