Performance Marketing Director

Join to apply for the Performance Marketing Director role at The Arena Group.

The Arena Group, a leading publisher with a diverse portfolio of digital media properties and commerce assets—including the recently acquired e-commerce retailer ShopHQ—is seeking a Performance Marketing Director to craft and execute its performance marketing strategy. This role is responsible for the profitable growth of The Arena Group’s paid customer acquisition strategy.

The Performance Marketing Director will be a data‑driven operator tasked with harnessing The Arena Group’s audience data, editorial content, and commerce businesses to build a scalable performance marketing operation. This role extends beyond conventional e‑commerce advertising to encompass the monetization of our publisher traffic through commerce initiatives. The ideal candidate will leverage proprietary data assets to drive both customer acquisition for our e‑commerce properties (like ShopHQ) as well as transactional audiences on our high‑yield editorial content.

Success in this position is measured by financial outcomes, including blended Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and achieving aggressive targets for the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Payback Period.

The Arena Group’s expected annualized base salary range for this position is $120,000 – $150,000.

• Minimum 8+ years of experience in performance marketing roles, operating within a DTC e‑commerce or media environment managing multi‑brand portfolios.
• Experience managing performance marketing campaigns for jewelry, beauty, watches, or fashion is a plus, though not required.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate and leverage data for audience activation and deep familiarity with marketing platforms including Google P‑Max, Criteo, Meta, and Tik Tok.
• Proven ability to manage large, multi‑channel budgets, forecast revenue, and make strategic decisions based on profit margin.
• Exceptional ability to communicate complex data findings and strategic recommendations to executive leadership and cross‑functional teams.

The Performance Marketing Director must define and execute a sales‑driven strategy across a diverse portfolio, ensuring the marketing budget is accountable to measurable revenue.

• Data Integration:
  Partner with our Head of Data and Addressibility to develop a strategic fusion of proprietary publisher audience data with commerce transactional data.
• Offsite Commerce Media Activation:
  Develop publisher audience segments into audience signals, enabling highly targeted, privacy‑compliant, and profitable ad campaigns across the open web.
• O&O Commerce Media Activation:
  Establish and manage a performance marketing strategy using The Arena Group’s own media, positioning owned commerce brands (including ShopHQ) with the publisher sites’ advertising inventory.
• P&L Ownership:
  Manage the performance marketing budget across all brands and channels (SEM, Paid Social, Retargeting) to meet profitability goals.
• Financial Reporting:
  Implement financial tracking, setting channel‑specific KPIs based on product margins and CLV to accelerate the CAC payback period.
• Channel Strategy:
  Develop and manage paid media execution for performance‑driven campaigns across all platforms. Continuously monitor and optimize campaigns within target budget.
• Creative Strategy:
  Develop strategy for asset production to continuously refresh campaigns.
• Cross‑Departmental
  
  Collaboration:
  
  This role will work closely with departments across The Arena Group, including Data, Finance, Commerce, Ad Operations, Product, and Design.
• Platform Relationship Management:
  Establish solid account management relationships with marketing platforms, and stay up‑to‑date on their capabilities and campaign optimization recommendations.
• Entrepreneurship:
  Passion for building and operating. This is a hands‑on role, with the potential to build a team in the future once the foundation is set.

• Medical, Dental and Vision Coverage
• Retirement Savings Plan (401K), with company match
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Commuter Benefits
• Reimbursement for business cell phone use…