Senior Director of Marketing & Ecommerce

Confidential · Bergen county, United States

About the Company

Our client is a fast-growing, privately held consumer products company with a portfolio of physical, retail-distributed household goods sold through major national retailers and ecommerce marketplaces. The company has grown significantly in recent years and is investing in its brand, its direct digital channels, and its retail partnerships to support its next phase of growth.

About the Role

The company is looking for one leader to own how its brand shows up to the consumer, from the first impression to the checkout and the reorder. This role combines brand and marketing leadership with ownership of the direct ecommerce business.

Marketplace and retail partners remain the engine of the business. The next chapter is building the company's owned channels into the home of the brand: a place where customers learn, return, and become loyal to the brand by name, rather than buyers who happened to find a product on a shelf or a search result.

You will lead brand, digital, content, and retail marketing alongside the direct site, and you will own the direct channel P&L. This is a hands-on, builder's role with a seat close to senior leadership, strong in-house creative capability, and real budget and ownership.

What You Will Do

Brand Strategy & Positioning

• Own brand strategy and positioning across the company's product portfolio, keeping the brand consistent across digital, retail, and packaging.
• Lead go-to-market strategy for new product launches in partnership with product development and design teams.
• Turn consumer and category insights into messaging that sets the brand apart from larger competitors.
• Set the direction for the content engine, bringing photography, video, subject-matter, and graphic design talent together as one team rather than separate functions.

Direct Ecommerce & Owned Digital Properties

• Own the Shopify platform roadmap for our direct sites, including apps, integrations, and tracking, working with developers and agencies.
• Own the P&L for the direct channel, including revenue, margin, budget, and forecast.
• Own the company's direct websites: merchandising, content, conversion, and a steady cadence of testing.
• Turn the site into a destination, with educational and lifestyle content that gives customers a reason to come back.
• Set pricing and promotional strategy for the direct channel together with the marketplace and key account teams, so direct sales grow without disrupting retail partners.
• Own the company's loyalty and membership program, including acquisition, engagement, and retention goals.

Acquisition & Performance Marketing

• Own paid search, paid social, programmatic, streaming and connected TV, podcast, and SEO, with accountability for blended efficiency measures such as MER, CAC, and contribution margin.
• Build and run affiliate and creator programs, including recruiting, commission structure, product seeding, and measurement.
• Lead the approach to AI search visibility and other emerging discovery channels.
• Decide where agencies add value and where work should move in house.

Retention & Lifecycle

• Own email and SMS strategy, including segmentation, automation, and customer lifetime value.
• Build a clear picture of the customer journey using first-party data, so the company knows who buys, who returns, and why.

Retail & Trade Marketing

• Partner with sales and key account teams on retail sell stories, category insights, and promotional plans that support retailer growth.
• Own retail marketing materials, point-of-sale content, and packaging strategy in coordination with retail partners.
• Set strategy and investment for trade shows and industry events.

Leadership

• Build, mentor, and lead a team across brand, digital, ecommerce, content, and retail marketing, with direct involvement in its daily priorities.
• Manage agency, creative, and external creator relationships.
• Own the marketing and ecommerce budgets and allocate them with discipline.
• Work with sales, product development, finance, operations, customer service, and the data team, and report results to senior leadership with a clear KPI framework.

What You Bring

Required

• 10+ years of progressive marketing and ecommerce experience, including at least 3 to 5 years at Director level or above.
• Strong hands-on Shopify or Shopify Plus experience, including merchandising, apps and integrations, tracking, and conversion testing.
• Hands-on experience owning both brand building and performance marketing. This role is responsible for both, and candidates with meaningful experience in only one area do not meet this requirement.
• Brand-side ownership of a direct-to-consumer ecommerce business, including P&L, budget, and margin.
• Proven results, with named programs and metrics, in each of the following: affiliate marketing, influencer or creator marketing, paid media and SEO, and email and SMS retention.
• Experience marketing a physical, retail-distributed consumer product, not purely digital, SaaS, or B2B.
• Experience balancing a brand's owned site against marketplace and retail partners, including pricing and promotional alignment.
• Direct experience partnering with retail sales teams on trade marketing, category management, or retail activation.
• Proven experience managing agencies and creative partners, and a strong analytical approach to KPIs and budget decisions.
• Bachelor's degree required; MBA preferred.
• Based in or willing to relocate to the New York / New Jersey metro area. This role is onsite.
• Authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future. The company is unable to provide visa sponsorship.

Preferred

• Experience in home goods, durable consumer electronics, or a similarly complex physical consumer product category.
• Experience in a founder-led or fast-scaling company.
• Experience selling through large marketplaces and national retailers as both vendor and seller.
• Experience building or running a loyalty or membership program.
• Familiarity with AI-driven marketing tools and generative search.
• International marketing experience.

Who You Are

You blend brand thinking with a hands-on, execution-minded approach. You are comfortable setting multi-year direction and also reviewing a creative asset, reworking a retail sell story, or digging into a campaign report. You build trust quickly with your team and with senior leadership, you communicate openly, and you take ownership: when something misses, you say what happened and what you will change.

• Entrepreneurial, with the discipline to work in a fast-growing, closely held company
• Data-minded, and comfortable measuring marketing against margin and profit
• A collaborator who can align sales, product, creative, and operations around one plan
• Comfortable with ambiguity and changing priorities in a lean organization

Why This Opportunity

• Real ownership: you will own a P&L and a budget, with a seat close to senior leadership.
• A brand with strong momentum and room to build its direct channel.
• In-house creative capability and a founder-led, entrepreneurial culture that encourages new ideas and testing.
• Relocation assistance and competitive compensation.