Creative Strategist – Direct Response / Paid Social

Full-Time | Remote | $1,500-$2,500 USD/month + Performance Upside

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ABOUT THE ROLE
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We are looking for an experienced Creative Strategist to take ownership of creative strategy for a growing portfolio of direct-response brands.

Our current brands operate primarily in the manifestation, spirituality and personal development space, with additional related brands planned.

We are heavily focused on paid acquisition through platforms such as Meta and TikTok.

This is a long-term role for someone who wants to become deeply involved in the brands they work on and ultimately take responsibility for the entire creative strategy function.

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WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR
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Ideally, you have previous experience working with a direct-response brand.

If not, you should at minimum have strong experience creating performance advertising for an e-commerce brand where creative was directly measured against paid advertising results.

We are NOT looking for someone whose experience is mainly:

* Organic social media
* Content calendars
* Branding
* General social media management
* Making visually attractive content without responsibility for performance

You should already understand the cycle:

CREATIVE -> SPEND -> DATA -> LEARNINGS -> NEW CREATIVE

We want someone who thinks in terms of angles, hooks, customer psychology, testing, CPA, ROAS and conversion rather than simply producing content.

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WHAT YOU WILL OWN
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We already have video editors.

Your job is not primarily to edit videos yourself.
Your job is to focus and choose on:

WHAT SHOULD WE CREATE?

WHY SHOULD WE CREATE IT?

WHAT SHOULD WE DO NEXT BASED ON THE RESULTS?

You will eventually take ownership of the creative process from research through production, testing and iteration.

Your responsibilities will include:

* Deeply understanding our customers and markets
* Researching competitors and adjacent niches
* Studying our historical winning and losing creatives
* Identifying why certain ads perform
* Finding new angles, hooks, stories, personas, mechanisms and formats
* Developing complete creative concepts
* Writing direct-response scripts
* Creating clear briefs for video editors
* Giving visual direction and examples where needed
* Managing our video editors and their production queue
* Reviewing drafts and providing actionable feedback
* Maintaining a consistent creative production pipeline
* Building structured creative testing plans
* Choosing what hypotheses should be tested next
* Analyzing creative performance after launch
* Identifying patterns across winners and losers
* Iterating aggressively on winning concepts
* Developing completely new concepts rather than endlessly remixing old winners
* Identifying creative fatigue
* Working closely with media buying on testing, scaling and creative priorities
* Building systems that improve the speed and quality of our creative operation

We don't want to tell you every week which ads we think should be made.

Over time, we want YOU to bring that plan to us.

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DIRECT-RESPONSE THINKING
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Performance creative isn't about making the prettiest advertisement.

It's about understanding why people take action.

When one creative has a $30 CPA and another has a $60 CPA, you should naturally start asking why.

Was it:

* The hook?
* The angle?
* The persona?
* The story?
* The first few seconds?
* The mechanism?
* The level of awareness?
* The credibility?
* The pacing?
* The CTA?
* The offer positioning?

Then you should be able to turn those observations into the NEXT SET OF CREATIVE TESTS.

We are looking for someone who genuinely enjoys this process.

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PERFORMANCE DATA
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You do not need to be our primary media buyer.

However, you need to understand paid advertising well enough to use performance data to make creative decisions and work closely with media buying.

You should be comfortable analyzing metrics such as:

* CPA
* ROAS
* CTR
* CPC
* CPM
* Conversion Rate
* Hook / Thumb-Stop Rate
* Hold Rates
* Watch Time
* Landing Page Conversion Rate
* Funnel Conversion Rates

We don't want someone who simply reports numbers.

We want someone who uses those numbers to answer:

WHAT SHOULD WE CREATE NEXT?

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MANAGING THE CREATIVE TEAM
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We already have video editors and expect the creative team to grow.

You will be responsible for directing their work, including:

* Choosing what should be produced
* Prioritizing creatives
* Writing clear briefs
* Assigning work
* Reviewing drafts
* Giving revisions and feedback
* Maintaining quality
* Making sure creatives are delivered consistently
* Helping improve the team over time

You should be comfortable taking ownership rather than waiting for instructions.

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RESEARCH
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Research will be a major part of your job.

You should constantly be looking for new insights, patterns and ideas across:

* TikTok
* Meta Ad Library
* YouTube
* Reddit
* Competitors
* Adjacent markets
* Viral organic content
* Customer comments
* Reviews
* Landing pages
* Advertorials
* Sales pages
* Historical creatives
* Creative performance data

We want someone who naturally sees a successful advertisement and starts wondering:

WHY DOES THIS WORK?

And then:

HOW CAN WE USE THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE IN OUR OWN WAY?

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AI
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We use AI heavily and expect it to become an even bigger part of our creative operation.

We currently use AI across areas such as:

* Research
* Copywriting
* Translation and localization
* Image generation
* Video generation
* Avatars
* Voice generation
* Ideation
* Creative analysis

You don't need to know every tool we currently use.

You do need to be comfortable learning new tools quickly and figuring things out.

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LANGUAGE
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Our internal working language is English.

Some of our current advertising runs in non-English-speaking markets, but you do NOT need to speak those languages.

We use translation, localization and AI throughout our creative process.

We are also actively expanding into English-speaking markets.

Strong English communication and strong marketing instincts are much more important to us than speaking any specific additional language.

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WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
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At the beginning, you will spend significant time learning our brands, customers, historical creatives and advertising data.

Over time, we want you to be able to come to us and say:

"Here's what we learned.

Here are the biggest creative opportunities I see.

Here are the hypotheses I want to test.

Here are the creatives we're producing next.

Here's what the editors are working on.

And here's how I think we should test them."

We want someone who eventually knows our brands extremely well.

Someone who knows the customer.

Someone who knows our winners and our losers.

Someone who knows what competitors are doing.

Someone who is always thinking about the next opportunity.

We want you to eat, sleep and breathe these brands.

As we launch additional brands, you will have the opportunity to take ownership of their creative strategy as well.

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COMPENSATION
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$1,500-$2,500 USD per month depending on experience and demonstrated ability.

We are willing to pay toward the top of that range for someone with strong direct-response experience who can genuinely take ownership of this function.

There is also potential for meaningful performance-based bonuses and/or profit participation for the right person.

We are looking for someone who wants to become a core, long-term member of the company.

This is not a short freelance project.

The more responsibility you can take and the more value you create, the greater the opportunity becomes.

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HOW TO APPLY
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Please do NOT send us a generic cover letter.

Start your application with:

CREATIVE GROWTH

Then answer these four questions:

1. DIRECT-RESPONSE EXPERIENCE

Tell us about your direct-response or e-commerce creative experience.

Which brands or types of brands have you worked with?

What were they selling, which advertising platforms did you work on, and what were you personally responsible for?

If you know the approximate monthly ad spend of the brands you worked with, please include it.

2. SHOW US YOUR WORK

Send us 2-3 paid ads you personally strategized or played a major role in creating.

For each one, briefly explain:

* The idea or angle behind it
* What you personally contributed
* How it performed, if you have the data
* What you did with the learnings afterward

We care much more about how you think than seeing a huge portfolio.

3. YOU FIND A WINNER. WHAT NEXT?

One of your ads suddenly becomes the clear winner.

What do you do next?

Keep your answer practical.

We want to understand how you think about analyzing, iterating and scaling winning creative.

4. TEAM MANAGEMENT

Have you managed video editors or other creative team members before?

If yes, briefly explain what you managed and how the workflow worked.

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HIRING PROCESS
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Strong applicants will be invited to a Google Meet interview so we can learn more about your experience and how you approach creative strategy.

Final candidates may then be invited to complete a paid creative strategy exercise using one of our actual brands.

We care much more about how you think, what you've actually done and whether you can take ownership than how impressive your resume looks.

If you have real performance marketing experience, love advertising psychology, enjoy figuring out why people buy and want to take ownership of creative growth across multiple brands, we'd like to hear from you.