Creative Strategist - Performance Marketing

thelab is looking for a Creative Strategist - Performance Marketing to join our team working on paid social ad creative. The ideal applicant has 3-5 years of creative strategy experience across a variety of digital channels, including Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, and Youtube. This role is key to driving aggressive growth for our clients by delivering the right creative at the right time, on the right channels. They should be comfortable diving into analytics tools (like Motion or Triple Whale) to extract insights and develop creative concepts that deliver ROI. This is a hybrid role–equal parts creative and analytical–that bridges media, creative, and client teams. You’d be an integral part of our performance marketing team, providing support directly to our Senior Creative Strategist.

About thelab:

We are an agency of makers with deep expertise in solving creative, production, and technology challenges. Our focus is on making better work, to help brands work better. We partner directly with clients to think big, build from scratch, and design for reality. From social media, digital marketing, branding, copy & design, and strategy, to full e-commerce builds, thelab mixes inspiration and hard work to produce results.

About the Role:

The Creative Strategist role will encompass:

• Developing data-backed Quarterly testing & scaling strategies for multiple clients
• Implementing & executing both short and long-term strategies
  • Competitor & Market Research
  • Writing tactical briefs for the creative team
  • Casting & briefing content creators & influencers
  • Contribute to in-house content production 
  • Providing strategic feedback on edits 
• Client-Facing Reporting
  • Performance data & creative analysis
  • Designating top/bottom performers across channels
  • Suggesting go-forward paid social creative strategies & tactics based on performance 
• Internal Reporting
  • Translating reports to creative teams, to keep everyone in the know about what’s working & aware of current best practices in the account

About You (Mandatories):

• 3-5 years in-house or top-tier agency experience with a proven track record of leading performance creative strategy across paid media channels
• A trusted partner for our clients who can guide them with paid social strategies that help them achieve their marketing and business goals
• Works well across capabilities (creative, media, analytics), engaging with the larger team
• Deep expertise of the digital landscape and knowledge of platform-specific best practices on Meta, YouTube, TikTok and additional/emerging platforms. 
• Sufficient understanding of media buying best practices across social channels, specifically Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest
• Demonstrable experience directing work with influencer or UGC creators
• Proven analytical ability - you can digest data and turn insights into actionable creative strategy that drives growth. You are comfortable operating across spreadsheets and storyboards and enjoy using data to tell a story
• Demonstrated history of achieving and exceeding paid social media campaign goals
• Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation skills, and can summarize insights to create easy-to-understand client-facing reports
• Experience creating and implementing long-term testing and optimization practices

• The ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment with a consistent “can-do” attitude, seeing ambiguity as a challenge and not a deterrent
• Strong attention to detail and a proven ability to manage multiple work streams at once

Job Details:

• Hybrid work environment - Tues-Thurs in the Madison Square Park office
• Salary TBD will ultimately be decided at the offer stage, based on an individual candidate’s level of skills and experience aligned with the needs of this role.    The anticipated salary band is $80,000-$90,000
• Benefits include unlimited PTO, Healthcare/Dental/Vision, 401k company match, and the best snacks in town