Vice President, Growth Marketing
Cars.com is a leading online destination that helps car shoppers and owners navigate every turn of car ownership. A pioneer in automotive classifieds, the company has evolved into one of the largest digital automotive marketplaces, guiding over 20 million unique visitors a month, and creating kinetic connections between shoppers and sellers. CARS is one of the largest and most established tech companies in Chicago, with a culture that remains very entrepreneurial, with a focus on innovation, creativity, and being an incubator for strong talent. We are looking for a passionate, collaborative, forward thinking VP of Growth marketing to join us as we grow and thrive toward market domination.
Role
The Vice President, Growth Marketing is a strategic leader, team builder, and thought leader responsible for the strategy, development, and operation of the marketing department as it pertains to customer acquisition, media planning and buying (all digital media is managed in-house), lifecycle marketing and SEO. Reporting to the Chief Experience Officer, the VP of Growth Marketing will have direct responsibility as it pertains to customer acquisition, and work across the organization to enhance engagement and retention, and ensure we stay at the cutting edge of media and acquisition strategies to optimize the impact of our $90MM+ media spend to deliver high quality traffic; and partner across the organization (with an emphasis on product) to ensure the shoppers we bring to the site are met with an experience that delivers on their needs and desires.
VP Of Growth Marketing Success Factors
- Be responsible for driving growth marketing strategy, team leadership and overseeing execution and optimization.
- Bring external expertise to coach the team from prior success and failure.
- Provide leadership and direction across multi-channel growth strategy based on needs and efficiency: SEO/ASO, SEM, DSPs, social paid/earned, community/influencer development, word of mouth, email marketing, CRM, traditional TV/offline, mobile, native etc.
- Drive the team to define, execute, analyze, and optimize A/B and multivariate tests.
- Implement agile principles and approach to create continuous rapid improvement.
- Partner with analytics group to turn insights into action - see customer acquisition, engagement, and retention (customer lifecycle) process through from ideation to execution
- Refine, validate, and standardize within the organization core KPIs and operating metrics should be at the executive team and working team levels, such as cost per metrics, retention, ROI and LTV.
- Lead diligence, implementation, and continuous refinement of the media mix through media mix modeling and multi-touch attribution first party/in house capabilities and third party service providers.
- Oversee vetting and consolidation of the marketing tech stack partnerships to position Cars.com as best in class from an operational, media, and cost efficiency perspective.
- Be agile and iterative in your approach, and relentless in your search for the next unexploited growth opportunity. Champion this thinking across the marketing and broader organization!
- Experience building a world class data driven internal marketing department reducing dependencies on external support.
As a VP Growth Marketing, You Will Need
- 10+ years in a leadership role within marketing and/or growth with experience proliferating consumer facing digital products and services
- Strong ability to grow and coach internal “hands on keys” marketing talent
- A proven track record of personal success, and ambitious undertakings
- Leading change efforts in complex organizations
- Entrepreneurial spirit to help us shape our growth initiatives and company
- Ability to think strategically and creatively: analyze, synthesize, recommend and take actions
- Expert communication, presentation, and material preparation skills required
- A passion for growth marketing and driving customer adoption, engagement, and retention
To learn more, visit us at Cars.com.
