Director, Digital Strategy

Dentsu · Vancouver · $100,000–$115,000 (stated in the posting)

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Job Description:

Our mission is to Drive Business Performance. We use data to create personalized and connected experiences that deliver transformative business outcomes. Our role is to ensure our clients meet their quantifiable business goals every day, consistently, in every market. We are entirely focused on delivering better business results through optimization, creation and analysis across all digital platforms. Our scope ranges from recommending how to use content more effectively to optimizing daily media channel performance and maximizing visibility in eCommerce platforms.

The Director, Digital Strategy is the senior strategic digital lead for the client account. The role defines how digital channels work together across the customer journey to support the client’s brand and business goals, and ensures digital thinking is embedded from the brief onward rather than added once activation begins.This is a client-facing leadership role focused on vision, integration and decision-making. The Director turns audience, cultural, platform, business and measurement signals into a focused digital strategy, clear priorities and practical roadmaps. The role brings choiceful recommendations, constructive challenge and a future-facing point of view.

The Director will work alongside Client Leadership and Planning, while partnering closely with the Digital Manager, channel specialists and Media Effectiveness. The Digital Manager and specialists remain responsible for in-platform strategy, buying, account structure, bidding, pacing, optimization, trafficking and quality assurance. The Director sets the strategic direction and ensures the work adds up to one connected digital proposition.

What Success Looks Like

• The client can clearly articulate the digital channel strategy, the role of each channel and how the ecosystem supports business growth.
• Digital strategy develops at the same pace as the broader media strategy and shapes investment, audience and measurement decisions from the outset.
• The client receives concise, decisive recommendations that clarify what matters now, what comes next and why.
• Testing, measurement and learning lead to visible changes in strategy, investment and activation.
• First-party data, audience and innovation opportunities progress through practical, phased roadmaps with clear ownership and dependencies.
• The account operates as one integrated client leadership, planning, digital activation and measurement team.

Key Accountabilities

Digital channel strategy and integration

• Own the account’s digital channel strategy and roadmap, connecting business objectives, audience needs, customer journey, channel roles, investment priorities and measurement
• Partner with Client Leadership and Planning from the brief onward so digital strategy is developed as part of the core media response, not as a downstream activation layer.
• Define how paid Search, Social, Programmatic, Display, Video and other relevant digital channels work together across the funnel, while channel specialists determine the detailed in-platform approach.
• Translate complex inputs into a focused set of priorities, choices and actions the client and team can understand and deliver.

Audience, innovation and growth agenda

• Develop audience and segmentation strategies that connect broad media audiences, platform signals, app and loyalty opportunities, and first-party data ambitions.
• Identify opportunities to improve brand impact, acquisition, engagement, loyalty and media effectiveness, and convert them into sequenced recommendations with clear expected value.
• Bring a forward-looking point of view on changing consumer behaviour, platform evolution, AI-enabled media and emerging digital opportunities, distinguishing useful innovation from novelty.
• Create a visible innovation agenda for the client that links new opportunities to real business questions, readiness and measurable outcomes.

Measurement, testing and learning

• With Media Effectiveness and channel leads, define the learning agenda and ensure each priority has a clear business question, hypothesis, success measure and decision rule.
• Connect reach, attention, engagement, conversion, efficiency and incrementality evidence to the business question being answered.
• Turn reporting and specialist input into concise recommendations on what to continue, change, stop, scale or test next.
• Ensure learning is applied back into audience, channel, investment and creative decisions, creating a continuous strategy-to-learning cycle.

First-party data and connected capabilities

• Lead the media strategy and use-case components of the first-party data and audience maturity roadmap, in partnership with Media Effectiveness, CRM, loyalty, app, privacy, data and technology stakeholders.
• Break complex ambitions into practical phases with explicit ownership, dependencies, decision points and realistic timelines.
• First party data connecting to business strategy

Client leadership and team development

• Present the digital strategy and roadmap in senior meetings, annual planning, business reviews and critical transformation workstreams.
• Coach the Digital Manager, planners and specialists to connect platform recommendations to the wider strategy and communicate with greater clarity and confidence.
• Establish clear ways of working and decision rights across Client Leadership, Planning, Digital Activation, Media Effectiveness and specialist partners.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive experience in digital media strategy, communications planning, digital transformation or integrated media, ideally across agency and/or client environments.
• Post-secondary degree or diploma in Media, Advertising, Marketing, Business, Strategy, Analytics or a related field
• Demonstrated experience building full-funnel digital channel strategies that connect business goals, audiences, channel roles, investment and measurement.
• Strong understanding of the strategic roles and interdependencies of paid Search, Social, Programmatic, Display and Video. Current platform fluency is required; deep hands-on buying or platform-operations expertise is not the core requirement.
• Experience translating audience, platform, analytics, research and business signals into a clear strategic point of view and actionable roadmap.
• Practical understanding of first-party data, CRM, app and loyalty use cases, including the organizational and measurement dependencies required to activate them.
• Experience shaping learning agendas and working with measurement specialists to turn evidence into decisions.
• Exceptional client leadership, storytelling and communication skills, with the ability to simplify complexity and make decisive recommendations.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and influencing outcomes without relying solely on formal authority.
  

Additional information

Vacancy: Is this posting for the purposes of filling an existing vacancy [Y/N]

The salary range for this position is $100k-115k. Actual salary within the salary range will be based on a variety of factors including relevant experience, knowledge, and skills. A range of medical, dental, RRSP, paid time off, and/or other benefits also are available to all permanent employees.

AI Disclosure: [dentsu] utilizes artificial intelligence tools as part of its recruitment process, as during the sourcing and screening stages. All other parts of the dentsu application and hiring processes do not utilize artificial intelligence tools.

We know through experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds foster a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better business results. We strive to create workplaces that reflect the clients we serve and where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. We are committed to working with our candidates from all ability levels throughout the recruitment process to ensure that they have what they need to be at their best. If you need accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact Canada.Recruitment@dentsu.com or to begin a conversation about your individual accessibility needs throughout the hiring process.

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