Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Digital Marketing Strategist
💰 $65,000 - $120,000
MarketingDigital MarketingStrategySEOPaid Media
🎯 Role Definition
A Digital Marketing Strategist develops, executes, and optimizes multichannel digital marketing strategies that drive customer acquisition, engagement, and revenue growth. This role blends data-driven decision making, creative campaign planning, paid and organic search expertise (SEO/SEM), content strategy, and cross-functional stakeholder management. The strategist is responsible for campaign performance, budget allocation, A/B testing, audience segmentation, and translating business goals into measurable digital initiatives.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Marketing Coordinator with exposure to digital channels and analytics
- Social Media Specialist or Content Marketer who has managed cross-channel campaigns
- PPC / Paid Media Specialist with hands-on Google Ads or Meta experience
Advancement To:
- Senior Digital Marketing Strategist
- Digital Marketing Manager or Paid Media Manager
- Head of Growth, Director of Marketing, or Growth Marketing Lead
Lateral Moves:
- Content Marketing Manager / Content Strategist
- Product Marketing Manager
- Marketing Analytics / Growth Analyst
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Develop and own the end-to-end digital marketing strategy that aligns with company objectives, including customer acquisition, retention, lead generation, and revenue targets across paid, organic, email, social, and content channels.
- Create, manage, and optimize paid search (Google Ads) and paid social campaigns (Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, X) with detailed keyword strategies, bidding strategies, ad copy development, and landing page alignment to maximize ROAS and CPA targets.
- Lead SEO strategy and execution — on-page optimization, technical SEO audits, site architecture recommendations, content gap analysis, and backlink acquisition programs to improve organic visibility and SERP rankings.
- Conduct audience segmentation, persona definition, and targeting strategies using first-party data, CRM insights, and platform-level signals to increase relevance and conversion rates.
- Design and implement conversion rate optimization (CRO) programs, including landing page tests, multivariate/A-B experiments, funnel analysis, and UX recommendations to improve lead-to-customer conversion.
- Define and track KPIs and performance metrics for all digital channels; provide weekly and monthly reporting with actionable insights and recommendations to senior leadership and stakeholders.
- Build and maintain scalable campaign structures and naming conventions, implement tracking (UTM standards), and ensure consistent measurement across analytics platforms (GA4, Google Tag Manager).
- Manage marketing budgets, forecast spend, optimize media allocation across channels based on performance, and execute pacing strategies to meet monthly and quarterly goals.
- Lead content marketing strategy in partnership with content creators: editorial calendars, SEO-driven content briefs, content syndication plans, and alignment between organic and paid content initiatives.
- Implement and operate marketing automation and CRM workflows (HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce) for lead nurturing, lifecycle marketing, lead scoring, and triggered communications.
- Plan and execute email marketing programs, including segmentation, personalization, deliverability best practices, campaign scheduling, and performance optimization (open, click, conversion).
- Collaborate with product, sales, design, and engineering teams to align on go-to-market plans, product launches, landing pages, tracking requirements, and creative brief execution.
- Lead creative ideation and feed direction for ad creative — copywriting guidance, storyboard feedback, video ad optimization, and iterative creative testing to drive engagement and lower costs.
- Conduct competitive analysis and market research to identify channel opportunities, benchmark performance, and inform strategic pivots and seasonal campaign plans.
- Establish and maintain measurement frameworks: attribution models, incrementality testing, and media mix modeling where applicable to quantify channel contribution and inform budget allocation.
- Execute and manage programmatic and display campaigns, retargeting strategies, and audience discovery initiatives to expand reach and recapture high-intent users.
- Oversee partner, affiliate, and influencer marketing initiatives to scale awareness and performance while ensuring contractual KPI alignment and transparent reporting.
- Ensure compliance with privacy regulations and platform policies (GDPR, CCPA, cookie and consent management), and maintain best practices for first-party data collection and consented marketing.
- Mentor junior marketers and cross-functional team members on best practices for campaign management, analytics interpretation, and marketing technologies.
- Prepare and present monthly performance presentations for executive stakeholders, including insights, opportunities, risks, and recommended next steps to meet growth objectives.
- Develop and maintain playbooks and SOPs for common campaign types (launches, evergreen, retargeting, user acquisition) to ensure repeatability and scalability across teams.
- Execute structured experiments (holdout tests, incrementality, geo-tests) to validate channel effectiveness and remove wasted spend, documenting learnings for organizational knowledge.
- Collaborate with web development and design teams to prioritize site optimizations that impact conversion, page speed, and mobile experience, and validate updates through data.
- Manage third-party vendors and agencies (SEM, SEO, creative, analytics) to ensure deliverables meet quality standards, contractual KPIs, and timeline expectations.
- Translate complex analytics into clear, actionable recommendations for non-technical stakeholders and work to secure buy-in for data-driven changes.
Secondary Functions
- Support ad-hoc analytics and reporting requests from Sales, Product, and Leadership to inform cross-functional decisions.
- Assist in the evaluation and selection of marketing technology (MarTech) tools, plugins, and platform integrations to enhance measurement and automation capabilities.
- Contribute to annual planning, quarterly OKR setting, and cross-departmental priority alignment for marketing initiatives.
- Provide training sessions and documentation for team members on GA4, Google Ads best practices, and campaign optimization tactics.
- Monitor creative performance and archive high-performing assets for future reuse; implement creative governance and brand consistency checks.
- Maintain documentation for marketing budgets, vendor contracts, and campaign SOPs to support audits and vendor transitions.
- Participate in customer journey mapping workshops and support improvements to reduce friction and increase LTV.
- Support localization and international expansion campaigns by advising on channel mix, messaging adaptation, and regional paid media tactics.
- Coordinate A/B test roadmaps with Product and UX teams, including hypothesis generation, sample size calculation, and post-test analysis.
- Act as a subject matter expert on digital marketing trends and emerging channels, recommending pilot programs and proof-of-concepts.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Digital marketing strategy development and execution across paid, organic, email, social, and content channels.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and paid search: Google Ads (Search/Shopping/Display), bid management, keyword research, and ad optimization.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): technical audits, on-page optimization, content strategy, backlink acquisition, and SERP optimization.
- Analytics and tracking: Google Analytics (GA4), Google Tag Manager, event tracking, UTM strategy, and dashboarding (Looker Studio/Data Studio).
- Marketing automation & CRM: HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, or similar for lead workflows, lead scoring, and lifecycle marketing.
- Paid social advertising: Meta Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, TikTok For Business, and platform-specific audience targeting techniques.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): A/B testing platforms (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize), landing page optimization, and funnel analysis.
- Attribution and measurement: multi-touch attribution, incrementality testing, media mix modeling, and statistical experiment design.
- Content marketing and SEO tools: SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Screaming Frog for keyword research and competitive analysis.
- Data skills: Excel/Google Sheets (advanced functions, pivot tables), basic SQL for ad-hoc queries, and familiarity with data visualization tools.
- Programmatic and display advertising fundamentals, retargeting strategies, and DSP familiarity.
- Basic HTML/CSS understanding to liaise on landing page changes and ensure tracking is correctly implemented.
Soft Skills
- Strong analytical mindset with ability to draw actionable insights from large datasets and translate them into strategic recommendations.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills for presenting complex results to stakeholders at all levels.
- Project and stakeholder management abilities — prioritize work, manage timelines, and align cross-functional teams toward shared goals.
- Creativity and hypothesis-driven experimentation to continuously improve campaign performance and discover new growth channels.
- Problem-solving orientation and adaptability in a fast-changing digital landscape.
- Leadership and mentorship skills to develop junior talent and foster a data-driven marketing culture.
- Attention to detail and process orientation to maintain governance over budgets, naming conventions, and reporting accuracy.
- Collaborative teamwork mindset to co-create with Product, Design, Sales, and Engineering teams.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, Advertising, Data Analytics, or related field.
Preferred Education:
- Master's degree in Marketing, Business Administration (MBA), Digital Analytics, or related field.
- Professional certifications such as Google Ads Certification, Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GA4), Facebook Blueprint, HubSpot Certifications, or equivalent.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Marketing
- Communications
- Business Administration
- Data Analytics / Statistics
- Advertising / Media Studies
- Computer Science (for analytics-heavy roles)
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range:
- 3–7 years of progressive experience in digital marketing, including hands-on campaign management and strategy ownership.
Preferred:
- 5+ years of experience with in-house or agency digital marketing teams, proven results scaling paid acquisition, improving organic search performance, and implementing measurement frameworks.
- Demonstrable track record of managing six-figure media budgets, delivering measurable ROI improvements, and running structured experimentation programs.
- Experience managing external agencies and cross-functional teams, plus familiarity with enterprise MarTech stacks (CRM, CDP, DMP).
- Prior experience in B2B SaaS, e-commerce, or high-growth consumer brands is a plus.