Associate Director - Strategic Partnerships, Performance Marketing

Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships

Job Details

As a company that values inclusion and diversity, Thrive seeks individuals of all backgrounds and experiences to apply for this position. We encourage anybody who is interested in this position to please apply!

About Thrive

Thrive is a leading full-funnel digital marketing agency supporting growth for some of North America’s most ambitious companies. We evolve our services through disciplined learning, continuous improvement, and close partnership with our clients - regularly assessing what works, what doesn’t, and where to raise the bar.

Our mission is to help companies grow sustainably. To do that, we’ve built deep expertise across performance marketing, brand marketing, digital design, and data and measurement, managing more than $5 billion USD in advertising spend over the past decade. Our work spans startups, scale-ups, and enterprise organizations, including Alo, Zoom, Slack, Uber, Asana, Masterclass, Snapchat, Change.org, and lululemon.

Our culture values curiosity, accountability, and thoughtful problem-solving. We challenge our teams to grow and take ownership of their work while respecting boundaries and long-term sustainability. Thrive is a place where experimentation is encouraged, learning is continuous, and people are supported to do high-quality work they’re proud of - together.

The Role

Joining Thrive’s Business Development department as Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships, you’ll be one of Thrive’s senior technical voices in sales moments. You’ll be involved in business development calls, RFPs, and audits across a range of different kinds of opportunities. With a background in paid media, you’ll articulate Thrive’s values, differentiators, and the driving principles behind managing modern paid media campaigns. You’ll partner with our team to qualify opportunities, execute sales workflows, and present and defend recommendations in high-stakes rooms. You’ll translate complex ad platform, measurement, and creative data into clear, credible insights tied to client business outcomes. Internally, you’ll own Thrive’s audit discipline, coach the stakeholders who contribute to it, and help the team develop content for use within the sales process and other company functions. Externally, you’ll participate in client travel, events, and key moments for existing clients.

Your responsibilities will be:

• Domain: Set the standard for Thrive's technical audit discipline across paid media, measurement, and creative. Own the quality of strategic audits and RFP responses, ensuring recommendations are evidence-based, actionable, and tied to client outcomes.
• Client: Build client confidence as a senior technical advocate throughout the new business process and existing partnerships. Present and defend strategic recommendations to executive stakeholders, translating complex technical findings into clear business insights.
• People: Build audit capability across Thrive by coaching cross-functional contributors across Performance, Creative, Data, and Strategy. Establish quality standards, provide feedback, and develop resources that strengthen the team's technical expertise and delivery. 
• Company: Support Thrive's growth by strengthening how the company qualifies and wins new business opportunities. Partner with Business Development leaders to shape sales strategy, identify client growth opportunities, and inform service positioning and market differentiation. 

We’re committed to delivering an exceptional onboarding experience that will create a strong foundation for your launch in this role:

• In your first 30 days, you’ll learn Thrive’s sales process and performance marketing approach, including observing our audit process, how we think about multichannel strategies that generate leads and revenue for our most complex clients, and begin leading technical components of calls, as well as begin leading sales-focused audits with some support.
• In your first 60 days, you’ll lead technical components of client pitches and conversations, and lead sales-driven audits and RFPs.
• In your first 90 days, you’ll own all technical components of client pitches and conversations, and lead sales-driven audits and RFPs from back-end analysis through to pitch.

Qualifications

• You’ve directly managed, audited, and optimized enterprise paid media programs with at least $250,000 USD in monthly spend, across e-commerce and/or demand generation.
• You’re recognized as a performance marketing expert, with hands-on depth in Google Ads, Meta, and at least two other major platforms (e.g., Microsoft, TikTok, LinkedIn, Amazon, programmatic/DSPs).
• You have a strong understanding of measurement: incrementality and lift testing, MMM, attribution, server-side and conversion tracking, and GA4 or equivalent analytics.
• You’ve led audits end-to-end and spearheaded the technical components of the sales process, turning account-level data into insights and prioritized recommendations.
• You have excellent analytical skills: you’re comfortable working through large datasets, building forecasts and budget scenarios, and pulling unique insights from both quantitative and qualitative data.
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills, and have the ability to make complex technical findings clear and persuasive for any audience.
• You’ve presented and defended recommendations to C-suite and senior marketing stakeholders in high-stakes new-business and expansion conversations.
• You’ve coordinated sales, strategy, media, creative, and data contributors across audits and RFPs, owning scope, timelines, narrative, and quality.

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Equal Opportunity Employer

Thrive is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and respectful workplace. We have zero tolerance for bullying, discrimination, or harassment of any kind, and we strive to create an environment where everyone feels safe, supported, and valued.

This commitment applies to all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, performance management, training, compensation, and advancement. Accommodations are available upon request for candidates participating in any stage of the selection process.

Competitive Total Compensation Package

At Thrive, we offer a competitive total compensation package that reflects role scope, experience, and impact. This includes a comprehensive benefits program with remote-first, flexible work, paid vacation and wellbeing time, career development support, internal career coaches, and robust health, dental, and paramedical coverage, and so much more!

The Use of Artificial Intelligence

Every application, interview, and candidate interaction at Thrive is reviewed and managed by a human. Where AI tools are used to support parts of the hiring process, candidates are informed and asked to provide consent.

Hiring Eligibility by Location

While Thrive operates as a remote-first organization and hires globally, work authorization requirements vary by role and location. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the country where the role is based. For roles based in Canada, candidates must already be eligible to work in Canada. Thrive does not provide visa sponsorship.

Beware of Hiring Scams

Thrive Digital will never offer employment or request personal information outside of our official application process. While we do reach out to people on social channels, most commonly LinkedIn, with information about our active job posts, we always include a detailed recruitment package and a link to our careers page to apply. We do not reach out to candidates via text, WhatsApp or telegram or request any personal information. All recruiting communications will come from an @thrivedigital.com email address or our applicant tracking system (Greenhouse).

Thrive is a remote-first company with team members working across multiple regions. We recognize and respect the Indigenous histories of the lands where our team lives and works.