Creative Strategist

We're a fast-growing B-corp marketplace for active outdoor adventures. We help people find and book the trips that change how they spend their time on the planet, and we direct money to small independent operators, local economies, and conservation work in the places those trips happen. 250+ trips across 60+ countries, 75% solo travellers, an excellent Trustpilot record, and a brand people genuinely love. We're at the stage where the foundations are in place and the question is now "how do we turn creative into the dominant lever on CAC and growth from here?" What we're hiring for We're hiring a Creative Strategist to own the single biggest lever we have on customer acquisition cost: the creative. Our performance marketing systems are in genuinely good shape - measurement, channel mix, testing process, financial discipline. What we're missing isn't the plumbing. It's the fuel. We're producing variations of the same idea instead of radically different concepts, and we're getting too few real swings at the fence each month. This role exists to fix that. You'll set the creative concepting agenda, build the test-and-learn system that turns every pound of media spend into compound learning, and rebuild how MBA briefs, ships, and reviews creative end to end. The headline outcome is a structurally lower CAC over the next twelve months - driven by creative intelligence, not media efficiency tricks. A note on how the role is set up: you'll be coming in to set up an AI-enabled creative function from the ground up - designing the brief templates, the concepting cadence, the learning repository, and the automation roadmap that lets a lean team (plus production support and an agency or two) ship at a scale and quality that would otherwise require a much larger one. You'll lead the paid creative team - video editing and design at the core - with content, performance marketing, data, editorial and engineering partners across the business to draw on as the function grows. We're especially interested in candidates who have already done this kind of setup work in a previous role - built AI meaningfully into how creative gets briefed, generated, and reviewed, not just used it on the side. What you'll own You'll own the creative engine end to end and you'll set the level of ambition. We'd like to be moving these numbers materially. The headline metrics: Blended CAC, by channel and matrix cell Hook rate and CTR on cold acquisition creative Net-new concepts shipped per month (not variations) Creative-attributed contribution to first-booking volume How you move them is up to you. We work in fast cycles: lots of well-instrumented tests at the concept level, then disciplined component-level iteration on the winners, an honest read on what worked, and a willingness to keep what's working, retire what isn't, and try the next thing. If a concept we ran six months ago beats what we're running now, we'll happily bring it back. We follow the numbers without ego. What the work looks like Owning the concepting process end to end - generating distinct strategic premises (not creative variations), briefing them against a structured matrix of angles, formats and funnel stages, and making sure every test is a real test of an idea rather than a paint-job change. Acting as the creative quality bar - the final eye on whether a concept is genuinely distinct, on-brand, and ready to test before it goes into production or media spend. Running a continuous experimentation program at both concept and component level: hooks, narratives, CTAs, formats, audiences. A/B and multivariate testing where it makes sense, and the judgement to know when traffic volume calls for synthetic or AI-assisted testing instead. Setting and holding the weekly creative review cadence: what launched, what's working, what gets killed, what gets iterated, what gets scaled. One decision per underperforming cell. Building and running the learning repository - a single, searchable record of what worked, what didn't, and why, that compounds over time and survives team changes. Setting up the AI-enabled side of the function: automations, prompts, brief generation against the matrix, variant production, hook ideation. The goal is a closed-loop system where performance data triggers the next brief in days, not weeks. Working closely with performance marketing on the Analytics ↔ Media Buying ↔ Creative loop - making sure decay signals reach the creative team fast, and learnings flow back into the next brief. Partnering closely with the CRO operator to maintain message match from ad to landing page - ensuring the angles and hooks you develop carry through to the funnel. Together you'll diagnose performance, read where the funnel leaks, feed on-page insights and scroll behaviour back into creative concepts, and make sure what converts on-page shapes the next round of ideas. Identifying and briefing against creative media gaps - working out what raw footage, stills, or on-trip content we're missing to tell the stories the performance data says we should be telling, and feeding that into shoot briefs and creator directions. Working closely with brand, content, and lifecycle to make sure performance creative carries the MBA voice rather than diluting it. Less transaction. More invitation to adventure. Owning the creative dashboard and being the source of truth on the metrics above, working in GA4, Hex, and the ad platforms. Operating the existing creative stack and making the call on what tools, agencies, and partners to add or retire as the function scales. You've owned a creative or performance-creative number - CAC, hook rate, CTR, creative-attributed bookings or revenue - at a consumer business, and you can talk in specifics about the concepts you shipped, what they tested, and what they moved. You're as comfortable with the art as the science: you can write a brief that makes a creative person want to make the thing, and you can read a performance dashboard without flinching. You believe both halves matter and neither is sufficient on its own. Likely backgrounds: senior creative strategist, head of performance creative, creative director with a performance bent, or growth marketer who took ownership of creative because the team didn't have anyone else. Travel experience is a bonus, not a requirement. At least 5+ years in creative strategy, performance creative or related roles, with at least 2-3 years owning a measurable performance number directly. You'll probably recognise yourself in most of this: You think in concepts, not variations. You can describe the difference between "a different hook" and "a different premise" in your sleep, and you have an instinct for whether two ideas are actually different enough to teach you something distinct. You're AI-fluent and have put it to work on creative. You use LLMs and image/video tooling daily for concept ideation, hook generation, variant production, brief drafting, and competitive teardown. More importantly, you have built automated workflows that removed manual work from a repeatable creative process, and you can walk us through it. You're hands-on with the modern performance creative stack - ad platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok, others), creative analytics tools (Motion, Atria, or similar), and the LLM and image/video generation tools that make a single operator productive at scale. You have a view on what's good in the market. You're comfortable interrogating your own results in GA4 or Hex (or equivalent) without waiting on an analyst - by matrix cell, by hook, by audience, by funnel stage. You understand consumer storytelling. You have an instinct for the emotional beat a piece of creative needs to carry, and you can articulate why a hook is working - not just that it is. You write strong ad copy and scripts yourself - hook lines, voiceover, on-screen text - and you can brief a creator or editor to execute your vision when you're not doing it directly. You're a clear communicator - comfortable presenting analysis, translating it into a recommendation, and influencing across product, performance marketing, brand, and data. You're more energised by shipping ten concepts and learning from them than polishing one for six months. Collaborative and proactive - happy in a very fast-paced, mission-driven environment. The warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing you are making a huge difference to small independent businesses, local economies, communities and conservation around the world. 38 days holiday per year (inclusive of public holidays) — to be used when you like. Competitive compensation aligned with UK market benchmarks and your level of experience. Flexible hours setup (40 hours p/w for full-time roles) and a fully remote company. Company-wide, adventurous meet-ups. Experience what we do: everyone goes on a free trip within their first year. A £500 annual travel voucher to spend on a trip or trips. 30% employee discount, plus 15% friends and family discount. Up to 8% matched contribution pension scheme (UK employees only). Fully comprehensive AXA private healthcare scheme (UK employees only).. Life Assurance (UK employees only).. Budget to set up a remote working space and access to co-working spaces. Supportive maternity and paternity pay: 16 weeks full pay if you're the primary caregiver, 4 weeks full pay if you're the secondary caregiver. What does the typical interview process look like? Our hiring process is fully remote, and all interviews are done online. Every application that makes it through is carefully read by a real member of the team. Stage 1: Initial application and screening Q&A. Stage 2: A "get to know each other" interview, to find out more about your experience and see if we're a good fit (approx 30-45 mins). Stage 3: You’ll be sent a project assignment, and asked to prepare for a short presentation to be given at stage 4. Stage 4: In-depth interview where we review your assignment and listen to your presentation, followed by a informal Q&A with members of the team you’ll be working closely with. (approx 60-90 mins). Logistics Remote, UK or Europe (max GMT+2) Full-time (40 hrs/week) Core hours 1000-1500 GMT Preferred start: ASAP The application deadline for this role is end of June, unless we receive a high volume of applications, in which case we reserve the right to close the vacancy early. We are an equal opportunities employer and strongly encourage applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and industries. Our flexible working arrangements are designed to support everyone in the team to achieve work/life balance in a way that works for their particular circumstance.