Senior Director, Performance Marketing (Affiliate)

About Ovative Group:

Ovative Group is an independent, full-funnel media, measurement, and creative firm transforming how brands grow. We partner with leading names like American Eagle, Best Buy, Domino’s, The Home Depot, Polaris, and UnitedHealth Group to build smarter media and measurement programs that drive real, profitable growth. 

We don’t just track performance—we redefine it. Powered by our proprietary intelligence platform, EMRge, and our holistic metric Enterprise Marketing Return (EMR), we help brands connect revenue, customer, and brand outcomes into one clear picture of success. Our approach to full-funnel strategy, buying, and measurement delivers results that matter—and it’s getting noticed. Our work has been recognized by Digiday, Google, USA Today, Inc. 5000, and Search Engine Land.

About the Role:

The Senior. Director, Partnership Marketing will lead Ovative’s growing Affiliate team — including its performance creator practice — and serve as a senior strategic advisor to clients. This role combines team leadership, client relationship management, affiliate and performance creator strategy, operational excellence, and thought leadership.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in affiliate marketing, performance creator and the broader digital landscape.  They have a strong track record of driving business results, developing high-performing teams and building trusted senior-client relationships. This role will help advance Ovative’s affiliate and performance creator capabilities, measurement approach, technology partnerships, and integrated marketing solutions, working in close partnership with the Influencer and Paid Media teams to deliver a unified approach for clients.

Responsibilities:

Team Leadership and Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team, including deep subject matter expertise across affiliate and performance creator strategy.
• Nurture a culture of accountability, collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement.
• Define team staffing strategy and support recruiting, onboarding, training, and retention
• Build team expertise, career paths, and leadership capabilities across affiliate and performance creator disciplines.
• Own team-level oversight of financials, operations, technology, and capacity planning.
• Partner across Ovative to integrate affiliate and performance creator capabilities into broader influencer, media, measurement, and consulting solutions.

Affiliate & Performance Creator Strategy and Thought Leadership

• Serve as a senior subject matter expert on affiliate marketing and performance creator strategy — including creator commerce, affiliate-linked creator programs, creator storefronts, and emerging formats — best practices, and industry developments.
• Define and advance Ovative’s point of view, playbooks, and strategic frameworks.
• Lead forward-looking strategies, testing roadmaps, and capability development that improve client program sophistication and enterprise impact across both channels.
• Develop and maintain strategic relationships with affiliate networks, publishers, creator platforms, technology providers, and other industry partners.
• Represent Ovative’s affiliate and performance creator expertise in new business pitches, client presentations, industry conversations, and thought leadership.
• Partner with Measurement and Analytics teams to advance performance, incrementality, customer value, and enterprise impact are evaluated.
• Partner closely with the Influencer team to develop holistic influencer strategies that drive outcomes in a unified approach for clients.

Client Relationship Management

• Own, manage, and grow relationships with some of Ovative’s largest clients.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders, helping them evolve strategies and measurement approaches.
• Lead strategic discussions that connect affiliate and creator investment to client business objectives and enterprise growth.
• Build trust and credibility through clear communication, strong judgment, and consistent delivery of results.

Team Operations and Execution

• Ensure best-in-class practices and operating processes are adopted across the team.
• Oversee high-quality day-to-day program management, planning, execution, optimization, and results analysis across programs.
• Advise teams on partner and creator identification, recruitment, activation, publisher and creator management, testing, compliance, contracting, billing, and performance improvement.
• Partner with internal technical and measurement teams to develop tools, products, and processes that strengthen affiliate and performance creator execution.
• Lead the team toward scalable operations that anticipate the needs of a growing business.

Requirements:

• 12+ years of relevant experience in affiliate marketing, digital marketing, or a related field, with meaningful depth in the performance creator ecosystem.
• 5+ years of experience directly leading and coaching teams, preferably teams of 8 or more.
• Deep expertise across affiliate networks, platforms, publisher partnerships, and affiliate operations, including tools such as CJ, AWIN, and Impact.
• Demonstrated expertise in the performance creator ecosystem — how creator content connects to commerce, conversion, and measurable outcomes — including creator identification, partnership structures, and creator/affiliate technology platforms (Impact, TikTok Shop, ShopMy, etc).
• Experience working with retail, ecommerce, or enterprise marketing programs.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing strategies that drive measurable business results across affiliate and performance creator channels.
• Strong understanding of data, analytics, measurement, incrementality, and customer value.
• Proven ability to influence senior client stakeholders and communicate complex strategies clearly.

Working at Ovative Group:

We provide strong, competitive, holistic benefits that understand the importance of your life inside and out of work. 

At Ovative, culture isn’t a buzzword—it’s the reason we’ve been named a Top Workplace for ten years running. We lead with trust, transparency, and a commitment to doing the hard work others avoid.

We offer flexibility. You'll work from our Minneapolis, Chicago, or New York office on set days each week, and an option to work remote on others.

Our open floor plan reflects our open communication and flat structure—where interns collaborate with VPs, analysts partner with senior leaders, and our CEO engages with every team member. Together, we create an environment where smart, driven people can do their best work and support one another in the process. 

We’re equally committed to inclusion and belonging. Ovative fosters a workplace where everyone can participate and thrive—regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression or other protected class status. Our benefits and policies reflect that commitment, from inclusive medical leave coverage for same-sex spouses to equitable care and support for all families. 

Benefits: 

We strive to hire and retain the best talent by offering fair, competitive compensation, a meaningful bonus program, and excellent health coverage. When the company performs well, we all benefit. 

Some tangible benefits and amenities we enjoy:

• Access to all office spaces in MSP, NYC, and CHI  

• Frequent, paid travel to our Minneapolis headquarters for company events, team events, and in-person collaboration with teams

• Generous paid vacation policy  

• 401k match program  

• Top-notch health insurance options, inclusive of same sex partners 

• Family formation benefits including reimbursement options for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting needs 

• Monthly stipend for your mobile phone and data plan  

• Sabbatical program  

• Charitable giving via our time and a financial match program  

• Shenanigan’s Day  

Additional information can be found at Ovative's Career Page.

The details of the benefits are covered by applicable plan documents for group benefits and by company policies where a plan document does not apply.

Working at Ovative won’t be easy—but if you like challenging, hard work, driving results, and being surrounded by the best talent, it has the potential to be the most rewarding job you’ll ever have. If you think you can make us better, we want to hear from you! 

EEO & Accessibility: 

Ovative is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a respectful, inclusive workplace for all. Applicants receive consideration without regard to legally protected characteristics (e.g., color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity/, gender expression, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, marital/ status, familial status, military or veteran’s status, genetic information, status with regard to public assistance, and any other status protected under applicable law). 

We provide reasonable accommodations consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act and applicable state law to qualified applicants and employees with disability, unless doing so would create an undue hardship.

Application Details and Process:

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States for any employer on a full-time basis, without current or future need for visa sponsorship. Ovative is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for this position. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification documentation upon hire.

Open Until Filled or Otherwise Withdrawn:

We encourage interested candidates to apply early. The position will remain open for at least 10 business days from the first day of posting. After this time, if the position has not been filled, the posting will remain open until the position is filled, or until the posting is otherwise closed or withdrawn for business reasons.