Marketing Director

About Starbond

Starbond is a growing direct-to-consumer brand specializing in high-quality adhesives and related products. We sell through Shopify, Amazon, and other e-commerce and B2B channels.

We are building a more disciplined, data-driven Marketing function and are looking for a Marketing Director who can turn customer insight, strong execution, and sound unit economics into profitable, scalable growth.

About the Role

The Marketing Director will own the design, performance, and continuous improvement of Starbond’s Marketing function. This leader will establish the strategy, team structure, systems, decision rights, reporting, and cross-functional cadence required to drive profitable growth.

This is not a high-level advisory role. Starbond is still developing its marketing infrastructure, so the Marketing Director must be comfortable moving between strategy and execution. You must be able to personally calculate, validate, and explain the numbers behind marketing performance—not rely solely on dashboards, agencies, or reports prepared by others.

You will oversee DTC growth across paid acquisition, retention, lifecycle marketing, content, SEO, answer engine optimization (AEO), social media, conversion rate optimization, brand, and agency performance.

Key Responsibilities

Marketing Strategy and Leadership
Set annual and quarterly Marketing strategies, priorities, resource plans, and measurable outcomes.
Build a scalable Marketing operating model with clear workflows, decision rights, quality standards, and accountability.
Assess and improve the team’s structure, capabilities, tools, data, agencies, and cross-functional handoffs.
Develop capable leaders and owners beneath the role so execution does not depend on constant intervention.
Set team KPIs, coaching cadences, performance standards, succession plans, and corrective actions.
Provide the CEO with concise, financially grounded updates on results, risks, constraints, and recommended decisions.

Profitable DTC Growth
Own integrated DTC growth across Meta Ads, Google Ads, Shopify, email, SEO, AEO, social media, content, CRO, and other relevant channels.
Establish acceptable acquisition thresholds by product, channel, campaign, customer segment, and cohort.
Determine when to scale, restructure, reduce, or discontinue marketing investments.
Connect marketing plans with inventory, operational capacity, product readiness, and financial objectives.
Ensure marketing decisions prioritize profitable growth—not revenue or ROAS alone.

Marketing Analytics and Unit Economics
Personally calculate and validate CAC, LTV, LTV:CAC, CAC payback, MER, ROAS, gross margin, contribution margin, conversion rates, retention, cohort performance, and other funnel metrics.
Audit formulas, source data, assumptions, attribution methods, and agency reports for accuracy.
Identify incorrect calculations, inconsistent definitions, unsupported assumptions, and material data gaps.
Translate findings into specific decisions involving budgets, channels, campaigns, offers, creative, landing pages, retention, and resource allocation.
Ensure all material recommendations are financially grounded, traceable to source data, and ready for executive decision-making.

Agency and Channel Management
Manage agencies supporting paid media, lifecycle marketing, SEO/AEO, content, creative, and related functions.
Define agency scopes, KPIs, service-level expectations, reporting requirements, ownership, and escalation paths.
Independently validate agency recommendations and hold partners accountable for results and deadlines.
Address underperformance promptly through documented corrective actions.
Ensure Starbond retains ownership and access to advertising accounts, data, dashboards, creative files, documentation, and intellectual property.

Brand, Customer Insight, and Execution
Own customer insight, positioning, messaging architecture, and brand standards.
Govern creative testing, content production, lifecycle campaigns, landing pages, attribution, and conversion optimization.
Ensure campaigns and product launches have clear briefs, readiness checks, QA processes, measurement plans, and post-launch learning reviews.
Remain close enough to execution to inspect work, resolve critical blockers, and improve quality when needed.

Cross-Functional Leadership
Build a consistent planning cadence across Marketing, Product/R&D, Amazon, Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Web Development, HR, and the CEO.
Anticipate inventory, capacity, staffing, technical, and operational constraints before they affect launches or marketing commitments.
Surface risks and difficult issues early, supported by evidence, tradeoffs, and a clear recommendation.
Challenge assumptions constructively and redirect resources when customer or financial evidence supports a different decision.

What We’re Looking For
Proven experience leading a DTC or e-commerce Marketing function with accountability for profitable growth.
Strong hands-on knowledge of paid acquisition, retention, lifecycle marketing, CRO, content, SEO, and brand strategy.
Advanced understanding of unit economics, including CAC, LTV, CAC payback, MER, gross margin, contribution margin, retention, and cohort analysis.
Ability to independently recreate, audit, and explain marketing calculations using underlying source data.
Experience managing internal Marketing teams and developing accountable leaders.
Strong experience managing marketing agencies and holding them accountable to defined KPIs, deadlines, and commercial expectations.
Ability to connect marketing performance with profitability, customer quality, retention, inventory, and operational capacity.
Experience building processes and systems within a growing or developing Marketing organization.
Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to clearly present evidence, financial impact, tradeoffs, and recommendations.
Willingness to challenge weak assumptions, confront underperformance, and make difficult decisions.
Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where strategy and hands-on execution are both required.

Tools and Platforms
Experience with several of the following is expected:
Shopify
Meta Ads Manager
Google Ads
Google Analytics 4
Google Search Console

Email and lifecycle marketing platforms
Amazon reporting
Looker, Power BI, or similar business intelligence tools
Google Workspace
ClickUp or similar project-management platforms
Agency reporting and attribution systems

What Success Looks Like
Marketing generates profitable DTC revenue and contribution-margin growth.
CAC and CAC payback remain within approved thresholds by channel, product, and cohort.
At least 90% of committed strategic milestones are delivered or formally replanned.
Agencies consistently meet deadlines and receive timely performance reviews and corrective actions.
Core unit-economics and funnel calculations are accurate, consistent, and traceable to source data.
The Marketing function has clear ownership, capable leaders, reliable reporting, and a scalable operating cadence.
Risks, performance misses, and resource constraints are communicated early with recommended actions.

This Role May Not Be the Right Fit If You
Prefer to operate only as a strategist or advisor.
Depend entirely on analysts, agencies, or dashboards to explain marketing performance.
Present revenue or ROAS as proof of success without considering margin, retention, or customer quality.
Avoid challenging agencies, team members, or leadership when the evidence supports a different decision.
Are uncomfortable entering the details, auditing calculations, or personally unblocking critical work.
Require a fully developed marketing infrastructure before you can perform effectively.

How to Apply
Please submit your resume and briefly answer the following questions:
Describe a DTC or e-commerce business you helped grow and the results you personally influenced.
Explain how you calculate CAC, LTV, CAC payback, and contribution margin. Include an example of how these metrics influenced a budget or channel decision.
Share an example of a marketing report, dashboard, or agency recommendation you found to be inaccurate. How did you validate the data, and what did you change?
Describe your experience building or restructuring a Marketing team or operating model.
Share an example of how you held an underperforming agency or team accountable.
List the advertising, analytics, e-commerce, lifecycle marketing, and business intelligence platforms you have used.

We are looking for a Marketing Director who can build the function, develop strong owners, confront difficult issues, and stay close enough to the numbers and execution to drive measurable, profitable growth.