Associate Director, Performance and Digital

Theuniversityofauckland; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 135,000 - 203,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work arrangement

37.5-hour week

Inclusive benefits

Job summary

The University of Auckland in Auckland is seeking a senior leader to set the strategic and operational agenda for its performance marketing and digital capabilities at university scale.

Reporting to the Director of Marketing and Recruitment, you will lead three specialist teams, manage substantial budgets, and drive data-informed decision making across channels.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership with proven ability to set strategic direction for performance marketing at scale.
• Experience governing budgets and partnerships across web, digital and content functions.
• Strong commercial and analytical judgement with data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Set strategic direction, governance and operating framework for the University's performance marketing and digital capability.
• Lead three specialist managers; Web, Digital and Content, and Digital Marketing, through delivery.
• Own media budgets and partnerships, shaping a connected student recruitment journey.
• Develop enterprise-level governance, ROI frameworks and data-informed decision making.
• Grow a high-performing team and uplift digital capability across the University.

Job description

Auckland | Permanent | Full-time
Hybrid working environment (mix of on-site / work from home)
Marketing & Recruitment, Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland
$134,900 - $202,500 per annum (Band J), based on experience

Own the strategy, governance and performance of a University-wide digital and performance marketing capability

Purpose over products - ours are creating knowledge, transforming lives, shaping futures

Balance ambitious work with flexibility - hybrid work, 37.5-hour week, and inclusive benefits that recognise life beyond work

Te Whiwhinga mahi | The opportunity

This is a senior leadership role for someone who can set the strategic and operational agenda for performance marketing and digital at university scale. Someone who still wants to be close enough to the work to know how it actually gets delivered.

Reporting to the Director of Marketing and Recruitment, you'll set the strategic direction, governance and operating framework for the University's performance marketing and digital capability, and lead three specialist managers; Web, Digital and Content, and Digital Marketing, through to delivery. You'll own significant media and technology budgets, shape a connected digital experience across every channel and touchpoint in the prospective student journey, and manage the agency and platform partnerships that support it.

You'll be part of the Marketing and Recruitment senior leadership team, sharing accountability for outcomes that go beyond your own portfolio; driving the digital and performance maturity of the wider University.

Find out more about our reimagining of digital, web and performance, and our broader Marketing, Recruitment, Communications and Engagement functions.

Key areas of focus include:

• Setting and leading the University's performance marketing strategy across all paid digital channels
• Driving acquisition, conversion and pipeline quality across the full student recruitment funnel
• Providing strategic leadership across web, digital platforms and marketing automation
• Building advanced measurement, attribution and ROI frameworks, and translating them into decisions senior stakeholders can act on
• Establishing enterprise-level governance for digital and performance investment, risk and compliance
• Leading and growing a high-performing team, and lifting digital capability and ways of working across the University
• Running experimentation, CRO and customer-journey optimisation programmes
• Managing agency and partnerships while building in-house capability over time
• Championing data-informed decision-making and performance transparency across the function

This is a full-time, permanent opportunity. The full salary range for this role is $134,900 – $202,500 per annum (Band J).

We have a structured salary framework with three zones for those developing into the role (developing), fully effective (target) and contributing beyond what is expected of the role (upper). Salary decisions for individual appointments are made based on skills, experience, and internal equity. We welcome conversations about your expectations and what matters to you in your overall package. Any offer will be made within the advertised range and guided by fairness, consistency, and our commitment to pay equity .

For more detailed information about the role and requirements, please refer to the Position Description .

He kōrero mōu | About you

You could be leading performance marketing, digital or growth for a large, complex organisation, or leading a portfolio of clients at an agency. Either way, you understand how modern acquisition ecosystems work end to end, and you know how to lead the people and functions that run them.

You've likely built acquisition programmes from the ground up, scaled marketing technology platforms, led digital optimisation initiatives, or grown high-performing performance marketing teams. What matters most is that you understand how digital performance actually works, and that you can build a function that's sustainable, ethical and built to keep improving.

We're particularly interested in people who bring:

• Significant experience leading performance marketing at scale, in a large or complex organisation
• Deep expertise across paid search, paid social, programmatic and digital acquisition
• Experience owning a marketing technology, automation and analytics stack
• Strong commercial and analytical judgement
• A track record of leading digital transformation and capability uplift
• Proven people leadership, including through change
• A track record of using data to sharpen marketing performance and investment decisions
• A genuine appetite for continuous improvement and innovation

Ngā āhuatanga kei a mātou | What we offer

Few organisations can offer the scale, complexity and opportunity available in this role.

This is a chance to join at the beginning of a significant transformation and shape the future of digital marketing for one of New Zealand's most recognised organisations. You'll have the oppor