Growth Marketing Director: Acquisition & Growth

Education First; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 165,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Training & workshops

Vacation & holidays

Business travel opportunities

401(k) match

Healthcare coverage

Wellness reimbursements

Employee resource groups

Employee assistance program

Sabbatical eligibility

Product Discounts

Job summary

Education First’s EF Adventures is seeking a marketing leader to shape growth strategy and drive new customer acquisitions for our travel experiences. You’ll own channel mix, traffic quality, and bookings, using paid media, social, creator content, ecommerce, CRM, events, and traditional media.

This is an early-stage, hands-on role with a small team; you’ll build plans, justify investments, manage agencies, and partner across the company as a trusted thought partner to the GM.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in marketing with deep digital customer acquisition.
• Experience leading both digital media and creative agencies.
• Hands-on depth in paid search and paid social with ability to audit accounts.
• Proven ability to forecast, justify budgets, and track outcomes against plans.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to translate data into recommendations.
• Experience with non-digital campaigns (events, OOH, partnerships).
• Hands-on use of AI to speed up analysis and campaign work.

Responsibilities

• Develop and own customer acquisition strategy to drive qualified traffic and bookings.
• Lead paid media strategy across search, social, and emerging channels; manage agencies.
• Direct social and creator programs to reach new customers and scale content with paid.
• Oversee ecommerce, lifecycle, and loyalty to improve booking conversion and retention.
• Define marketing measurement and build foundational attribution.

Skills

Digital acquisition

Team leadership

Paid search

Paid social

Agency management

Analytics

Measurement & attribution

AI in marketing

Cross-functional influence

Entrepreneurial mindset

Job description

We're looking for a marketing leader to drive the marketing growth strategy for EF Adventures. You’ll develop end-to-end marketing strategies with a focus on delivering new customer acquisitions that enable us to hit our customer targets. You'll own the strategy for attracting high-quality traffic and leads that convert to bookings, and manage execution across every channel and tactic that can move the number: paid media, social, creator content, ecommerce, CRM, events, out-of-home, and traditional media.

This is an early-stage business with a small team, so the role is both strategic and hands-on. You'll build the plan, make the investment case, manage our agencies, and dig into the data. You'll be the go-to for marketing across the company and a true thought partner to the general manager.

What you'll own:

Customer Acquisition Strategy

• Develop and implement a strategy to acquire new customers, drive qualified traffic and leads, and increase conversion to bookings
• Use data to find the biggest opportunities and decide where to invest, scale, or stop.
• Concept integrated campaigns that span digital and non-digital channels, including performance and traditional media, events and community partnerships, out-of-home and other tactics that will deliver to growth targets.
• Support new product and partnership launches across channels and platforms.
• Own the acquisition model, identifying the right KPIs to measure the impact of channels, campaigns, tactics, and tests to continuously optimize the growth strategy.

Paid Media and Agency Management

• Lead strategy for paid search, paid social, and emerging platforms, with a focus on qualified demand and conversion efficiency.
• Develop testing approach for creative across platforms to optimize conversion and efficiency in our media spend
• Manage our digital media agency: set goals, challenge plans and reporting, and hold partners accountable for results.

Social, Content, and Creator Programs

• Develop a strategy for organic social, influencers, UGC, and creator partnerships to build our brand and connect with our customers and their communities
• Direct social and creator programs that reach new customers, working within the brand and creative direction set by our Creative Director, and scale the best organic content through paid.

Ecommerce, Lifecycle, and Loyalty

• Oversee booking conversion from web lead to confirmed traveler, growing our digital booking pipeline across ecommerce platforms, partnering with ecommerce, product, and creative leads to improve the booking experience and conversion.
• Oversee customer lifecycle engagement and retention, building a robust CRM and lifecycle nurturing program that turns new contacts into highly engagement customers and first-time bookers into repeat customers.

Measurement and AI

• Define how marketing's contribution to bookings is measured and build the foundation to get there. We don't yet have mature attribution model, so this role will decide what to build first.
• Turn channel data into clear performance narratives for leaders.
• Use AI to speed up analysis, creative development, campaign execution, and to increase team output.

Leadership

• Lead a small team across paid media, ecommerce, CRM, and content/social/creator marketing, and build a culture of testing, analysis, accountability, and fun.
• Collaborate with Brand, PR, Sales & Service, Operations, Finance, Product Development, Engineering, and Analytics to deliver customer growth and identify the highest-impact initiatives.

What you bring:

• 10+ years in marketing with deep experience in digital customer acquisition, including several years leading teams.
• Experience managing both a digital media agency and a creative agency.
• Hands-on depth in paid search and paid social. You can audit an account and challenge a strategy.
• A track record of building the business case for marketing investment: forecasting expected results, stating assumptions, securing budget, and reviewing outcomes against forecast.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to turn complex data into a clear recommendation.
• Experience with campaigns beyond digital, such as events, out-of-home, or partnerships, and measuring what they deliver.
• Experience building measurement where little exists.
• Practical experience using AI in marketing work.
• Ability to influence cross-functional partners without relying on title.
• A hands-on, entrepreneurial approach, with comfort in ambiguity and a small team.
• A love for travel and a sense of adventure
• Nice to have:travel, education, or other considered-purchase experience; CRM or loyalty exposure; startup experience.

Why you’ll love working here: Perks, Benefits, and more!

This is the most fun, high caliber place you’ll ever work. Ask any employee why they love EF (whether they’ve been here 10 minutes or 10 years) and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: it’s the people. When you work at EF, you join a purpose-driven, international and energetic community that thrives on continuous learning, fearless innovation and mutual support.In addition, you can expect:

• Commitment to professional growth: robust monthly calendar of trainings and workshops
• Four weeks paid vacation your first year, ten paid holidays, and two floating holidays
• Exciting business travel opportunities
• 25% company match on your 401(k) contributions
• Market-leading medical, dental and vision coverage, along with options for life and disability insurance, accident and hospital insurance, legal and pet insurance
• Dependent care, healthcare and commuter Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• Access to fertility care and family-building support
• Wellness benefits including a yearly fitness reimbursement
• Frequent social and learning events, including access to our employee-run resource groups
• Robust Employee Assistance Program
• Tenure-based sabbatical eligibility
• EF Product Discounts (discounts on travel, international language schools, Au Pair program and more)
• Discounts at local venues and businesses
• Amazing offices designed to match the caliber of the people who work there, plus the flexibility of working from home one day a week.
• This role is posted at the Director level with an anticipated compensation range of $165,000-$185,000 based on experience.