Senior Strategy Lead, Influencer & Creator Commerce

CJ; Santa Barbara (CA); Hybrid; USD 107,000 - 153,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401K matching

Wellness programs

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Flexible time off

Paid holidays

Team-building events

Employee Referral Program

Annual recognition awards

Hybrid work arrangements

Parental bonding leave

Backup care options for children and E

Employee discount program

International SOS program for global

Business Resource Groups

Job summary

CJ in Santa Barbara is seeking an Associate Director of Strategy - Influencer to shape influencer and creator commerce strategies for prospective clients. You will translate client objectives into differentiated programs, drive compelling narratives, and craft executive-ready proposals for top brands.

This role focuses on pre-sales strategy, research, and thought leadership, with hands-on scope to design scalable creator initiatives.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in influencer/creator marketing, affiliate marketing, social commerce, or related digital strategy.
• Experience developing influencer/creator strategies for brands, agencies, platforms, retailers, or commerce organizations.
• Experience leading new-business proposals, RFP responses, pitch development, and client presentations.
• Strong knowledge of TikTok Shop, especially TikTok Shop Affiliate.
• Familiarity with affiliate and subaffiliate platforms including LTK and ShopMy.
• Understanding of creator discovery, segmentation, compensation and commission models, product seeding, and performance measurement.
• Ability to conduct rigorous competitive research and synthesize into differentiated recommendations.
• Strong analytical fluency and ability to connect channel metrics to business outcomes.
• Excellent written, verbal, visual storytelling, presentation, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to develop persuasive PowerPoint presentations and work with data, research, and performance-reporting tools.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder-management skills in a fast-paced new-business environment.
• Sound strategic judgment, intellectual curiosity, attention to detail, balancing creativity with reality.
• Comfort working through ambiguity and developing strategic recommendations with incomplete information.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant professional experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with sales and business development leaders to respond to prospective-client opportunities, briefs, RFPs, and proactive pitches.
• Translate prospective clients' business objectives, priority audiences, category dynamics, and commercial needs into differentiated influencer and creator commerce strategies.
• Develop strategic narratives, pitch materials, proposal content, program recommendations, and executive-ready presentations that clearly articulate the opportunity and CJI's approach.
• Design creator commerce programs across the customer journey, including awareness, consideration, conversion, acquisition, and loyalty.
• Develop TikTok Shop strategies, with particular emphasis on TikTok Shop Affiliate, including creator recruitment and segmentation, product seeding, commission strategy, content volume, promotional moments, paid amplification, and performance optimization.
• Recommend the appropriate roles for subaffiliate and creator commerce platforms, including LTK and ShopMy, based on the client's audience, category, objectives, operating model, and measurement requirements.
• Conduct in-depth competitive, category, creator, platform, and market research within the influencer and social commerce ecosystem.
• Turn research, platform intelligence, and performance data into clear insights, strategic opportunities, and actionable recommendations.
• Build strategic frameworks, audience and creator segmentation approaches, channel recommendations, content territories, creator briefs, activation roadmaps, measurement plans, and test-and-learn agendas.
• Develop business cases and opportunity assessments that connect creator activity to measurable outcomes such as engagement, traffic, customer acquisition, conversion, revenue, GMV, ROAS, affiliate sales, and incrementality, where appropriate.
• Partner cross-functionally with influencer, account management, media, analytics, creative, commerce, and operations teams to ensure proposed programs are innovative, differentiated, measurable, operationally feasible, and appropriately scoped.
• Present strategies and proposals clearly and persuasively to prospective clients, senior client stakeholders, and internal leadership.
• Participate actively in pitches and respond confidently to strategic, platform, measurement, and activation questions.
• Support scope development by identifying the capabilities, resources, dependencies, assumptions, deliverables, and measurement requirements required to execute the proposed strategy.
• Identify strategic risks, platform dependencies, operational constraints, and potential gaps before recommendations are presented to a prospective client.
• Stay current on creator economy trends, social commerce developments, platform capabilities, affiliate models, measurement practices, relevant platform policies, and emerging technologies.
• Help CJI develop reusable strategic frameworks, proposal tools, case studies, points of view, and thought leadership that improve the quality and efficiency of business development.

Skills

Influencer marketing

Creator marketing

Affiliate marketing

Social commerce

Digital strategy

Client presentations

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant professional experience

Tools

TikTok Shop

LTK

ShopMy

PowerPoint

Data analysis tools

Job description

CJ in Santa Barbara is seeking an Associate Director of Strategy - Influencer to shape influencer and creator commerce strategies for prospective clients. You will translate client objectives into differentiated programs, drive compelling narratives, and craft executive-ready proposals for top brands.

This role focuses on pre-sales strategy, research, and thought leadership, with hands-on scope to design scalable creator initiatives.