Senior Strategist, Performance Creative

dentsu•Chicago, IL

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Strategist, Performance Creative at Dentsu Creative works at the intersection of data, creativity, media, and performance marketing. The role turns complex information into clear, actionable strategy, helping teams understand what is working, why it is working, and what to do next. Working across Strategy, Creative, Media, Analytics, Client Services, and Technology, the Senior Strategist independently develops client-ready briefs, testing plans, learning agendas, performance narratives, and strategic recommendations. The role calls for original insights, confident presentation, and trusted relationships with clients and internal partners. Success means bringing clarity to complexity, originating insights that create business value, and converting performance signals into practical direction for briefs, creative development, testing, and optimization. The Senior Strategist helps maintain strategic continuity from briefing through creative development, activation, measurement, and iteration; engages clients on creative effectiveness, audience behavior, testing, optimization, and platform trends; and supports junior strategists through feedback, knowledge sharing, and collaboration. The position is based in Chicago, with a hybrid working arrangement for employees within commuting distance of a hub office: three days per week in the office, except Los Angeles employees, who are expected in the office two days per week. Employees outside commuting range may be designated remote, depending on the role and business needs. The role may require flexibility to attend an office to meet company or client needs. This is a permanent, full-time position. The annual salary range is $85,000–$115,000.

Requirements

At least 4 years of professional experience in performance marketing, creative strategy, digital strategy, media, audience strategy, analytics, or a related field.
Demonstrated ability to develop and present client-ready strategic deliverables with limited supervision.
Experience turning research and campaign data into actionable insights, hypotheses, and recommendations.
Working knowledge of performance channels and the role creative plays across the customer journey and conversion funnel.
Strong written, verbal, analytical, storytelling, and presentation skills.
Ability to manage multiple workstreams while maintaining accuracy, organization, and attention to detail.
Comfort collaborating across Creative, Media, Analytics, Customer Strategy, Client Services, UX, Technology, and Production.
Experience with research tools and methodologies, social listening, third-party audience data, creative analytics, or experimentation platforms.
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, analytics, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing creative test-and-learn roadmaps, learning agendas, or optimization frameworks.
Familiarity with Dynamic Creative Optimization, creative intelligence platforms, ad servers, or content activation technology.
Experience working across multiple consumer touchpoints and translating strategy by audience, channel, journey stage, and message role.
Experience supporting pitches, organic growth opportunities, or thought leadership.

Responsibilities

Compile, analyze, and present relevant primary and secondary research with limited direction.
Formulate clear hypotheses and recommend appropriate testing methods, including A/B, multivariate, sequential, or platform-specific approaches.
Develop creative test plans and learning agendas connecting audience, message, visual, format, channel, and business objectives.
Analyze test and always-on campaign results, identify patterns and implications, and translate findings into recommended next actions.
Partner with Media and Analytics to align test design, campaign setup, measurement, and interpretation.
Synthesize performance data, audience intelligence, cultural signals, category context, competitive activity, and channel behavior to identify meaningful patterns.
Develop actionable insights and confidently present them to clients and internal teams.
Originate insights that improve creative relevance, campaign effectiveness, customer experience, or business value.
Distinguish observations from insights and connect findings to implications for strategy, creative, media, or measurement.
Turn complex or unstructured inputs into clear, compelling, error-free client deliverables.
Lead development of creative briefs, performance narratives, content and messaging frameworks, audience and journey strategies, testing roadmaps, and optimization recommendations.
Tell persuasive stories with data, making strategic implications and recommended actions easy to understand.
Ensure creative strategy reflects audience needs, channel context, journey stage, brand considerations, and measurable business goals.
Maintain strategic continuity from briefing through creative development, activation, measurement, and iteration.
Apply working knowledge of performance marketing channels, including social, display, video, programmatic, search, CRM, and emerging formats.
Engage clients confidently and contribute to conversations about creative effectiveness, audience behavior, testing, optimization, and platform trends.
Stay current on research tools, AI-enabled workflows, DCO and creative technology platforms, measurement practices, and changes in channel behavior.
Apply expertise to client challenges and involve specialists across Media, Analytics, Technology, UX, and Customer Strategy when appropriate.
Participate confidently in conversations about clients’ businesses, customers, categories, and marketing ecosystems.
Build and maintain trusted client relationships beyond individual assignments.
Connect and integrate disciplines by creating shared clarity on the problem, hypothesis, strategic direction, and next step.
Proactively identify opportunities to strengthen the work, improve processes, or expand the value of Performance Creative Strategy.
Support junior strategists through clear feedback, knowledge sharing, and collaborative working practices.