Purpose 

The Senior Manager of Affiliate Marketing Strategy will be hands-on, managing the day-to-day affiliate marketing and supporting the adidas US business objectives to drive high quality traffic to the website with a clear focus on generating incremental revenue and ROI. This position will utilize affiliate marketing and digital marketing expertise. This role will have a primary focus on overall channel strategy, budget  and finance management, and serve as the primary point of contact for all contract, affiliate network, and other cross-functional relationships. Although the role will have a strong relationship focus, analytical thinking and decision-making will still be crucial. 

The senior manager of affiliate marketing strategy will have a primary focus on eCommerce revenue and will also collaborate with brand marketing, buying and planning, and business units to fully exploit all opportunities in driving profitable incremental channel growth in the US. Together with the broader performance marketing team and the global digital marketing team, this position will help position this team as a US based center of excellence, educating and supporting internal stakeholders.

The role will oversee a team to support in tactical executions. The senior manager will manage large monthly and yearly budgets, and will need to interact closely with senior manager affiliate operations, local finance, brand activation, business units, as well as buying & planning teams. This position will also syndicate consistent and clear reporting with tangible outcomes. This role will influence local and global stakeholders. 

Key Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day affiliate marketing strategy with partners/networks to meet channel KPIs and customer acquisition goals, definition of the affiliate marketing calendar (closely aligned to the local marketing activation calendar) and optimization of the campaigns
• Responsible for top and bottom line growth of our affiliate program to achieve incremental sales, ROI and total contribution goals. Manage a sizeable media budget while ultimately overseeing app and mid-funnel, sneakerheads, and CLO programs.
• Manage external agency and affiliate network as the key contact and continue to translate the overall strategy
• Establish long-term effective relationships with our key affiliate publishers
• Proactively look for new opportunities with new or existing affiliate partners
• Work cross-functionally with buying/planning, performance marketing, brand activation and analytics teams to create synergies and explore and exploit promotional opportunities
• Dig into channel data to drive testing, reporting, optimization and analysis on affiliate marketing performance to identify key levers and opportunities for improvements
• Contribute to the development of the adidas US eCommerce affiliate marketing strategy
• Work closely with the global digital marketing team and the European affiliate & B2B Managers to share best practices and apply learnings from other markets around the globe
• Work closely with the US Paid Search & SEO teams in order to avoid (PPC) fraud and SEO conflicts through the affiliate channel
• Analyze current processes continuously and seek opportunities to automate, where possible, to improve the efficiency of the affiliate channel
• KPIs: affiliate marketing incremental revenue and ROI
• Manage budgets, and communicate with finance teams .
• Work closely and manage a team to ensure daily executions are being met.

Key Relationships

• adidas US eCom teams, PDX performance marketing (all channels, especially paid and organic search), buyers, brand activation and analytics
• Global eCommerce Online Marketing team, Amsterdam (especially affiliate marketing, paid search and SEO experts)
• Affiliate network, affiliate agency and publishers
• Business units, newsroom, Sports Marketing and Entertainment Influencer Marketing teams

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Creative in exploring new opportunities in order to drive more incremental sales through the affiliate marketing channel

• Brand enthusiast who understands where adidas should create online buzz
• Ability to effectively manage 3rd party external agencies and other partners
• A solid network in the affiliate marketing industry is beneficial
• Experience with web analytics and ad serving platforms (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, app analytics and DoubleClick Campaign Manager).
• Analytical, logical and data driven
• Motivated by testing and learning, evolving and improving the channel, and building your own channel knowledge and experience
• An interest in exploiting technology (feeds, scripts and the like) to automate and scale key processes
• Experience and interest in managing and motivating others, both directly and indirectly
• An interest in working with internal stakeholders and external agencies to establish efficient and scalable processes
• Strong English language (written and verbal) communication skills
• Good relationship building skills; an ability to create rapport
• Strong time management, planning and organizational skills
• Ability to work well under pressure and to tight deadlines
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills
• Advanced computer skills, proven experience in Excel 

Qualifications

• Bachelor or Masters degree required, 3-5 years in ecommerce and 1-2 years online marketing experience (acquired either agency, network or client side)
• Affiliate marketing experience is required. Strong analytical and commercial skills are the priority