SR DIR, PAID MEDIA & PERFORMANCE MARKETING

POSITION SUMMARY

This role is responsible for leading Jack in the Box’s paid media and performance marketing strategy, investment, execution, optimization, and measurement across the customer journey to build the brand, generate demand, and drive measurable customer and business outcomes. Partners with Brand Marketing, Digital & Growth, Social, PR, Creative, Marketing Insights & Analytics, and external media agency partners to deliver an integrated media approach. Leads the Paid Media team and external media agencies, fostering a culture of experimentation, continuous optimization, accountability, and performance.

KEY DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES:

Integrated Media Strategy & Planning

Leads the development of Jack in the Box's annual and campaign-level paid media strategy across brand and performance marketing.

Translates Marketing objectives, target audiences, commercial programs, and customer opportunities into integrated media and demand-generation plans.

Develops the channel strategy and investment approach across paid media, including television/video, streaming/CTV, audio, search, social, digital, programmatic, display, out-of-home and emerging channels, as appropriate.

Establishes clear audience, market, channel, reach, frequency, investment, and performance principles to guide media planning. Ensures media strategy is tightly integrated with the Marketing calendar and priority commercial programs.

Partners across Integrated Communications to connect paid media with brand, social, influencer, PR, partnerships, and creative into a cohesive communications plan.

Continuously evaluates the media landscape and identifies new platforms, technologies, formats, partners, and opportunities to improve effectiveness.

Performance Marketing

Leads Jack in the Box's paid performance marketing capabilities, with accountability for driving measurable customer actions and business results.

Develops performance marketing plans designed to drive outcomes such as restaurant traffic, transactions, digital ordering, app activity, loyalty acquisition, offers and other priority customer behaviors.

Establishes appropriate audience, targeting, retargeting, optimization, and conversion strategies across performance channels.

Partners with Digital & Growth Marketing to connect paid media with owned channels, CRM, loyalty, app, web and digital commerce initiatives.

Drives ongoing optimization of campaigns based on performance signals rather than waiting until campaigns conclude.

Media Investment & Portfolio Management

Leads the allocation and stewardship of paid media investment across the Marketing calendar.

Recommends investment levels and allocation across brand-building and performance objectives based on business priorities and expected impact.

Ensures media dollars are concentrated behind the programs, audiences, markets, and channels with the greatest opportunity to drive results.

Actively manages the media portfolio throughout the year, identifying opportunities to reallocate resources based on performance and evolving business needs.

Partners with Finance and Marketing Operations to manage media budgets, forecasts, commitments, and reconciliation.

Audience & Market Activation

Partners with Marketing Insights & Analytics and Digital & Growth teams to translate consumer and customer understanding into actionable media audiences.

Develops differentiated media approaches for customer acquisition, frequency, retention, win-back, and other priority customer opportunities.

Leads market-level media planning and investment strategies based on business needs and opportunities.

Identifies opportunities to improve effectiveness through geographic, behavioral, contextual, and customer-level targeting.

Media Effectiveness, Optimization & Measurement

Establishes clear objectives, KPIs, and measurement plans for paid media investments in partnership with Marketing Insights & Analytics.

Partners with Marketing Insights & Analytics on marketing mix modeling, attribution, incrementality testing, campaign measurement, and ROI evaluation.

Develops regular media performance reporting that identifies what is working, what is not, and what actions should be taken.

Evaluates performance across channels, audiences, markets, programs, creative, and platforms.

Establishes benchmarks and performance standards that enable continuous improvement.

Translates campaign and media learnings into actionable recommendations for future plans.

Media Agency & Partner Leadership

Leads the day-to-day relationship with Jack in the Box's paid media agency and other media, technology, and platform partners.

Sets clear expectations for agency strategy, planning, buying, optimization, innovation, measurement, and business performance. Ensures external partners operate as strategic extensions of the internal Marketing organization rather than transactional execution resources.

Partners with Marketing Operations on agency scopes, staffing models, budgets, fees, and commercial management.

Integrated Communications & Creative Partnership

Partners closely with Brand Marketing and Creative to ensure media strategy and creative strategy are developed together rather than sequentially. Brings audience, channel, platform, and performance insights into the creative development process.

Identifies opportunities to develop channel-specific creative that maximizes the unique role and behaviors of each platform.

Collaborates with Social, Influencer, PR, Partnerships, and Brand Marketing teams to maximize the total impact of communications.

Performs other related duties, tasks, and responsibilities as required, assigned, and directed.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education - Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business Administration, Economics, Analytics, or related field required. MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Experience – 10+ years of progressive experience in media, performance marketing, digital marketing, media strategy, media investment, or related disciplines, including significant leadership responsibility. Experience within the Restaurant, Consumer Products, Retail, Hospitality, Ecommerce, or other high-frequency consumer categories strongly preferred. Demonstrated experience leading both upper-funnel brand media and lower-funnel performance marketing, with the ability to connect media investment to customer actions and measurable business outcomes. Experience managing significant media investments, agency relationships, cross-channel planning, digital and performance platforms, and complex integrated marketing programs required.

Leadership Competencies

Leads with both creative intuition and analytical rigor.

Makes decisive investment and optimization recommendations based on data, consumer behavior, and business priorities.

Builds strong partnerships across creative, brand, digital, analytics, social, PR, finance, and agency teams.

Communicates complex media and performance topics simply and persuasively to senior leadership.

Develops high-performing teams through coaching, accountability, and talent development.

Maintains high standards of integrity, transparency, financial stewardship, and business judgment.

Skills/Knowledge/Abilities

Balances long-term brand building with near-term customer and business performance.

Demonstrates strong commercial instincts and understands how media can influence customer behavior.

Challenges traditional media approaches and continuously identifies better ways to reach and activate customers.

Deep expertise in integrated media strategy, planning, buying, activation, and optimization.

Strong expertise in performance marketing and demand generation, including paid social, paid search, programmatic, digital video, and other conversion-oriented media.

Strong understanding of traditional and emerging media, including television, CTV/streaming, audio, out-of-home, social, digital, search, and programmatic channels.

Strong knowledge of audience strategy, first-party data activation, targeting, retargeting, segmentation, and customer acquisition.

Experience balancing brand-building and performance investments within an integrated media portfolio.

Strong understanding of marketing measurement, including incrementality, attribution, marketing mix modeling, testing, optimization, and ROI.

Ability to connect media metrics to customer and business outcomes rather than relying solely on platform delivery metrics.

Experience managing media agencies, platform partners, budgets, scopes, and performance expectations.

Strong analytical and financial acumen with the ability to make clear investment recommendations and trade-offs.

Strong understanding of creative effectiveness and the relationship between creative, audience, channel, and context.

Ability to synthesize complex performance data into clear executive-level insights and actions.

Exceptional communication, presentation, negotiation, and leadership skills.

Strong organizational capabilities and ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced environment.

Proficient knowledge of personal computers and Microsoft Office 365 (i.e., Word, Excel) as well as modern media, performance marketing, analytics and reporting platforms.

Demonstrates integrity and ethical behavior.

Physical Requirements – Ability to communicate clearly in person and on the telephone. Ability to operate a computer keyboard. Ability to travel approximately 20-25% of time as business needs require. 

REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION:

Jack in the Box Inc. will make reasonable accommodations to allow a qualified individual with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities and to perform the essential functions of the job. This position description should be applied accordingly. This description of duties is not intended to be all-inclusive or to limit management’s discretion to assign other duties or responsibilities as necessary.

Jack in the Box Inc. offers a competitive salary and Total Rewards package that includes: medical, dental, vision, Health Spending Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), Life and Disability Plans, 401(k) plan with company match, Legal Plan, Pet Insurance, Tuition Reimbursement, and Employee Assistance Program.

Our culture is fun and innovative – ‘Work Happy’ with us!

The range for this position is $180,000 - $260,000 and is based on an employee located at our corporate headquarters. If the candidate is hired in a different city to work remote, we may apply a geographic pay differential based on the cost of labor in the market in which the employee resides.