About Us

Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles and Fanatics Live. Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and shop live. Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally.

About FES Marketing

FES Marketing is the growth engine for the Fanatics ecosystem. We bring sports fans into the Fanatics App, activate them in their first days, and cross-sell them across Commerce, Collectibles and Live, so the app becomes each fan's front door to everything Fanatics. The team spans FanApp Growth (early life, referral, paid acquisition, growth investment and cross-sell), Brand Media + Partnerships, Marketing Investment + Effectiveness, and AI + Automation. Three standards apply to every role: we judge spend on blended customer acquisition cost (CAC) against the 12-month activated ecosystem margin it creates per logged-in install; we fund what we can show is incremental, not what platform attribution claims; and we work AI-native, using AI and agentic tools in how we plan, analyze and operate.

Overview

The Director, Marketing Investment + Effectiveness is accountable for how much FES spends on marketing, and how that money is split between brand and performance. You will lead the FES marketing budget with Finance, own the annual and quarterly investment plan that goes to the SVP and executive team, and hand FanApp Growth and Brand Media + Partnerships clear budget envelopes with the return each is expected to deliver.

Once a team has its envelope, that team decides how to deploy it and drives its own paybacks. This role decides the envelopes: how big the total is, how it splits between brand and performance, and when to move money between them. It also owns the evidence behind those calls (a marketing mix model calibrated by experiments, and the FES test agenda) and the scorecard that shows whether the plan is working.

Responsibilities

• Lead the FES marketing budget with Finance: total envelope, annual plan, quarterly phasing and the reforecast cycle.
• Own the FES investment plan presented to the SVP and executive team: how much we spend, the brand versus performance split, the expected return on each, and the risks.
• Set the brand and performance envelopes, and the return guardrails each must meet (e.g. blended CAC and payback for performance; reach, awareness and demand for brand).
• Decide in-year moves between brand and performance, using portfolio-level response curves and marginal rather than average return.
• Own the marketing mix model (in-house or vendor): design, calibration with experiments and falsification checks, as the single source of truth for the incremental return of brand and performance spend.
• Own the FES test agenda and governance: incrementality tests prioritized by budget at stake, pre-registration, power and sample size, no early looks before the registered read, decision rules (scale, hold, cut) and a shared log of results. Test cells are designed with the teams that run the media.
• Set FES metric standards (blended versus paid CAC, value windows, denominators) so the investment plan, the scorecard and team reporting all use the same reconciled numbers.
• Build and lead the team, starting with hiring the Manager, Marketing Investment + Effectiveness.
• Partner with Data Science and Analytics on cohort value models and early value signals, and on what they can and cannot support.

Experience & Skills

• Significant experience leading marketing budgets, investment planning or marketing effectiveness at a consumer business, agency or consultancy.
• Track record of setting brand versus performance splits and defending them with Finance and senior leaders.
• Hands-on experience building or managing marketing mix models and incrementality experiments, including geo tests.
• Strong financial planning and modeling skills: budgets, reforecasts, unit economics and payback.
• Strong grounding in causal inference and statistics, and the judgment to know when a result is not strong enough to act on.
• SQL required; Python or R strongly preferred.
• Experience building and leading analytical or planning teams.
• Excellent executive communication, including explaining uncertainty plainly.
• Hands-on, everyday user of AI tools (e.g. Claude, ChatGPT) to work faster and better, and curious about new ways to apply them.
• Background in marketing finance, marketing science or strategy; consumer app experience a plus.
• Bachelor's degree in Economics, Finance, Statistics or a related field; advanced degree a plus.
• Passion for sports, fandom and building customer-first experiences.

Depending on the role, your interview and onboarding experience may include in-person components, such as onsite interviews or Launching into Better: LIVE—a multi-day cultural immersion in New York City for full-time, non-seasonal hires. These sessions are designed to build connection and bring our culture to life, though specific travel and participation requirements will be confirmed based on your role and location. Your recruiter will provide clear guidance at each stage of the process.

For information about our benefits, please visit https://benefitsatfanatics.com/

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