Table of contents
- Growth & growth marketing on the rise
- What is the role of a growth marketing director
- Growth Marketing Director vs Head of Growth vs Growth Marketing Manager
- What makes a great growth hire?
- Required skills for a growth marketing director
- Growth marketing director salary
- Hiring a growth marketing director
- Frequently asked questions
- About Growth Method
A director of growth marketing is a senior marketing leader who owns growth strategy and experimentation across the full customer lifecycle, and leads a team of growth marketing managers and specialists to hit company-wide growth targets. Hiring one can supercharge your business, driving impressive growth and profitability — they optimise marketing strategies, foster customer engagement, and create scalable campaigns that can significantly improve your business standing in the market.
Every modern business should have a growth marketing director because they play a crucial role in driving more leads, enhancing customer experience, and ensuring sustainable business growth through data-driven marketing techniques and strategies.
Stuart Brameld, Growth Method CEO & Growth Advisor
Growth & growth marketing on the rise
According to Google Trends, worldwide interest in growth marketing has increased substantially over the last 15 years, and continues to grow.
The LinkedIn 2023 Jobs on the Rise list examines millions of jobs started by LinkedIn members across the last 5 years. The results reveal the 25 fastest-growing job titles over the past five years, the most in-demand roles and emerging trends defining the future world of work.
Growth and growth marketing related roles were consistently placed in the top 10 fastest-growing roles worldwide, with 2 growth-related roles in the UK’s top 10 fastest-growing jobs.
What is the role of a growth marketing director
The role of a growth marketing director is quite comprehensive, focusing on a variety of aspects such as developing and implementing growth strategies, and fostering a growth culture. One of the key areas of responsibility is managing the entire customer lifecycle, known as AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue). You can read more about it here. They have to design and launch creative marketing campaigns to acquire new users, enhance their activation and establish a strong relationship for retention, while also encouraging referrals and driving revenue generation.
Crucially, growth marketing directors actively engage in experimentation to discover the most effective strategies to foster business growth. They continually test different tactics and approaches, and apply the insights gathered to refine the strategies in place. This focus on experimentation is a key aspect of the growth culture they promote within their organisation. Overall, their role is instrumental in aligning the company’s growth strategy with its overall goals and objectives. You can check out more on growth strategy here.
Growth Marketing Director vs Head of Growth vs Growth Marketing Manager
Titles in this space vary a lot between companies, but here is how the three roles typically compare:
| Role | Primary focus | Typical scope | Reports to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth Marketing Director | Multi-channel growth strategy and team leadership | Manages multiple growth marketing managers; department-wide accountability | CMO or CEO |
| Head of Growth | Company-wide, experiment-led growth across the AARRR funnel | Cross-functional; owns the growth roadmap across marketing, product, and engineering | CEO or CPO |
| Growth Marketing Manager | Hands-on execution of the growth funnel | Owns day-to-day experimentation and channel programmes | Growth Marketing Director or Head of Growth |
For a closely related, even more senior title, see how the role compares to a Growth Director.
What makes a great growth hire?
A modern growth hire requires a wide base level of knowledge, along with deep expertise in one or two areas well-suited to your business.
The T-Shaped Marketer framework popularised by Buffer illustrates the concept well.
The vertical bar on the T represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own.
Required skills for a growth marketing director
Here are some of the core traits and skills of a good growth marketing director.
-
Data Analysis Skills: Ability to translate complex data into actionable strategies.
-
Creativity: Ability to develop innovative and unique marketing strategies.
-
Leadership: Effective leader who inspires and motivates the marketing team to reach their highest potential.
-
Curiosity: Constant desire to learn, improve and adopt new marketing strategies.
-
Adaptability: Ability to quickly react and adapt to changes in the market to take advantage of new opportunities.
-
Excellent communication skills: Ability to effectively communicate with team members, clients, and executives.
-
Technical proficiency: Need to understand and utilise the latest technology and tools available for marketing.
Growth marketing director salary
Depending on experience and location, salaries for skilled growth marketing directors are typically in the ranges below:
For more information you can view active job postings for growth marketing director roles on LinkedIn here.
-
The average salary for a Growth Marketing Director in the United Kingdom is around £85,000 per year.
-
The average salary for a Growth Marketing Director in the United States is approximately $130,000 per year.
Hiring a growth marketing director
Looking to hire a growth marketing director? Here are our top 10 job boards for growth and growth marketing related roles.
Frequently asked questions
What does a director of growth marketing do?
A director of growth marketing owns growth strategy and experimentation across the full customer lifecycle — acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue — and leads a team of growth marketing managers and specialists to hit company-wide growth targets. They set the growth roadmap, report performance to senior leadership, and build the culture of experimentation that underpins sustainable growth.
How is a director of growth marketing different from a Head of Growth?
The two roles overlap and titles vary by company, but a director of growth marketing typically sits within the marketing organisation reporting to a CMO, while a Head of Growth is more often a company-wide, cross-functional role reporting directly to the CEO or CPO with broader accountability across product and engineering as well as marketing.
What’s the difference between a growth marketing director and a growth marketing manager?
A growth marketing director operates at a more senior, strategic level — owning multi-channel strategy, managing multiple growth marketing managers, and reporting to executive stakeholders. A growth marketing manager is more hands-on, owning day-to-day execution of the experimentation programme within a single team or channel.
How much does a director of growth marketing earn?
The average salary for a Growth Marketing Director in the United Kingdom is around £85,000 per year, and approximately $130,000 per year in the United States. Senior or multi-team leadership positions typically command more, depending on company stage, sector, and location.
About Growth Method
Whether you already have a director of growth marketing in place or are building the case to hire one, the real challenge is giving them a system to run growth as a discipline from day one, not a blank task board to fill. That’s what Growth Method is built to solve: the agentic marketing platform for B2B teams, where people and agents plan strategy, ship campaigns, and learn what works, all in one place.
Instead of scattered docs and spreadsheets, a growth marketing director gets a structured create-plan-launch-analyse workflow and daily campaign ideas generated from your own marketing data, so the growth culture this role is meant to build is supported by the system, not left to chance.
Book a call to see how, or apply for early access to get started.