About the Marketing Department: 

The Marketing team drives brand awareness, customer engagement, and trip bookings through strategic campaigns, compelling content, and data-driven insights. They manage digital and traditional marketing channels, optimize customer outreach, and enhance the brand’s presence to inspire travelers and grow the business.  

 The department is comprised of several teams, which include the below:   

• Direct Mail & CRM: Engages past and prospective guests through targeted email campaigns and personalized direct mail, leveraging data to drive bookings and loyalty.  

• PR & Partnership: Builds brand awareness and credibility through media outreach, strategic partnerships, and influencer collaborations to expand Backroads’ reach.  

• Website Management: Oversees the website’s content, functionality, and user experience to ensure seamless navigation, accurate information, and optimized conversion.  

• Brand, Content, Community: Responsible for the creative design, content and social media presence for the Backroads brand. 

About the Role: 

The Director of Marketing, Digital Growth and Guest Experience plays a key leadership role in driving new and repeat bookings and optimizing the digital customer journey across Backroads. This position oversees performance marketing, web strategy, analytics, and site production to maximize guest acquisition, lead generation, and trip bookings. This is a hands-on leadership position that requires a strong focus on data-driven decision-making and continuous optimization, ensuring our digital presence delivers both impact and exceptional guest experience. 

What You’ll Be Doing:  

Strategy & Leadership 

• Bring a growth mindset, practitioner expertise and a genuine passion for Backroads to define and execute digital marketing plans aligned with business and seasonal priorities 

• Lead performance media strategy and oversight (Paid Search, Paid Social, Display), managing daily budgets, optimization and reporting 

• Direct analytics function to track performance, provide actionable insights, and build marketing dashboards 

• Prioritize the roadmap for digital execution—ensuring assets, campaigns, and landing pages are launched on time and optimized for conversion 

Channel & Web Management 

• Manage paid media specialists responsible for campaign planning, execution, and optimization 

• Oversee digital marketing analytics, performance tracking, and reporting 

• Lead and support the web production team to ensure timely, accurate updates across 600+ trip pages and digital touchpoints 

• Prioritize and direct web updates (copy, images, CTAs) in collaboration with Content, CRM, and external developers 

• Guide best practices for SEO/AEO, tagging, and user experience improvements—working in tandem with product and engineering 

Cross-Functional Collaboration 

• Partner with Content & Communications, CRM, and Brand/Creative on seasonal campaign planning and asset development 

• Ensure campaign execution is aligned across paid and owned digital channels 

• Collaborate with Product/IT on website roadmap, bug resolution, and platform improvements 

What You’ll Need to Be Successful:  

• 10+ years in digital marketing roles with experience managing both performance media, CRM and website execution 

• Proven experience leading teams and managing multiple projects simultaneously 

• Strong working knowledge of Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and CMS platforms; Drupal experience preferred 

• Familiarity with CRO tools, UX best practices, and site analytics (e.g., GA4, Unbounce) 

• Excellent communication and prioritization skills to manage internal and external stakeholders 

• Comfortable with technical web operations (e.g., tagging, SEO, link tracking) and translating strategy into implementation 

Work Environment: 

• On-site, Berkeley, CA 

• 4 days in-office