What Does a Director of Growth Do?

Key takeaways

Directors of growth marketing use data‑driven strategies to expand customer acquisition, strengthen marketing performance, and drive revenue.

• According to Glassdoor, the estimated median total pay for a director of growth in the United States is $255,000 annually [1].

• Growth leaders use data to identify where marketing can expand, whether through new channels, new markets, or improved strategy.

• You can work toward this role by building experience in marketing, sales, or business analytics and strengthening your data analysis skills.

Learn more about the role of director of growth, including job duties, skills, and salary potential. If you're interested in building key skills in growth marketing, consider enrolling in the Meta Marketing Analytics Professional Certificate, where you can learn how to collect, sort, evaluate, and visualize marketing data.

What is a director of growth?

The director of growth, sometimes referred to as director of growth marketing or head of growth, is a marketing management role responsible for growing a company's business through marketing and sales efforts primarily focused on acquiring new customers. To achieve that goal, they may be tasked with expanding a company's marketing to new channels or new geographic locations.

Director of growth job description: What does a director of growth do?

The director of growth often has to analyze data to formulate an expansion strategy and then identify which marketing initiatives will best achieve that expansion. This could include expanding marketing to a new social media channel that hasn't been active yet or launching content marketing efforts in a new country using translation.

Read more: How to Become a Social Media Manager: Key Skills, Tasks, and More

Typical duties include:

• Using data to model growth opportunities

• Developing a company's growth strategy

• Analyzing areas of improvement for marketing strategies

• Communicating your findings and planning

• Using marketing levers like email marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) to increase revenue

Essential skills of a director of growth marketing

A director of growth requires an interconnected skill set that pulls from marketing, data analysis, sales, and more. Let's review the more common technical and workplace skills you'll need in this role:

Technical skills

• Marketing strategy

• Customer acquisition

• Data analysis

• Digital marketing

• Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)

• CRM

• Return on investment (ROI) monitoring and reporting

• Business intelligence

Workplace skills

• Leadership

• Collaboration

• Communication

• Analytical thinking

Director of growth salary and job outlook

According to Glassdoor, the estimated median total pay for a director of growth in the United States is $255,000 [1]. This includes base pay and additional pay, such as bonuses and profit-sharing.

This role falls under the larger umbrella of advertising, promotions, and marketing managers, which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates will grow by 6 percent from 2024 to 2034 [2]. That is faster than average.

Director of growth marketing vs. business development manager

While a director of growth primarily focuses on marketing and sales efforts to drive customer acquisition and increase revenue, a business development manager is responsible for finding new business opportunities, often via sales channels, that a company can pursue.

Director of growth: Career path

Being a director of growth often means acquiring around seven to 10 years of experience. If you're interested in advancing your career to become a director of growth, it can be helpful to start off in an entry-level marketing, sales, or business role and gain experience from there. Let's review some of the steps that can lead toward this position.

1. Earn a degree.

While you may not need a bachelor's degree to get started in a marketing or sales career, you may find that employers expect that credential as you advance. For instance, 75.4 percent of marketing managers have a bachelor's degree, and 12.8 percent have a master's degree, according to Zippia [3].

Consider earning a degree in marketing or a related field, such as business administration or data analysis.

2. Gain experience in an entry-level role.

Some jobs that can eventually lead to a director of growth role include:

• Marketing coordinator

• Social media manager

• Sales representative

• Junior business analyst

• SEO analyst

Once you've gained experience, you can move into management roles, including marketing manager, sales manager, brand manager, or SEO manager, and continue developing your skills in business intelligence, data analysis, and marketing.

3. Develop your skill set.

A director of growth has a unique skill set. If you're set on this role, you can work on strengthening this skill set as you move through more junior and mid-level positions. It may be useful to search job boards for this title, making a note of the skills required.

Some helpful skills to develop will be: data analysis, marketing strategy, and revenue growth.

Learn more about professional growth with our free resources 

Subscribe to our weekly LinkedIn newsletter, Career Chat, for industry updates, tips, and trends. Then, explore free, digital marketing resources to optimize your professional growth:

• Watch on YouTube: The Content Creator Revolution: Is This High-Demand Career Right For You?

• Bookmark for later: Digital Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know

• Hear from an expert: Marketing Career Path: How I Became a Brand Marketing Manager at Coursera

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