Creative Lead, Influencer Marketing

About The Shelf

The Shelf is a leading influencer marketing agency helping brands create culturally relevant, performance-driven content through creators. We blend data, strategy, and creative expertise to build influencer campaigns that resonate with audiences and drive measurable business results.

Our work sits at the intersection of social culture, storytelling, and performance marketing. We believe great influencer content should feel authentic to creators, engaging to audiences, and effective for brands.

About the role

We're looking for a Creative Lead, Influencer Marketing to join our growing team.

This role sits at the intersection of creative strategy, content development, and performance optimization. You'll be responsible for translating campaign objectives into effective creative direction, developing content briefs, reviewing creator concepts and deliverables, and ensuring content is strategically positioned for success before it ever goes live.

Success in this role requires both strong creative instincts and strategic thinking. You should be able to identify what makes content resonate on social platforms, provide actionable feedback that improves creator work, and leverage performance insights to continuously strengthen creative outcomes.

As the creative lead on assigned accounts, you'll partner closely with Account Management, Strategy, Insights, and creators to ensure every campaign is built on strong creative foundations and executed with excellence.

What you'll do
Creative Strategy & Content Development

• Develop social-first creative strategies and content approaches that align with campaign goals and platform best practices.
• Create strategic content briefs that clearly translate brand objectives into actionable creative direction for creators.
• Lead brainstorming sessions and creative development for influencer campaigns.
• Build content frameworks, story arcs, messaging recommendations, and creative guidelines that help creators produce their best work.
• Stay ahead of social trends, platform shifts, and emerging content formats to inform creative recommendations.
  

Creator Concept Review & Creative Optimization

• Review influencer content plans/concepts, and content submissions to ensure alignment with campaign objectives.
• Provide clear, actionable creative feedback that strengthens storytelling, audience engagement, brand integration, authenticity, and platform relevance.
• Evaluate content through both a creative and performance lens, identifying strengths and opportunities related to hooks, pacing, retention, entertainment value, and overall effectiveness.
• Coach creators through concept development and refinement to help elevate content quality while preserving their unique voice.
• Identify recurring creative patterns, trends, and opportunities that can improve future campaign performance.
  

Creative Performance & Insights

• Identify creative drivers of success across campaigns.
• Contribute to creative reporting by analyzing content themes, storytelling approaches, creator performance, and audience response.
• Translate campaign learnings into actionable recommendations for future creative development.
• Help establish and evolve creative best practices, frameworks, and performance benchmarks across the agency.
  

Account & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as the primary creative lead on assigned accounts.
• Collaborate closely with Account Management, Strategy, and Paid Media teams throughout campaign execution.
• Present creative recommendations and rationale internally and externally with confidence and clarity.
• Ensure creative quality, consistency, and strategic alignment across campaign deliverables.
• Support creator selection when needed by evaluating creators for content quality, storytelling ability, audience alignment, and brand fit.
• Participate in client-facing conversations related to the Creative function.

Process & Innovation

• Contribute to the evolution of creative processes, tools, and workflows.
• Leverage AI and emerging technologies to improve efficiency, creative development, research, and content analysis.
• Manage multiple campaigns simultaneously while maintaining a high standard of quality and attention to detail.
• Support special projects, agency initiatives, and new business opportunities as needed.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in influencer marketing, social media, creative strategy, content strategy, or a related field.
• Agency experience strongly preferred.
• Proven experience developing creative briefs and providing creative direction for influencer or social-first campaigns.
• Strong understanding of social content across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging platforms.
• Experience reviewing and evaluating creator content with a focus on storytelling, audience engagement, and platform performance.
• Ability to balance creative intuition with data-driven decision-making.
• Strong presentation and communication skills, especially client-facing.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
  

Bonus Points For:

• Experience working directly with influencers, creators, or content producers.
• Familiarity with creative reporting, content analysis, and performance optimization.
• Experience with humor-driven, lifestyle, or entertainment-first content.
• Experience leveraging AI tools to support creative development, research, and workflow efficiency.
• Proficiency with Google Workspace, presentation software, and project management platforms.

• Clients and internal teams view you as a trusted creative partner and strategic thinker.
• You help elevate the quality of creative work across the agency while continuously improving processes and outcomes.
• Your feedback helps creators produce stronger content and drives measurable campaign performance.
• Creators consistently deliver content that feels authentic, engaging, and aligned with campaign objectives.
• Campaigns launch with strong creative foundations and minimal revisions.
• Creative recommendations are informed by both performance insights and social-first best practices.