Head of Product (Marketing Domain)

This is for the creative ones. For the ones who get bored when they are stuck in routine. For the ones who drift away while overseeing the daily iteration. For the ones who need to be disruptive in their work. Forget baby-steps – let’s make the big leap. Not alone, but with your team of 15 specialists.

About bol.com

In The Netherlands, bol.com is everyone’s darling. Their brand has been embraced by all layers of society. Bol.com was the first to enter the market of online retail and has been setting the standard ever since. A highly nourishing culture of innovation is the cornerstone of its success.

Bol.com employs 1.400 professionals at their office in Utrecht, a central location in The Netherlands, 30 minutes from Amsterdam. This scale-up started out in 1999 and reached the 2 billion euro revenue milestone in 2018.

WHAT MAKES BOL.COM STAND OUT?

If anything, it’s the energy. This is an organization that has been able to retain that freshness that belongs to entrepreneurial businesses in their early years. When everyone is still aligned and passionate about the BHAG. Where a mission statement is not something that is written in the annual report but part of the hearts and minds of everyone who walks through the door in the morning.

WHAT IS THEIR CHALLENGE?

There is competition in the Dutch market, but bol.com has been on a winning streak for many years. Not in the least because they are the only one with a true platform strategy.

The real challenge comes from international competitors, who enjoy an even bigger scale, reflected in large budgets for technological innovation. But up till now, that threat hasn’t materialized. Because who wants to invest in such a tiny geographical market (The Netherlands) that has such a strong incumbent (bol.com) with so many specific characteristics (such as the ‘polder model’ and stroopwafels) and strong ties in the community (9 active million customers, 20.000 third-party vendors)?

Still, it’s better safe to be sorry. So bol.com is relentless in investing in technological advancement. Since (almost) all the geniuses in online retail in The Netherlands are already working there, together with bol.com we are challenging top professionals from different industries, markets, and geographies when recruiting a new Head of Product for the Marketing Domain.

Vacancy: Head of Product (Marketing Domain)

Digital Marketing is a, if not THE, key driver of bottom-line results in online retail. The Head of Product for the Marketing Domain is both the architect and director of all technology-driven innovation. A mini-CTO for the Marketing organization, the #1 cost driver of the e-tail business-model.

The Head of Product has one KPI: ROAS. This job comes with the widest possible mandate to achieve the highest achievable return on advertising spend. Not by tuning campaigns and monitoring the incremental effect, that’s what other people do; the Head of Product reaches their goals by system-wide platform re-engineering.

Boosting Marketing Relevance is the holy grail. By using marketing tech and data to apply knowledge of customers’ action on the platform, the performance on Google Audiences can be enhanced and bidding strategies improved. The targeting on external channels will improve greatly, as will the ROAS.

Of course, also the on-site journey will be positively affected. The impact of Relevance reaches all the way to the shopping cart, by offering the right products to the right customer at the right time.

The Head of Product for the Marketing Domain is a true hybrid between Marketing and IT, and so is his team of 15 professionals consisting of Innovation Marketeers, Product Owners and Business Analysts.

Let’s look at what we think you need to do this job:

CANDIDATE PROFILE

• You need to be a true hybrid between marketing and IT
• You are probably working in a role as Head of Product or Senior Product Owner in a marketing-centric organization
• Proven managerial track record, especially in working with opinionated people
• Living in or willing to relocate (supported) to The Netherlands
• English or Dutch fluency