Head of Digital Marketing Technology – Sainsburys – Hybrid Working London/Home

Within the Sainsbury’s group and in Marketing Technology, we focus on making the most of our marketing budget by leveraging the latest technology, best tools and ways of working whilst having in mind our customers. Acting as a strategic advisor as well as a hands-on ‘do-er’, this role interacts with a wide range of stakeholders across the Sainsbury’s business. We work directly with our Platform partners, like Google, Adobe, Salesforce, and Meta to develop and to innovate upon best-in-class Digital Marketing tools as well as partnering with agencies on and offshore. The day to day for the team involves working closely with Marketing channels to drive their technical roadmap forward and to lead on specific technical projects. 

This includes end-to-end management of MarTech capability requirements, covering cloud data storage, pipelines, and PIM; omnichannel CRM orchestration and Loyalty management; content management and dynamic personalisation; tagging, tracking, and reporting optimisation. Ultimately this role will define and drive strategy for future-proofing our suite of MarTech capabilities against industry and technology changes, delivering value from efficiency and performance.

What I am accountable for 

As the Head of Digital Marketing Technology, you will develop and implement the future MarTech/AdTech strategy and hold responsibility for the governance and value delivery of our overall advertising and marketing technology stack. It will also build a detailed understanding of our current digital marketing capabilities across our brands and channels, identifying areas where improvements are either required or opportunities exist. You will partner with technology teams, creating a prioritised pipeline of demand, ensuring sequencing decisions are made with full visibility of value, urgency, and adoption readiness.

A key focus is to develop a compelling vision for the future of digital marketing technology, identifying the primary areas of focus that will deliver commercial and customer growth whilst influencing and educating colleagues across tech and commercial units. Alongside this, the position will develop a deep understanding of our data, systems and technology with a key focus on how we maximise the use of our data for targeting, measurement and optimisation purposes.

Success in this role requires building a strong alliance with our internal product and engineering teams to create an aligned and shared vision of the future that all teams rally behind and work towards. It is also essential to be proactive in testing and trialling new initiatives at pace to accelerate our understanding of different technologies, scaling if successful but not being afraid to fail.

You will be developing a robust suite of reporting and data visualisation across all our brands which reflects the commercial and customer impact that digital marketing has on the business, as well as spearheading the proliferation and usage of our analytics systems (e.g. GA4) across the digital and wider marketing teams, developing training, dashboards, and best practices.

In addition, the role will work with digital product and technology teams on discrete projects to incrementally improve channel performance, and proactively spot opportunities to improve ways of working within the Digital Marketing team, working with colleagues to step change performance.

Further responsibilities include managing the budget for a range of licensed technology products and completing RFPs as needed to ensure we stay ahead of the market and are constantly improving standards and performance. 

You will also lead a team of highly skilled and knowledgeable MarTech experts, driving their development and elevating them to be seen as thought leaders in the business.

The role will manage multiple agency and technology vendors to deliver highly complex and highly technical technology projects, whilst also influencing a diverse set of stakeholders with multiple, conflicting priorities to deliver projects for the Digital Marketing team.

You must bring depth of practical experience in an array of leading industry tools across analytics, bid management, tag management, data management, adserving or creative management, and must understand the technical workings of paid search and programmatic media and be able to stand toe‑to‑toe with agencies to make choices such as technology deployment.

What I need to know and show 

Architecting holistic MarTech and AdTech stack solutions across channel disciplines with strong business acumen and capability to present solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences. A grasp of software languages including JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Java, Swift. Highly data literate with understanding of how data flows across and through internal and external systems to bring our digital advertising to life. Experienced on measuring and running elements of performance marketing programs from the ground-up – including Paid Search, Affiliates, Email, Social and Biddable or Display media. Significantly experienced at partnering with engineering and product teams to deliver MarTech change projects including robust technical documentation. Experienced at managing significant budgets and delivering value from supplier negotiations Ability to think strategically in technical area both from a customer and commercial point of view and demonstrate the ability to take this from thought to implementation. Consistently demonstrates customer-centric, clear thinking, strong technical and commercial acumen and is able to judge when attention to detail is important. Ability to review a complex ever-changing tech and privacy landscape, develop a clear vision for the future and influence/lead the team to deliver it. Strong communication skills with the ability to build strong relationships with stakeholders in marketing, technology, digital and data teams.

Essential Criteria 

Proven experience architecting MarTech and AdTech stack solutions across multiple channel disciplines, including presenting technical solutions to both technical and non‑technical audiences. Experience using and applying software languages such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Java and Swift within a marketing technology environment. Demonstratable expertise in performance marketing operations, including Paid Search, Affiliates, Email, Social, and Biddable/Display media, with involvement from setup to optimisation. Evidence of delivering MarTech change projects in partnership with engineering and product teams, including contributing to or producing robust technical documentation. Proven ability to manage and optimise budgets for technology products, including experience achieving value through supplier or vendor negotiations. Demonstratable experience leading and developing a team of MarTech specialists. Evidence of building and maintaining effective relationships with stakeholders across marketing, technology, digital and data functions.   

LI-JH1