Senior Data Strategist - 12M FTC

Division/Dept.
Commercial, Nectar360

Location
Holborn Store Support Centre and Home

Reporting to
Planning Director, Nectar360

In a nutshell

Nectar360 is a loyalty, data, and marketing services business. Identified by market analysts as one of the biggest strategic drivers of growth in the broader portfolio of Sainsbury’s businesses. Our 1st party data (Nectar) is the key to unlocking customer understanding across the various Sainsbury’s businesses and supplier base (FMCG and GM brands) – our clients.

The commercial team in Nectar360 is responsible for how we combine, leverage, and commercialise data & media. Ensuring that Nectar360 remains relevant in a rapidly changing market where digital first thinking has become the norm, and the understanding of customer is a key differentiator.

The colleague will be working in one of the fastest growing and dynamic areas of the business, supporting us in driving significant profit growth from Nectar360’s data-driven digital media offering – onsite (Sainsbury’s & Argos e-Commerce) and offsite (our Digital Trading Platform (DTP)) monetisation.

The colleague will need a unique blend of data literacy, digital channel (and ideally traditional shopper marketing) knowledge, relationship building expertise, commercial drive, and stakeholder management to be successful in this role. They will be a strategic thinker, with a passion for data driven marketing, ecommerce, digital advertising and understanding customer behaviour.

This role requires the development of long-term digital relationships across senior client stakeholders in multiple businesses and across a wide array of industries and agencies, whilst also influencing internal Nectar360 teams and the Sainsbury’s business.

You will play a key role in delivering Nectar360’s digital aspirations and our ambitious growth plans – growing our profits by 60% over the next 5 years.

What you need to do

Data Strategy:

· Lead and develop exceptional data-led strategies across onsite and offsite digital media, spanning grocery, consumer electronics and wider Sainsbury’s business opportunities to help deliver against our Nectar360 ambition and commercial aspirations.

· Present complex digital data strategies and campaign ideas back to clients and agencies, as well as the wider Nectar team and Sainsbury’s/Argos trading to persuade and inform in order to win budget.

· Inspire and coach digital planning to Nectar360 commercial and broader Sainsbury’s business through innovative use of digital data

· Ensure your extensive knowledge of how segmentation and profiling techniques are used for digital campaigns are showcased, and best practice is utilised to drive performance.

· Ensure CRM success in digital/data/comms planning within a consultative environment that you create with authority.

· Act as the expert on any initiatives that involve digital data planning and customer targeting – guide other teams (Nectar360 and broader Sainsbury’s business) as they build new digital propositions.

Strategic leadership:

· Lead and develop transformative data-driven planning strategy across onsite and offsite digital media - spanning grocery, consumer electronics and wider Sainsbury’s business opportunities to help deliver against our Nectar360 ambition and commercial aspirations.

· Challenge and introduce change to our current digital planning ways of working, through the introduction of new data driven strategies, emerging technologies, and partnerships, to stay ahead of the competition and support our ambition of ‘winning in digital’, and being an industry leading business.

· Ensure the digital planning function continue to grow profitably, whilst providing greater relevance, personalisation, and value for customers.

· Be the most senior digital planning representative within Nectar360 that engages and influences clients/agencies their leadership teams, and other senior stakeholders to gain business support.

· Train and upskill Nectar360 colleagues on our digital planning offering. Educate the wider business on the application and benefits of capability, providing knowledge and training as applicable.

Commercial Leadership:

· Accountable for supporting the commercial team in growing our Digital media revenues to £200m in our plan.

· Long term planning focused on commercial growth, continuous evolution, and seeking to grow our digital planning capabilities, identifying opportunity and risks, and direct your team to execute against the plan.

· Prioritise business requests and lead a team of 3 to deliver upon our planning strategy and business plan.

Relationship Management:

· Build strong and collaborative way of working with peers across Nectar360 and the wider Sainsbury’s team (and supporting agencies), to positively develop the culture of the digital planning team.

· Build effective relationships with colleagues in eCommerce, Analytics, Product & Tech to ensure the successful on-going build and delivery of our digital platforms.

· Build a strong and collaborative working relationship with senior level external contacts across key Digital partners (Meta, Google, YouTube etc.), eCommerce platforms, agencies, and FMCG/GM clients, to embed Nectar360 as a leader within digital media.

· Use these strong relationships and your highly specialised knowledge of digital planning to influence and inspire commitment, and investment from clients/agencies into our digital media offering.

What you need to know and show

· Unique authority, deep knowledge, and extensive experience of the Digital and Data industry, including technical experience working with e-Commerce platforms, Google, Meta and ATL media agencies.

· Detailed knowledge of data planning and strategy creation, including creating and selling exceptional data-led strategies for clients/agencies, that resonate with customers, drive trade, and meet broader corporate objectives.

· Strategic thinking and proven track record of CRM success in digital/data/comms to deliver on our planning strategy (part of our commercial plan), with a track record of beneficial outcomes and the ability to pivot the approach as needed to ensure targets are met.

· Ability to understand and apply complex analytical data models e.g., propensity modelling and collaborative filtering to your data-driven digital media strategies.

· Experience leading projects and engaging wider business functions in addition to agency teams, FMCG clients and third-party suppliers.

· Excellent knowledge of the programmatic media landscape.

· Exposure to customer analytics, product, eCommerce, campaign services and CRM sales and account management.

What decisions I can make

· Sole authority for the data and digital media strategy that responds to multi-million client and agency briefs, and decision-making responsibility for strategy changes requested by the client/agency.

· Planning team tech development requirements of our data and digital capabilities.

· Direct contribution (alongside client teams) to growing our Digital revenues to £200m, and double Nectar360’s profits over our 5-year plan.

Directly or indirectly manages

· 3 direct reports (Digital Strategy Manager & two Digital Strategist), part of a planning team of 22.

· A network of day-to-day colleagues from across Nectar360, and the wider business (Sainsbury’s and Argos) e.g. account management, product, analytics, ecommerce.

 

#LI-SA1

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Everything our Nectar team does is powered and fuelled by data — and by great relationships with some of the UK’s favourite brands. The Nectar 360 team focuses on developing loyalty programmes, turning amazing data into something that makes a difference, traditional media and digital. It’s like an agency-within-a-retailer, and retail media is crucial. The culture might not be what you expect either, because there’s no set-up quite like this one. The team is a real priority because it’s connected to everything the business does and drives profitability. It’s where you can take risks, learn from them and be recognised.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
 
 Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related target bonus of up to 20% of salary (which may vary for Nectar360), depending on how we perform.  
 
 Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
 
 Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. 
 
 Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).

Sainsbury’s company vision
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