Senior Marketing Manager - Donor Recruitment (3355)

Do you want to help create a better world for animals? At the RSPCA, we believe animal welfare is everyone's welfare. Join us in creating a better world for every animal. We can do it if we work together, everyone for every animal.

The Role at a Glance

Are you a data-driven marketing leader with a digital-first mindset, ready to lead some of the charity sector's most impactful donor acquisition campaigns? We are looking for a Senior Marketing Manager – Donor Recruitment to spearhead our paid digital marketing strategy, as well as lead on other channels, to drive efficient, long-term income for the Society.

• Permanent contract.
• Where you'll work: this is a truly hybrid role. You will work from home, with an average of 4 days per month spent at one of our office hubs—either our South East Regional Hub (Horsham, West Sussex) or our London Hub (Blackfriars).
• When you'll work: We extend our flexible philosophy to your day-to-day hours. We operate with core hours of 10:00am to 3:00pm, Monday to Friday. This gives you the freedom to start anytime between 8:00am and 10:00am, and finish between 3:00pm and 6:00pm. You may vary the number of hours worked on each working day as long as core hours and the 35-hour working week are fulfilled over 5 working days. 

Scope & Accountability

Reporting directly to the Donor Recruitment Lead, you will operate with a high level of autonomy and decision-making authority over a multi-million-pound direct marketing portfolio. 

In this role, you will lead a small team of marketing executives and a marketing manager to plan, deliver, and innovate our paid digital campaigns across multiple Individual Giving products (e.g., Regular Giving, Cash, and Lottery), while also recruiting donors through our offline Christmas appeal Door Drop and Inserts campaigns.

Across all channels, you will inspire your team and our partners to deliver highly emotive direct response content that builds a powerful connection with our priority audiences, engaging them deeply with our cause to protect and care for animals.

Our recruitment journey – key dates for you to note

Here's what the process looks like, no surprises, just a friendly guide:

Application
You'll be asked to answer 3 questions to give us a sense of your experience, skills, and potential. Don't worry if you don't tick every box - what really matters is what you can bring to the role and the team.

Panel Interview - W/C 3rd August
If your application is successful, you'll be invited to a panel interview with the Hiring Manager. This is a chance to:

• Share more about what you've done and what you're proud of
• We encourage you to ask questions about the role, the team, and the impact you could make. Interviews are a two-way conversation, and we recognise that any career move needs to feel right for you as well as for us.
• Show off your skills and behaviours in a relaxed, supportive setting

2nd Stage interview - W/C 10th August

If you need any adjustments during the recruitment process, just let us know - we're happy to support you.

We think this role is going to be popular and are expecting to attract high interest, so we strongly encourage early applications to avoid missing out. The deadline for applications will be Friday 24th July.

Here at RSPCA no two days are the same, as a Senior Marketing Manager we've added a short summary of what a typical day might look like, for a full insight please refer to the attached job description.

• Strategy & Planning: Own and execute the acquisition strategy across paid digital media—including Meta, Demand Gen, YouTube, Performance Max, Microsoft Audience Network, and PPC—as well as offline Door Drops and Inserts, driving continuous optimisation, diversification, and testing for future income growth.
• Team Leadership: Line-manage, coach, and develop your team. Focus on wellbeing and ensuring they have the training, tools, and processes required to succeed and grow in their role.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Maintain high-performing relationships with multiple external media-buying, creative, and partner agencies. Foster collaborative working with internal stakeholders across the RSPCA to share performance insights, avoid siloed working, and build high-performing donation journeys (e.g., via our website) to maximise long-term fundraising success.
• Budgeting & Forecasting: Manage a multi-million-pound donor acquisition income and expenditure budget, tracking campaign performance closely on a monthly basis. You will oversee financial tracking to deliver robust commentary to the Section Lead on your areas, ensuring our finance partners have clear, ongoing visibility of our overall financial position throughout the year.
• Compliance: Remain up-to-date with relevant trade bodies and legislation pertaining to direct marketing, fundraising, and data protection, ensuring all campaign activity remains fully compliant.

To excel in this role, you will be a collaborative, data-driven marketer with extensive experience in fundraising and complex multi-channel campaigns. Candidates applying for this role must have:

• Fundraising & Paid Digital Media Channel Expertise: In-depth specialist knowledge of direct response marketing within a fundraising environment, with proven experience managing high-performing multi-media acquisition campaigns. This must include deep expertise in paid digital media channels (such as Meta, Google/PPC, and YouTube). 
• Leadership Experience: Proven experience line-managing, coaching, and developing a marketing/fundraising team. You can demonstrate a patient, empathetic leadership style, with the ability to foster a supportive growth culture, protect team wellbeing, and manage workloads effectively within a fast-paced campaign environment.
• Insight & Execution: A highly analytical, data-driven mindset with the ability to translate complex marketing metrics and performance data into actionable strategic insights. You possess a proven track record of executing robust testing frameworks and continuous campaign optimisation across channels, to improve donation journeys and maximise long-term income growth.
• Core Values Alignment: All animals deserve our kindness, whether they live in homes, farms, labs, or in the wild. At the RSPCA we speak up for them, protect them, rescue and care for them. Your values should naturally align with this mission to create a better world for every animal, demonstrating a deep empathy for our cause.

Successful candidates for certain RSPCA roles will need to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK as we are unable to sponsor visas.

We want to ensure we do all we can to give you a positive candidate experience through our recruitment. Whilst we do try to give feedback where we can, sometimes due to receiving high levels of applications, this may not always be possible

Our vision is a world where all animals are respected and treated with kindness and compassion. Our purpose is to inspire everyone to create a better world for animals. We are building the future of a diverse Society, and our priority is to support animal welfare by finding people from all backgrounds who are committed  to our purpose.  For this reason we actively encourage a wide diversity of applications - in particular from members of minority ethnic groups, and people with disabilities - as these candidates are currently under-represented at the RSPCA. Your transferable skills & lived experiences could make you a valuable addition to our RSPCA Family! 

We're here to support you and encourage you to let us know if you need any adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. Please feel free to contact us at resourcingteam@rspca.org.uk or 0300 123 0685 so we can ensure the process works for you.