We began working with nutritional cat food brand, Republic of Cats, when the business was looking for specialist support on a business-critical marketing appointment. As their first internal performance marketing hire, they needed a recruitment partner with deep expertise in performance marketing and first-time hires within high-growth DTC businesses.
Launched in 2021 under the Tails.com brand, Republic of Cats recently started life on their own following a management buy out. As the business rebuilt its team and operating structure, leadership identified the need to strengthen key growth functions to support long-term profitability and scalability.
One of the most important priorities was taking greater ownership of customer acquisition and performance marketing activities that were initially managed by an agency.
The business needed to make its first dedicated performance marketing hire – a role that would play a critical part in shaping future growth. Republic of Cats needed someone capable of:
The challenge was compounded by the niche skillset required, the importance of the appointment, and a location that made the search market particularly constrained.
Given the strategic importance of the hire, Republic of Cats wanted to work with a specialist recruitment partner rather than manage the search internally. They needed access to a highly targeted network of performance marketing professionals and guidance on what “good” looked like for a first-time hire in a DTC business.
3Search was selected because of our specialist knowledge of the growth marketing landscape, our track record delivering hard-to-fill marketing searches, and a referral from an existing contact who trusted our approach and expertise.
We delivered the assignment as a retained search, enabling a focused and highly targeted approach to the market.
Working closely with key stakeholders, we designed a search strategy centred on identifying candidates with a rare combination of hands-on performance marketing expertise, commercial acumen, and experience managing agency relationships.
The search, led by Laura McManus, delivered:
The entire assignment was completed in under four weeks.
3Search successfully placed a Performance Marketing Manager – the first internal performance marketing hire for Republic of Cats.
The successful candidate combined strong technical performance marketing expertise with valuable agency-side experience, giving them the ability to support the future transition of marketing channels in-house and help build a scalable acquisition function.
Michael and Laura were absolutely fantastic. They made the onboarding process and requirements gathering incredibly smooth and efficient, which resulted in us finding the perfect candidate within just 30 days of kicking off the search. I can't recommend them highly enough to anyone looking to hire for growth marketing roles. Their professionalism, speed, and understanding of our needs made the entire recruitment process seamless.
Candidate Thought Count: 1
Laura was fantastic throughout the entire hiring process. She was supportive, communicative and always kept me updated at every stage. She made the whole experience smooth and enjoyable, and I really appreciated her encouragement and guidance. Thank you, Laura!Performance Marketing Manager
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