Marketing Operators Salt and Stone’s Ari Murray on Sessions, Scent & Scaling DTC
21 snips
Mar 24, 2026 Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone and former Chief Growth Officer at Sharma Brands, brings growth and creative strategy chops from beauty and body brands. She talks agency vs in-house career moves and when to hire partners. She explains using discovery sets instead of discounts, session growth as a daily obsession, and how to test and scale channels without half-committing.
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In-House Then Agency Then In-House Accelerates Skill
- The ideal career flow is in-house to agency back to in-house for deeper empathy and faster learning.
- Working inside a brand first teaches the stakes, then agency breadth accelerates skill growth before returning to lead one brand.
Running Cyber For Thirty Brands Taught Operational Rigor
- Ari's agency experience let her run the entire cyber season checklist for ~30 brands simultaneously.
- That discipline helped her hit the ground running at Salt and Stone during Black Friday with systems and ad volume planning.
Use Agencies As Specialists And Hold The Keys
- Use specialized agencies but manage them tightly and keep brand ownership internal.
- Prefer output retainers with performance incentives and run multiple creative agencies so no single partner holds all context.