Lifecycle Marketing Manager

Helcim Inc.; Calgary; On-site; CAD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Helcim Inc. in Calgary is seeking a senior lifecycle marketer who owns activation, retention, and adoption programs end-to-end. You will design segmentation, testing infrastructure, and a durable lifecycle framework across channels to drive merchants from signup to first live transaction.

You will lead the technical backbone for segmentation, own governance of deliverability, and partner with Product, Data, Engineering, and Success to ship lifecycle programs that move the business forward.

Qualifications

• 6–9+ years in lifecycle marketing with activation/retention focus.
• Hands-on experience with modern lifecycle platforms (Customer.io, Braze, Iterable).
• Strong capabilities in segmentation, journey design, and multi-channel messaging.
• Independence in strategy and execution with minimal direction.

Responsibilities

• Define strategy, segmentation, and test roadmap to close activation gap.
• Build lifecycle fundamentals: measurement, journeys, testing practices, documentation.
• Own the merchant referral program end-to-end and drive cross-functional alignment.
• Architect multi-channel journeys (email, in-app, SMS) from sign-up to first live transaction.

Skills

Lifecycle marketing

A/B testing

Segmentation

SQL basics

Email marketing

Cross-functional collaboration

Copywriting

Tools

Customer.io

Braze

Iterable

Job description

Helcim exists because SMBs shouldn't have to give up their margin just because the payments industry made itself complicated. When merchants want a fairer deal, they find Helcim - but switching providers takes time and bandwidth most merchants don't have. The gap between finding Helcim and actually processing a first transaction requires a guiding hand - and lifecycle marketing is one of the most important levers we have for closing it. This role owns figuring out which levers actually move that gap, and building the systematic testing to prove it - not assuming the answer going in.

This is a senior, hands-on individual contributor role - no direct reports, full ownership of the work. Sitting on our growth marketing team, you'll be the subject-matter expert lifecycle marketing runs through: the person who decides what "good" looks like, the person who builds the segmentation and testing infrastructure, and who is trusted to make calls independently, including the technical ones. This isn't a role for executing inside someone else's framework, it's a role to build one.

What Success Looks Like In This Role

• Funnel Impact: Measurable, sustained improvement in the signed-up-to-actively-processing conversion rate, tied directly to your programs.
• Testing Culture: A live, compounding test roadmap - A/B, offers, win-backs - with clean attribution and honest reads.
• Infrastructure: Lifecycle fundamentals (triggers, segmentation, documentation, QA) built and durable enough for others to build on.
• Referral Program: A merchant referral program that's owned, measured, and improving.
• Cross-Functional Trust: Lifecycle insight shaping conversations well beyond your direct scope.

Why This Might Be the Right Fit

• You'd rather build the fundamentals than inherit someone else's. An unfinished system is a reason to dig in, not a red flag.
• You want real ownership - strategy and execution both - without needing a team to get things done.
• You test everything, including your own assumptions.
• You can go deep into the technical weeds - triggers, data, deliverability - and still write a merchant-facing email that doesn't read like it came from engineering.
• You care about the outcome for the merchant, not the personal credit for getting there.

• 6-9+ years in lifecycle marketing, ideally having owned an activation, retention, or adoption funnel from strategy through execution.
• Deep hands-on experience in a modern lifecycle/messaging platform - Customer.io, Braze, or Iterable. This is a B2C-style lifecycle skillset, not a marketing-ops or RevOps background.
• You are a marketer above all things, someone who lives in the tension between art and science, who obsesses over customers, and can build things that make a real connection.
• Strong, independent instincts on messaging and copy. You don't need a finished brief or a copywriter to move.
• Real fluency in behavioral segmentation, journey architecture, and multi-channel design.
• Comfortable owning the technical side of the job - triggers, event-based logic, data validation, enough SQL (or equivalent) to self-serve on answers.
• A genuine testing mindset. You default to "let's test it" over "let's guess," and you know the traps - attribution, cohort size, false reads - well enough to avoid them.
• A systems thinker who understands how the work fits into the broader business, and resists building anything in a silo.
• AI-native by default - you have a utilitarian approach to the use and application of AI, bringing them into your workflows in ways that materially improve your output.
• Curious by nature. If there's one trait that matters most here, it's this one.

Bonus Points

• Experience marketing financial technology or payments products to small businesses.
• Experience navigating sending infrastructure and deliverability conversations directly with engineering.
• Experience standing up a lifecycle function from scratch, or migrating/consolidating lifecycle platforms.

Not checking every box? Please apply anyway! We know that candidates have different experiences that may make them a great fit for this position and for Helcim. We believe that diversity and having an inclusive culture is not only the right thing, but key to our long-term success. Diversity brings more experience, view-points, knowledge and insight about our future. We also want to provide an accessible interview process, so if there’s any accommodations that would make your experience more comfortable, please let us know.

Here are the things you’ll own day to day:

Lifecycle Strategy & Business Impact

• Play a central role in closing the gap between signed-up and actively processing - investigate, test, and prove out which levers actually move that number, working across teams to improve activation.
• Set the strategy, segmentation approach, and test roadmap that gets merchants across that gap, plus the adoption, retention, and win-back work that follows once they're live.
• Build lifecycle fundamentals from the ground up where they don't exist yet: measurement, journey architecture, testing practices, documentation.
• Own the merchant referral program end to end.

Journey Design & Execution

• Architect and iterate multi-channel journeys - email, in-app, SMS - that get merchants from sign-up to first live transaction, and keep them moving toward deeper product usage after that.
• Own the technical backbone that makes real segmentation possible: triggers, event data, entry/exit logic - not just the campaign layer sitting on top. This is infrastructure work, not one-off builds - decisions here shape how the function operates long after you make them.
• Keep journeys clean as customer data scales. No orphaned logic, no journeys nobody remembers building.

Testing & Experimentation

• Run a real, always-on testing program — A/B tests, offers, win-back mechanics — with clean controls and honest reads.
• Know the difference between what's testable and what's just noise. Size a cohort properly before you commit to a read.
• Feed every result into the next test. The roadmap should compound, not repeat itself.

Data & Technical Fluency

• Be fluent enough in the data layer to pull your own numbers, write clear data requirements, and validate your own work rather than waiting on a data team.
• Partner directly with engineering on sending infrastructure — safe IPs, deliverability, technical constraints — and hold that conversation independently.
• Understand the merchant at a granular level: behavior, lifecycle stage, what actually drives them to act.

Copy & Craft

• Write strong copy yourself and hold the quality bar from brief to launch. You shouldn't need a copywriter for every send.
• Use AI tools to speed up copy development, analysis, and experimentation — and bring repeatable patterns back to the team.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with Product, Data, Engineering, Support, Sales, PMM, Success, and Risk to turn business priorities into lifecycle programs that actually ship.
• Build alignment with teams already working in activation and lifecycle-adjacent territory today - this role has to earn trust and coordinate, not assume it has the lane to itself.
• Bring lifecycle insight into conversations about onboarding, product, and growth strategy - your input isn't confined to your own roadmap.
• Maintain governance standards for compliance, frequency, and deliverability across everything you own.