Business Development Associate

Pillar4 Media; Charlotte (NC); On-site; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k)

Wellness stipend

Cell phone reimbursement

Job summary

Pillar4 Media is seeking a Business Development Associate to join our Commerce Marketplace team in Charlotte, NC. You will own partner outreach, identify growth opportunities, and help bring new brands and categories to market while building mutually beneficial partnerships.

You'll work across strategy, revenue, and analytics, collaborating with editorial, paid media, and product teams to structure deals, model economics, and drive incremental growth for Pillar4's portfolio.

Qualifications

• 1+ years of relevant experience in business development or partnerships.
• Ability to identify and develop new partner or business opportunities.
• Strong commercial instincts and incremental value understanding.
• Analytical and comfortable with traffic, revenue, and forecasts.

Responsibilities

• Identify and qualify new brand, partner, and marketplace opportunities.
• Develop business cases for partnerships and categories.
• Lead outbound outreach from initial contact through launch.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to operationalize partnerships.
• Monitor performance and optimize growth opportunities.

Skills

Business Development

Partnerships

Performance Marketing

Analytics

Negotiation

CRM Tools

Lead Generation

Tools

CRM platforms

Google Sheets

Excel

Power BI

Job description

The Opportunity

Pillar4 Media is seeking a Business Development Associate to join our growing Commerce Marketplace team.

This role sits at the intersection of business development, strategic partnerships, category expansion, and performance marketing. You will help Pillar4 identify, develop, and commercialize new opportunities across our portfolio; whether that means establishing a relationship with a high-potential brand, expanding an existing partnership, entering an entirely new consumer category, or developing a new commercial model.

You will own and grow relationships with leading brands across health, wellness, sleep, aging, fitness, nutrition, and adjacent consumer categories, including many Fortune 500 companies. At the same time, you will research emerging markets, identify high-potential prospects, build business cases, structure partnership opportunities, and help bring new initiatives from concept through launch and optimization.

This is a highly cross-functional and commercially oriented role. The ideal candidate is comfortable moving between relationship management, outbound business development, quantitative analysis, deal creation, and execution and is excited by the opportunity to help build the next meaningful growth engine for Pillar4.

Pillar4's mission is to help people live healthier lives through access to trusted resources, in-depth product reviews, and supportive communities. Our vision is to build the #1 content and commerce engine connecting consumers directly with the best brands across the pillars of health and wellness.

What You'll Be Doing

Business Development & Category Expansion

• Identify, research, source, and qualify new brand, partner, and marketplace opportunities that improve performance and/or unlock net-new categories of business.
• Evaluate new markets and categories based on consumer demand, competitive dynamics, monetization potential, brand landscape, and Pillar4's ability to win.
• Research high-potential brands, publishers, affiliate programs, competitors, and other prospective partners across Pillar4's core and adjacent verticals.
• Conduct thoughtful outbound outreach and manage conversations with prospective partners from initial contact through pitch, negotiation, and launch.
• Develop business cases for new partnership and category opportunities, including projected revenue, traffic, conversion, compensation, and broader commercial impact.
• Identify opportunities to expand Pillar4's addressable audience and create demand beyond existing organic search and affiliate commerce channels.
• Stay informed on industry trends, emerging brands, new business models, and market opportunities through industry research, newsletters, conferences, competitive intelligence, and other sources.

Brand Partnerships & Deal Management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with leading brands across health, wellness, sleep, aging, and adjacent consumer categories.
• Serve as a client‑facing point of contact, developing a strong understanding of partner objectives, priorities, and opportunities for growth.
• Create compelling partnership proposals, pitch materials, and prospect packages tailored to both partner objectives and Pillar4's commercial goals.
• Structure commercial terms and activation concepts that create meaningful incremental value for both Pillar4 and its partners.
• Support negotiations and maintain partnership opportunities from initial conversation through execution and ongoing optimization.
• Identify opportunities to expand existing partnerships across editorial content, product testing, audience, paid media, paid social, CRO, lead generation, and other performance channels.
• Develop trusted, long‑term partner relationships while continuously looking for new ways to grow the business together.

Analytics & Commercial Strategy

• Analyze partner, category, traffic, SEO, conversion, and revenue data to identify growth opportunities and prioritize business development efforts.
• Build financial models and opportunity‑sizing analyses to estimate the potential impact of proposed partnerships, categories, and commercial structures.
• Model volume and revenue opportunity based on anticipated compensation, conversion performance, traffic, and other relevant benchmarks.
• Use data to inform negotiations and structure commercially meaningful and incremental deals.
• Monitor partner and category performance and proactively recommend tests, optimizations, and new growth opportunities.
• Develop a strong understanding of the performance metrics, economics, and commercial drivers behind Pillar4's commerce business.
• Translate quantitative analysis into clear recommendations for both internal stakeholders and external partners.

Pipeline Management & Prospecting

• Build and maintain a well‑organized pipeline of prospective and existing brand partners.
• Maintain accurate prospect information, engagement status, next steps, commercial opportunity, and other relevant business metrics.
• Prioritize opportunities based on strategic fit, revenue potential, likelihood to close, and expected business impact.
• Leverage CRM, competitive intelligence, affiliate, SEO, and other research tools to identify and track potential opportunities.
• Maintain consistent follow‑up and ownership across multiple active prospects, partnerships, and internal workstreams.

Cross‑Functional Execution

• Partner closely with Revenue Operations and Marketing Operations to operationalize new partnerships and maintain accurate pipeline, forecasting, and performance reporting.
• Collaborate with Editorial and Central Testing teams to identify opportunities for new brands, products, content, and categories.
• Work with Paid Media and Paid Social teams to develop and evaluate partnership opportunities beyond traditional organic commerce.
• Partner with SEO and Content teams to understand audience demand, competitive positioning, and marketplace expansion opportunities.
• Coordinate with Finance & Accounting on deal economics, forecasting, invoicing, and other commercial requirements.
• Contribute to initiatives involving conversion rate optimization, lead generation, audience development, and full‑funnel performance.
• Drive opportunities forward across multiple stakeholders, maintaining clear ownership, communication, and follow‑through from initial concept through launch and ongoing optimization.

What You Bring

• 1+ years of relevant experience in business development, partnerships, consulting, performance marketing, affiliate commerce, digital media, or a related field.
• Demonstrated ability to identify, source, qualify, and develop new partner or business opportunities.
• Strong commercial instincts and an ability to understand what makes a partnership strategically and financially incremental.
• Highly analytical and comfortable working with traffic, revenue, conversion rates, forecasts, unit economics, and other quantitative performance metrics.
• Experience developing partnership proposals, pitch materials, financial analyses, or business cases.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to craft effective outbound communication and confidently interact with external partners and internal stakeholders.
• Strong ownership mentality, judgment, organization, and follow‑through.
• Ability to manage a pipeline of opportunities while balancing multiple active partner relationships, projects, and competing priorities.
• Strong spreadsheet skills and comfort using tools such as Google Sheets, Excel, CRM platforms, and other analytical or reporting tools.
• Resourceful, intellectually curious, and motivated to learn new industries, tools, business models, and performance channels.
• Comfortable operating in a fast‑moving, cross‑functional environment where opportunities may require building the playbook rather than following one.
• Competitive drive and an entrepreneurial mindset with a desire to continuously identify and pursue new opportunities.

Nice to Have

• Experience in digital media, affiliate commerce, publishing, consumer marketplaces, or performance marketing.
• Experience working directly with large consumer brands, particularly across health, wellness, sleep, aging, fitness, nutrition, or related categories.
• Familiarity with paid search, paid social, affiliate marketing, SEO, content commerce, CRO, lead generation, or other performance acquisition channels.
• Experience building financial models or evaluating the unit economics of new business opportunities.
• Experience with SQL and/or Power BI.

What We Look For

• Openness to feedback and collaboration: You'll work closely with people across multiple teams and should be comfortable giving, receiving, and acting on feedback.
• Strong communication: You'll need to build relationships with external partners, communicate clearly with internal stakeholders, and maintain alignment across cross‑functional teams.
• Entrepreneurial spirit: We value people who are driven, agile, goal‑oriented, resourceful, and excited by the opportunity to solve problems without an established playbook.
• Analytical curiosity: You should naturally want to understand why something is performing the way it is and use data to determine what to do next.
• Ownership: We expect people to take responsibility for driving opportunities forward, identifying obstacles, and following through on commitments.
• Alignment with Pillar4's culture: We live by our values and expect our team to do the same:
  • Act with Focus
  • Get After It
  • Grow Without Limits
  • Build the Team
  • Obsess Over Customers
  • Commit to Service

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means building a healthy pipeline of high‑quality opportunities, developing trusted relationships with brand partners, and turning those opportunities into measurable incremental growth for Pillar4.

You’ll become someone who can move comfortably from identifying an opportunity to analyzing its potential, building the business case, pitching the partner, coordinating internal execution, and measuring the result.

Most importantly, you won't simply manage the partnerships and categories that already exist. You'll consistently help identify and develop the next brand, deal, category, audience, or commercial model that can become a meaningful new growth engine for the business.

Why You Should Join Us

• Results: Pillar4 has built a market‑leading digital media business in sleep health and continues to expand across fitness, nutrition, mental health, aging, and other high‑consideration consumer categories.
• Stability: We are privately owned, have a long‑term investment horizon, and have significant capital available to invest in continued growth.
• Exposure: You’ll have a front‑row seat to growing a business and work alongside teammates with experience building and selling companies, managing large teams, and partnering with Fortune 500 brands.
• Market opportunity: Health and wellness represents a massive and rapidly evolving consumer market, creating significant opportunities for new brands, categories, audiences, and business models.
• Career growth: There is no artificial cap on growth, responsibility, and the opportunity to put your stamp on meaningful projects. Demonstrate impact and you'll be given opportunities to take on more.
• Learning: You’ll work alongside subject matter experts across business development, content, SEO, product testing, paid media, analytics, creative, finance, and more.
• Impact: Team members have opportunities to participate in company initiatives supporting organizations such as Beds for Kids and The Green Chair Project and contribute to the needs of our local communities.
• Culture: We maintain a high bar for performance while building a team that enjoys working together and making the work fun.

The Package

Base salary and performance‑based bonus commensurate with experience.

Pillar4 offers competitive benefits, including health insurance, a 401(k), a monthly wellness stipend that can be used toward services such as house cleaning, gym memberships, grocery delivery, or massages, and cell phone reimbursement.

Who We Are

Launched in 2017, Pillar4 Media operates a portfolio of market‑leading digital brands that help consumers make better purchasing decisions.

We combine trusted editorial content, rigorous product testing, performance marketing, and deep brand partnerships to connect consumers with products and services that improve their lives. Our commerce business works with leading brands and publishing partners to build high‑performing consumer experiences and sustainable, performance‑driven partnerships.

Our approach extends beyond traditional affiliate relationships. We collaborate across content, media, audience, testing, and performance channels to create demand and drive measurable growth.

• Mattress Advisor
• Mattress Nerd
• Sleepopolis
• Mattress Clarity
• The Fit House
• Garage Gym Reviews
• Sleepyti.me
• Sleep Advisor
• BarBend
• Breaking Muscle
• Morning Chalk Up
• Partnerships with leading consumer brands and media companies

All applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, gender identity, or any other protected or discriminatory factor. Please note that Pillar4 does not provide immigration sponsorship for this role. All offers are subject to a background check.

At this time, Pillar4 will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (i.e. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, E-2, E-3, L-1 and O-1, or any EADs or other forms of work authorization that require immigration support from an employer).

All offers are subject to a background check.

All offers are subject to a background check.