Marketing Automation & Lifecycle Specialist

USA TODAY Co.; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 85,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

USA TODAY Co., Inc. is seeking a technically curious, solutions-oriented marketing automation specialist who works across email, onsite experiences, audiences and activation.

You'll partner with Marketing Operations, MarTech and Analytics to design scalable activation programs and troubleshoot data and platform issues. You’ll build automated journeys, segment audiences, personalise communications and use AI to improve campaigns.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in marketing automation or related technical marketing discipline.
• Experience with enterprise email platforms and customer engagement tools.
• Ability to troubleshoot data issues and translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Strong QA, automation and workflows improvement mindset.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required.

Responsibilities

• Partner across teams to design scalable activation solutions.
• Build and optimize automated lifecycle programs across channels.
• Support email campaigns and journey execution with segmentation and personalization.
• Identify opportunities to improve targeting, QA and reporting.
• Develop QA and monitoring processes to ensure campaign health.
• Use AI to accelerate production and analysis.

Skills

Marketing automation

CRM platforms

Lifecycle campaigns

Audience segmentation

Data troubleshooting

QA processes

Automation workflows

Learning new tech

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

SQL

AMPscript

HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Looker

Tableau

Job description

|Current USA TODAY Co. Employees- Please ensure you are using our abbreviated process on the internal Careers site by logging into Dayforce through MyApps|

USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. We seek to inspire, inform, and connect audiences as a sustainable, growth focused media and digital marketing solutions company. Through our trusted brands, including the USA TODAY NETWORK, comprised of the national publication, USA TODAY, and local media organizations, including our network of local properties, in the United States, and Newsquest, a wholly-owned subsidiary operating in the United Kingdom, we provide essential journalism, local content, and digital experiences to audiences and businesses. We deliver high-quality, trusted content with a commitment to balanced, unbiased journalism, where and when consumers want to engage. Our digital marketing solutions brand, LocaliQ, supports small and medium-sized businesses with innovative digital marketing products and solutions. USA TODAY Co. open roles are featured on various external job boards. When applying to a position at USA TODAY Co., you should be completing an application on USA TODAY Co. Careers via Dayforce. Job postings directing you to complete an application on other external sites may not be valid. If you are a California resident, you acknowledge that by applying for a job with us, this California Job Applicant Privacy Notice will apply to our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information. To connect with us, visitPurposeServe as a hands-on technical and solutions partner across marketing activation, connecting platforms, data, audiences and workflows to make our marketing programs more automated, reliable, measurable and effective.

About the role

We're looking for a technically curious, solutions-oriented marketing automation specialist who likes figuring out how things work, why they aren't working and how they could work better. This role sits at the intersection of marketing operations, marketing technology, audiences, data and activation. You'll work across email, onsite experiences, audience targeting, campaign production and other marketing technologies to help connect the dots across our Consumer ecosystem. You'll be comfortable getting hands-on in platforms and troubleshooting technical issues, but this is not simply an execution or ticket-taking role. You'll proactively identify opportunities to improve targeting, workflows, QA, reporting and automation, and help turn business problems into practical technical solutions.

What you’ll do

• Partner across Marketing Operations, MarTech, Audience Strategy, Analytics, Product and Performance Marketing to design and improve scalable marketing activation solutions.
• Work hands-on across email, onsite experiences, audiences, campaign production and marketing automation, helping teams connect data, technology and execution.
• Build, launch and optimize automated and lifecycle programs supporting acquisition, onboarding, engagement, retention, pricing and customer communications.
• Support email campaign and journey execution, including segmentation, personalization, automation, audience logic, deployment and troubleshooting.
• Partner on audience strategy and activation, helping teams evaluate who we target, how frequently we reach them and how audience and campaign strategies could be improved.
• Identify and troubleshoot campaign, audience, data, platform and deployment issues, helping determine root causes and recommending solutions.
• Develop stronger QA, monitoring and validation processes to identify issues before and after campaigns and experiences are deployed.
• Identify repetitive or manual processes and build or recommend automation that improves speed, scalability and accuracy.
• Use AI and automation to accelerate campaign production, QA, analysis, documentation, troubleshooting and other marketing operations workflows.
• Proactively recommend new capabilities, platform improvements and better ways of working rather than waiting for requirements or tickets.

How we’ll measure success

• Reduction in manual work through automation and improved workflows
• Accuracy and reliability of campaign and experience deployments
• Ability to proactively identify, troubleshoot and resolve technical and operational issues
• Improvements in QA, monitoring and visibility into campaign health
• Quality of audience segmentation, personalization and activation
• Speed-to-market for campaigns and customer experiences
• Adoption and successful implementation of new marketing capabilities
• Ability to turn data and technical findings into actionable recommendations
• Contribution to acquisition, engagement, retention and revenue goals

What you’ll bring

• 3+ years of experience in marketing automation, marketing technology, lifecycle marketing, CRM, marketing operations or a related technical marketing discipline.
• Hands‑on experience working with one or more enterprise email, CRM, marketing automation or customer engagement platforms.
• Experience building or supporting automated campaigns, customer journeys, audience segmentation, personalization or triggered communications.
• Strong understanding of customer data, audience logic, segmentation and how data flows between marketing systems.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot technical and data-related problems, identify root causes and recommend practical solutions.
• Experience improving workflows or using automation to reduce manual execution.
• Strong QA instincts and attention to detail, with experience developing or improving processes that increase execution reliability.
• Comfort working with both technical and nontechnical partners and translating business needs into technical solutions.
• Curiosity and initiative. You look for problems and opportunities proactively rather than waiting for someone to tell you what to fix.
• Ability to learn unfamiliar technologies and platforms quickly.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

Nice to have

• Hands‑on experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Email Studio or Contact Builder
• SQL, AMPscript, HTML/CSS, JavaScript or similar technical skills
• Experience with Looker, Tableau or similar reporting and visualization tools
• Experience creating dashboards or conducting analysis specifically to identify anomalies, uncover issues or recommend optimization opportunities
• Experience with onsite messaging, personalization or digital experience platforms
• Experience applying AI to marketing operations, automation, QA, analysis or technical workflows
• Lifecycle marketing experience in subscription, media or ecommerce

The annualized base salary for this role will range between $85,000 and $100,000. Variable incentive compensation, including commissions, is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, education level, location, and union representation, if applicable

#LI-REMOTE#LI-NR2

USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a proud equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a diverse workforce. As such, we will consider all qualified applicants for employment and do not discriminate in connection with employment decisions on the basis of an applicant or employee's race, color, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, citizenship status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, marital status, personal appearance (including height and weight), sexual orientation, family responsibilities, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy status (including childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), education, genetic characteristics or information, political affiliation, military or veteran status or other classifications protected by applicable federal, state and local laws in the jurisdictions where USA TODAY Co. employs employees. In addition, USA TODAY Co., Inc. will provide applicants who require a reasonable accommodation, as a result of an applicant's disability or religion, to complete this employment application and/or any other process in connection with an individuals' application for employment with USA TODAY Co., Inc. Applicants must be authorized to work in the applicable location. Applications from outside these regions will be removed from our system after submission.