Senior Manager, Experimentation Optimization

nus; United States; On-site; USD 78,000 - 106,000; Full time

Job summary

National University is seeking a Senior Manager, Experimentation & Optimization to lead CRO and experimentation for the university's website and digital experiences. This strategic, data-driven role defines and executes a CRO roadmap, identifies opportunities, and improves user experiences to boost inquiry, application, and enrollment conversions through testing and optimization.

You will own the experimentation lifecycle, partner with Marketing, Enrollment, and Digital Analytics, and establish

Responsibilities

• Own the CRO and experimentation roadmap for NU's website and Digital experiences
• Define, execute, and optimize data-driven testing and optimization strategies that improve user experience, engagement, conversion, and content relevance across prospect-facing web experiences
• Own website experimentation roadmap, related platform strategy, and associated vendor/partner relationships
• Establish testing SLAs, QA standards, governance, and deployment practices that prevent conflicts across concurrent tests, campaigns, and releases
• Maintain a repository of hypotheses, test results, learnings, optimization opportunities, and best practices that accelerate knowledge sharing and continuous improvement
• Own the complete experimentation lifecycle: opportunity identification, hypothesis development, prioritization, test design, implementation, QA, launch, measurement, readout, and production rollout of winners
• Proactively source the testing pipeline from behavioral analytics, session data, UX research, and website funnel diagnostics rather than operating as a request-driven queue
• Design and run A/B, multivariate, and multi-page experiments, ensuring appropriate sample sizing, run length, and statistical significance before a result is acted on
• Optimize information architecture, content presentation, navigation, page experience, and calls-to-action using customer insight and behavioral data
• Translate experimentation outcomes into optimization recommendations that inform future website roadmaps, experience strategy, and investment priorities
• Champion continuous optimization of program discovery across web properties, including on-site search, filters, navigation, program finders, and recommendation surfaces
• Develop targeted website experience strategies using established audience segments, intent signals, engagement patterns, lifecycle stage, and experimentation insights to improve relevance, engagement, and conversion
• Develop and optimize personalized website experiences that deliver relevant messaging, content, navigation, and recommendations based on audience needs, behavioral insights, and lifecycle stage
• Partner with Marketing, Enrollment, and Digital Analytics to leverage audience segments, first-party customer data, and behavioral insights to support website personalization and optimization initiatives
• Identify opportunities to apply AI-assisted optimization, predictive insights, and behavioral decisioning to improve relevance, engagement, and conversion outcomes
• Participate and input into Journey Operations that impact Prospect Student experience in partnership with IT, Accounts, Brand and Product teams
• Own measurement best practices, quarterly meta-analysis, CRO Playbook, dashboards, and the KPI framework supporting CRO, experimentation, and website personalization efforts
• Define, monitor, and communicate KPIs including experimentation velocity, win rate, conversion improvement, inquiry conversion, application progression, website conversion, journey completion, personalization effectiveness, and incremental business impact
• Establish and maintain a regular reporting cadence, including weekly program status, monthly CRO performance readouts, and quarterly roadmap and business-impact reviews for senior leadership
• Build executive dashboards and communicate test results, KPI trends, roadmap progress, and strategic recommendations to the Chief Marketing Officer and senior stakeholders
• Partner with the Digital Analytics team to establish analytical requirements, measurement plans, and dashboard reporting for UX
• Measure the maturity of National University's experimentation program and continuously evolve optimization capabilities through data-driven insight
• Evaluate emerging trends in AI, personalization, experimentati

Job description

Compensation Range:

Annual Salary: $78,496.00 - $105,974.00

Position Summary

The Senior Manager, Experimentation & Optimization leads conversion rate optimization (CRO) and experimentation for National University's website and Digital experiences. This is a strategic, data-driven role responsible for defining and executing the CRO roadmap, proactively identifying optimization opportunities, and improving website experiences based on prospective student behavior, user insights, performance data, and lifecycle stage. The primary goal is to increase inquiry, application, and enrollment conversion through data-informed testing, continuous optimization, and an improved user experience.

Essential Functions

CRO Strategy & Roadmap

• Own the CRO and experimentation roadmap for NU's website and Digital experiences
• including opportunity identification, intake, prioritization, sequencing and the testing calendar.
• Define, execute, and continuously optimize data-driven testing and optimization strategies that improve user experience, engagement, conversion, and content relevance across prospect-facing web experiences.
• Own website experimentation roadmap, related platform strategy, and associated vendor/partner relationships.
• Establish testing SLAs, QA standards, governance, and deployment practices that prevent conflicts across concurrent tests, campaigns, and releases.
• Maintain a repository of hypotheses, test results, learnings, optimization opportunities, and best practices that accelerate knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.

Experimentation & Proactive A/B Testing

• Own the complete experimentation lifecycle: opportunity identification, hypothesis development, prioritization, test design, implementation, QA, launch, measurement, readout, and production rollout of winners.
• Proactively source the testing pipeline from behavioral analytics, session data, UX research, and website funnel diagnostics rather than operating as a request-driven queue.
• Design and run A/B, multivariate, and multi-page experiments, ensuring appropriate sample sizing, run length, and statistical significance before a result is acted on.
• Optimize information architecture, content presentation, navigation, page experience, and calls-to-action using customer insight and behavioral data.
• Translate experimentation outcomes into optimization recommendations that inform future website roadmaps, experience strategy, and investment priorities.

Journey Discovery and Experience Optimization

• Analyze the end-to-end prospective student journey to identify friction, abandonment, and conversion opportunities using behavioral analytics, session replay, UX research, and customer feedback.
• Champion continuous optimization of program discovery across web properties, including on-site search, filters, navigation, program finders, and recommendation surfaces.
• Develop targeted website experience strategies using established audience segments, intent signals, engagement patterns, lifecycle stage, and experimentation insights to improve relevance, engagement, and conversion.
• Develop and optimize personalized website experiences that deliver relevant messaging, content, navigation, and recommendations based on audience needs, behavioral insights, and lifecycle stage.
• Partner with Marketing, Enrollment, and Digital Analytics to leverage audience segments, first-party customer data, and behavioral insights to support website personalization and optimization initiatives.
• Identify opportunities to apply AI-assisted optimization, predictive insights, and behavioral decisioning to improve relevance, engagement, and conversion outcomes.
• Participate and input into Journey Operations that impact Prospect Student experience in partnership with IT, Accounts, Brand and Product teams.

Measurement, KPIs & Reporting Cadence

• Own measurement best practices, quarterly meta-analysis, CRO Playbook, dashboards, and the KPI framework supporting CRO, experimentation, and website personalization efforts.
• Define, monitor, and communicate KPIs including experimentation velocity, win rate, conversion improvement, inquiry conversion, application progression, website conversion, journey completion, personalization effectiveness, and incremental business impact.
• Establish and maintain a regular reporting cadence, including weekly program status, monthly CRO performance readouts, and quarterly roadmap and business-impact reviews for senior leadership.
• Build executive dashboards and communicate test results, KPI trends, roadmap progress, and strategic recommendations to the Chief Marketing Officer and senior stakeholders.
• Partner with the Digital Analytics team to establish analytical requirements, measurement plans, and dashboard reporting for UX.
• Measure the maturity of National University's experimentation program and continuously evolve optimization capabilities through data-driven insight.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

Evaluate emerging trends in AI, personalization, experimentati