Senior Scriptwriter, Performance Marketing

Ethos Life; United States; Remote; USD 127,000 - 223,000; Full time

Job summary

Ethos Life is seeking a senior writer who can craft performance-driven copy for Direct Mail and paid social. You think like a journalist while selling life insurance, with a sharp eye for angles that earn a response.

This role centers on direct response, testing hypotheses, and collaborating with design and compliance to motivate action. You will own headlines, hooks, offers, and CTAs, write fast at volume, and use AI as a tool without sacrificing clarity.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in direct response or performance copy with a portfolio of Direct Mail and paid social.
• Journalistic mindset to find compelling angles that drive response.
• Strong DR principles: offer, headlines, hooks, urgency, and clear CTAs.
• Comfort with testing, metrics, CPA, and ROAS; iterate from results.
• Ability to write for older audiences (55+) with clarity and trust.
• Experience in regulated industries such as insurance/financial services preferred.

Responsibilities

• Concept and write copy for Direct Mail and inserts from brief to final delivery.
• Create headlines, body copy, and CTAs for paid social ads across platforms.
• Develop angles and messaging territories to make Ethos feel urgent.
• Write against test hypotheses and optimize based on results.
• Collaborate with designers and performance teams to scale.
• Ensure copy meets compliance while maintaining persuasiveness.
• Use AI in concepting and writing; generate ideas at scale while preserving quality.

Skills

8+ years DR copy

Journalistic mindset

Direct response techniques

AI tools fluency

Testing & metrics

55+ audience empathy

Job description

About Ethos

Ethos (Nasdaq: $LIFE) is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform, Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers, agents, and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant, accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers, making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought, sold, and underwritten.

About the role

Someone is standing at the mailbox, sorting bills from junk. Someone else is thumbing through their feed with half their attention. You get about three seconds with each of them, and the topic is life insurance. We're looking for the writer who wins those three seconds, then earns the rest of the read and the response.

This is the writer we're looking for. Someone who thinks like a journalist and converts like a direct response marketer. Someone obsessed with the question: what's the angle that makes this actually worth reading? This role is focused on performance channels, primarily Direct Mail and paid social statics and text-overlay ads, and is for someone who understands that a great headline isn't just a sentence, it's a strategy that has to earn its response rate.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Concept and write copy for Direct Mail, including envelope teasers, letters, postcards, self-mailers, and inserts, from brief through final delivery.
• Concept and write headlines, body copy, and CTAs for paid social statics and text-overlay ads across Meta and other social platforms, built to stop the scroll and drive action.
• Develop original angles, offers, and messaging territories that push beyond what's already running and find new ways to make Ethos feel urgent and worth people's attention.
• Write against clear test hypotheses (control vs. challenger, headline, offer, hook, CTA) and turn results into the next round of copy.
• Collaborate closely with designers, the Creative Director of Paid Social, and performance marketing to understand what's working and use those insights to inform what to write next.
• Partner with compliance and legal to make sure copy meets the requirements of a regulated industry without losing its persuasive edge.
• Use AI fluently as part of your concepting and writing process, generating ideas at volume, exploring new angles, and iterating fast without losing the quality filter.
• Write with a performance lens: every piece should have a clear hook, a compelling argument, and a specific reason to act now.

Qualifications and Skills:

• 8+ years of experience writing direct response or performance copy, with a strong portfolio that includes Direct Mail and paid social, with results you can speak to.
• You think like a journalist with a beat. You know how to find the angle that makes something genuinely interesting, and you're always scanning for it.
• Deep command of direct response principles: offer construction, headline and hook writing, long-form and short-form persuasion, urgency, and clear calls to action. You know the difference between copy that gets attention and copy that gets a response, and you can write both.
• Comfort with testing and metrics. You understand response rate, CPA, and ROAS, and you use test results to sharpen your work.
• Instinct for what motivates different audiences, across ages, income levels, and genders, to consider life insurance, and the ability to craft messages with the right tone, clarity, and trust for each segment, especially on a topic as sensitive as protecting your family.
• Comfort writing for older and mid-life audiences (for example, 55+), where clarity and trust carry extra weight.
• Ability to write tight, high-impact copy within the constraints of a static ad or a mail piece, where every word has to earn its place.
• Experience working in a regulated category such as insurance, financial services, or healthcare, and the ability to write persuasively within compliance guardrails. Preferred, not required.
• Fluent in AI tools for concepting, ideation, and writing. You use them to generate at scale and iterate fast, but your taste is the filter.
• Ability to generate a high volume of concepts without losing creative sharpness.
• Collaborative and fast-moving. You work well with designers, creative leads, and performance teams and don't need a lot of hand-holding to deliver.

#LI-Remote #LI-CM1

The US national base salary range for this full-time position is $127,000 - $223,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only and does not include applicable bonus, equity, or benefits.

You can find further details of our US benefits at https://www.ethoslife.com/careers/

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Pursuant to the SF Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrests and conviction records.

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