1 big thing: Axios is hiring a strategic, data-driven lifecycle leader to drive the next phase of growth, engagement, and retention across Axios’ newsletter and businesses. This leader will own and evolve the end-to-end reader journey, from onboarding through retention—across Axios Local and national news products.
Why it matters: Axios is consolidating its audience functions into a unified, data-driven growth engine and lifecycle marketing is at the center of that transformation. You'll own the promotional layer that surrounds and supports the reader experience, with a mandate to replace manual, campaign-by-campaign execution with scalable, AI-enabled infrastructure across our national and local products.
This is a high-visibility, high-autonomy role for a builder who partners across Product, Data, Editorial, and Revenue to make every promotional touchpoint personalized, measurable, and tied to real business outcomes.
What you’ll do:
- Own end-to-end lifecycle strategy and execution across acquisition, onboarding, engagement, churn, retention, and win-back.
- Lead CRM/ESP strategy and innovation, including optimization, vendor management, and potential migrations – ensuring our platforms are scalable and future-ready.
- Build automated, behaviorally-driven lifecycle journeys and ad hoc campaigns across email, SMS, and emerging channels.
- Lead AI integration across lifecycle workflows, including propensity modeling for churn prediction, dynamic content personalization, send-time optimization, and generative copy testing
- Design and execute structured experimentation frameworks that drive measurable gains in retention and LTV.
- Develop roadmap(s) so stakeholders have a clear sense of the work that’s being done to improve each stage of the funnel.
- Work with Data to strengthen segmentation, tracking, attribution, and reporting, translating insights into executive-ready narratives with clear recommendations.
- Collaborate with Product, Editorial, Membership, and Events to embed lifecycle thinking across the business.
- Project manage newsletter launches, rebrands, and growth initiatives across Local and national products.
- Maintain a pulse on growth trends and optimize initiatives to ensure positive net subscriber gains.
- Identify and advocate for martech infrastructure needs, including AI-powered tools, to scale lifecycle impact, leading adoption of new tools.
- Maintain governance, compliance, accessibility, and suppression standards across campaigns.
- Serve as the internal subject-matter expert on lifecycle marketing, elevating performance across the organization.
Who you are:
- 6–10+ years in lifecycle, CRM, retention, and/or growth marketing
- Deeply fluent in ESPs and marketing automation platforms (Sailthru, Braze, Iterable, or equivalent)
- Data-driven and experimentation-oriented, with a track record of driving measurable impact
- Experienced with visualization tools (Sigma, Looker, Tableau, GA4) and working alongside data science and engineering teams
- Experience leading martech migrations from one provider to another
- Skilled with CDPs (Segment) for unified customer views, segmentation, and journey building, helping to shape Axios’ first party data strategy
- An influencer with cross-functional stakeholders and shaping roadmap priorities
- A strategic operator who owns outcomes—not just campaigns
- Energized by building automated systems that scale
- Familiar with front-end technologies including HTML/CSS/Javascript
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity across a matrixed organization
- Balances creative thinking with disciplined experimentation and measurable ROI
- Mission-driven and motivated to support the future of local and independent journalism
Bonus points for:
- Experience in media, subscription, or DTC environments
- Experience embedding AI into lifecycle workflows (e.g., personalization, dynamic journeys, churn detection, propensity scoring for cross-sell and upsell, send time optimization, content recommendations, generative email copy, frequency capping)
Starting salary for this role is in the range of $95,000 - $115,000 and is dependent on numerous factors, including but not limited to location, work experience, and skills. This range does not include other compensation benefits. Axios' compensation philosophy takes into account the cost of labor differentials across the country. Because this is a remote-optional job posting, this salary range takes into account all possible locations within the United States, but candidates will only be eligible for the salary range for their location.
Axios is committed to embracing artificial intelligence as a core part of how we work. All team members are expected to actively develop AI literacy and use AI tools to enhance their productivity, creativity, and efficiency. We invest in ongoing learning to ensure every employee is equipped to responsibly and effectively integrate AI into their daily workflows.
What Axios brings to the table besides salary:
- 401(k) with employer match
- Robust PPO and High Deductible health insurance options on the Blue Cross Blue Shield network
- Employer Health Savings Account (HSA) contribution for the high deductible health plan option
- Dental and vision coverage
- Primary caregiver 12-week paid leave
- Generous vacation policy, plus holidays
- One mental health day per quarter
- Annual learning and development stipend
- $100 monthly work-from-home stipend
- Tele-mental health services through Headspace
- OneMedical membership, including telehealth services
- Personal health advocacy resources through HealthAdvocate
- Inclusive fertility, hormonal health, and family-forming benefits through Carrot Fertility
- Access to the Axios “Family Fund”, which was created to allow employees to request financial support when facing financial hardship or emergencies
- Increased work flexibility for parents and caretakers
- Virtual company-sponsored social events
- A strong and positive work environment
- A commitment to an open, inclusive, and diverse work culture
Equal Opportunity Employer Statement
Axios is an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.
This policy applies to all employment practices within our organization, including hiring, recruiting, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, leave of absence, compensation, benefits, training, and apprenticeship. Axios makes hiring decisions based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.
