Senior Marketing Strategist, Games, Entertainment & Subscriptions

|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.     To connect with us, visit www.usatodayco.com

USA TODAY PLAY is our casual entertainment platform (crosswords, puzzles, comics, horoscopes, quizzes, and more) built on a strong legacy foundation and positioned to become a major subscription revenue driver for the USA TODAY Network. We're in the early stages of a significant shift toward subscription economics, and this role sits at the center of that transformation.

We're looking for a Senior Marketing Strategist who can own the full subscriber lifecycle for PLAY, from anonymous visitor through engaged, retained subscriber. You'll build the strategic framework and hands-on programs that grow the funnel, create meaningful conversion pressure, drive habitual engagement, and reduce churn. This is not a campaign execution role. You'll be expected to think in systems and programs: designing triggered engagement loops, calibrating friction across the funnel, and connecting paid, owned, and product channels into a cohesive growth engine grounded in subscriber economics.

You'll report to the Senior Director of Consumer Journeys and partner closely with Product, Data, Activation, Creative, and the PLAY business unit. You'll have strong strategic support and a team environment that values rigorous thinking, experimentation, and financially grounded decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

Lifecycle Strategy & Execution

Design and operate the end-to-end lifecycle program for PLAY. Lead acquisition, registration-to-subscription conversion, onboarding, recurring engagement, upsell, and winback. Build behavior- and engagement-based triggered touchpoints that create habit formation and drive purchase intent across email, push, in-app, and web channels.

Funnel Growth & Conversion Optimization

Own the known-to-paid funnel. Develop and iterate paywall strategy, offer sequencing, and registration gates that balance access with conversion pressure. Partner with Product to optimize user journeys, stacked subscription experiences, and account management touchpoints.

Experimentation & Decisioning

Maintain a structured testing backlog across creative, paywall friction, offer constructs, landing pages, overlays, and lifecycle touchpoints. Run disciplined A/B and multivariate tests, publish clear readouts, and scale winners into repeatable playbooks.

Churn Mitigation & Retention

Build and optimize winback flows, including dynamic offer logic, onsite intercepts, and coordination with account management and call center policies. Identify leading indicators of churn risk and design proactive engagement interventions.

Paid Media & Channel Orchestration

Inform and help orchestrate paid acquisition strategy in coordination with owned channels, ensuring CAC efficiency and alignment with LTV targets. Define targeting and suppression logic within the CDP for real-time, segment-level decisioning across channels.

Cross-Functional Partnership

Work within the PLAY–Consumer operating model to align Product, Data, Activation, and Creative on shared goals. Communicate strategy, performance, and progress to senior stakeholders with clarity and precision.

Qualifications

· 5+ years in subscription growth or lifecycle marketing, with experience in gaming, entertainment, or media preferred

· Hands-on experience building paywall strategy, dynamic offer flows, and churn mitigation programs (stop-save, winback) at scale

· Proven track record designing and scaling multi-channel lifecycle programs — particularly behavior-based triggered journeys — that deliver measurable improvements in subscriber growth, conversion, and LTV

· Proficiency with A/B testing and experimentation frameworks, with the ability to translate results into scalable rollout playbooks

· Working knowledge of marketing technology ecosystems (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, CDPs, CRM platforms) and experience applying personalization and segmentation at scale

· Familiarity with paid media best practices and how acquisition channels connect to lifecycle economics (CAC, LTV, payback period)

· Strong analytical judgment — able to independently assess performance data, identify patterns and tradeoffs, and convert quantitative signals into strategic recommendations

· Strong cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to align multiple teams around shared outcomes within a matrixed operating model

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-NR2

The annualized base salary for this role will range between $100,000 and $110,000.  Base compensation is reflective of many factors, including, but not limited to, the market in which one lives/works, individual education level, skills, certifications and experience. Note: variable compensation is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable.