Growth Marketing Lead

Chicago, IL (Remote)

$141K/yr – $176K/yrSenior Level10+ years expFull time

Posted 2 months ago

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Job Summary

Lead and scale Gusto's growth engine by building a high-performing team, accelerating a data-driven referral program, and running an experimentation roadmap that surfaces fast, measurable acquisition levers.

  • Growth leadership: coach and align Growth, Product, Sales, RevOps, and Data to own full-funnel initiatives from awareness to activation.
  • Referral program: design, test, and optimize incentives and messaging to drive new customer acquisition through word-of-mouth.
  • Experimentation and new channels: build rigorous test pipelines and pilot emerging channels to identify scalable growth levers.

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • Manage and develop the growth marketing team, setting clear goals, providing coaching, and fostering a culture of accountability and innovation.
  • Own and evolve Gusto's customer referral program from strategy and incentive design, to measurement and optimization, driving meaningful new customer acquisition and revenue through word-of-mouth and network effects.
  • Build and run a rigorous experimentation roadmap, using advanced testing and data analysis to identify growth levers and scale what works.
  • Scout, pilot, and scale emerging acquisition channels, bringing rigor to what gets tested and moving quickly from hypothesis to results.
  • Partner with the Web Marketing team to surface and prioritize conversion experiments, translating referral and emerging channel performance data into landing page hypotheses and post-click optimizations that improve acquisition outcomes.
  • Partner cross-functionally with Growth, Product, Sales, RevOps, and Data teams to align growth programs with business priorities and optimize the full funnel from awareness to activation.
  • Use AI tools as a consistent, habitual part of your workflow, generating referral program briefs, developing incentive copy variants, accelerating channel research, and building reusable systems that scale best practices across the team.
  • Report on program performance to senior leadership, distilling complex data into clear insights and concrete recommendations.

Requirements

  • 10+ years of experience in growth marketing, demand generation, or performance marketing, with at least 3 years in a people management role.
  • Demonstrated success building and scaling customer acquisition programs (referral, affiliate, and/or word-of-mouth) from concept to measurable growth.
  • Working knowledge of paid acquisition channels (SEM, paid social, ABM, etc.) and a strong grasp of full-funnel growth strategy.
  • Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into decisions; experience with tools like Salesforce, Amplitude, redash, or similar platforms is a plus.
  • AI-fluent in practice, not just in theory; you use AI tools consistently in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate briefs, copy, program design, and analysis, and you're building toward systematizing those habits for your team.
  • Exceptional communicator who can influence across teams and present clearly to executive audiences.
  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; MBA or quantitative background is a plus.

    Benefits

    • competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs)
    Gusto logo

    Gusto

    3.2 Glassdoor

    Our mission is to grow the small business economy.Launched in 2011 as ZenPayroll, Gusto serves more than 400,000 businesses nationwide with our small business platform, supporting them with payroll, HR, benefits, and more.Licensing details: https://gusto.com/about/licenses

    Founded in 2011
    San Francisco, California, USA
    4.3K employees (207 in marketing)
    50% recommend to a friend
    53% CEO approval

    Traffic Signals

    Monthly Visitors
    8.2M
    Monthly Google Ads Budget
    $3.1M
    Traffic Source Mix
    Search
    21.3%
    Direct
    70.9%
    Referral
    6.2%
    Social
    0.9%
    Paid
    0.4%

    Headcount Trend

    Current headcount: ~4.3K

    Marketing Team

    Marketing Team Size
    104 (2% of company)
    Median Career Experience
    16 years
    Median Tenure
    2.3 years

    Funding

    Total Funding
    $746.1M
    Last Raise
    $55M
    Series Unknown, 3 years ago

    Funding History

    • Jan 2023
      Series Unknown
    • May 2022
      Series E • $55M
    • Aug 2021
      Series E • $175M

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