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Commercial Lead, Referrals

170k – 212kWashington, DCNew York, NYBusiness DevelopmentHybrid7+ YOE
Summary

Own end-to-end performance of Upside's high-performing referrals channel, including strategy, incentive design, lifecycle activation, and conversion optimization in partnership with product.

About the role

What You’ll Do

  • Grow referrals as a share of total acquired new users — set the annual target, track weekly, and intervene when off-pace.
  • Drive referred-user conversion: referral signup → first transaction → M1–M3 retention. Own the full funnel, not just top-of-funnel volume.
  • Build and operate a cohesive, behavior-triggered referral engine — replacing one-off campaigns with an always-on lifecycle system that activates users at high-intent moments (first cash out, 3rd reconcile, heavy-active milestone, etc.).
  • Define and execute incentive strategy: test and optimize referral bonus constructs by segment, balancing conversion rates against cost-per-acquired-user.
  • Partner with the Referrals PM to shape the product roadmap — you set commercial requirements; they build the mechanics. Align on experiment prioritization, feature launches, and measurement.
  • Unlock the never-referrer segment (the majority of the active base): develop and iterate on strategies to get users from 0 → 1 referral, with a clear path to repeat advocacy.
  • Define success metrics, own the dashboard, and report progress to consumer growth leadership and company executives.

Competencies You’ll Need

  • 7+ years in growth, commercial, or consumer product marketing roles, with a track record of owning acquisition, engagement, or retention KPIs end-to-end.
  • Deep experience partnering with product and CRM teams to design and optimize behavior-triggered growth programs across email, push, and in-app messaging in a consumer product environment, ideally in membership, loyalty, or other repeat-engagement businesses.
  • Strong analytical ability: comfortable in Looker or similar BI tools, fluent in conversion funnel analysis, and experienced designing and interpreting A/B experiments.
  • Experience collaborating tightly with product managers — you know how to write commercial requirements, participate in sprint reviews, and influence roadmap decisions without owning eng resources directly.
  • Demonstrated ability to work across functions (product, engineering, creative, finance, legal) to ship programs on time.
  • Clear, direct communicator — you can write a crisp exec summary and present tradeoffs to senior leadership without a handler.
  • Direct ownership of a referral or word-of-mouth growth program in a consumer app, with a strong understanding of referral mechanics, fraud considerations, and the incentive design tradeoffs that drive sustainable performance preferred.
  • Familiarity with PLG principles or viral loop design is a plus, especially if applied in consumer products to increase user-driven acquisition.
  • Experience in consumer fintech, cashback, loyalty, or similarly economics-driven consumer businesses is strongly preferred.
Skills
LookerA/B testingconversion funnel analysisCRMemail marketingpush notificationsin-app messagingproduct roadmap collaborationreferral program managementgrowth marketing
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