Job Description

Are you always thinking about how to establish meaningful and lasting relationships with partners and customers that develop trust and unwavering loyalty? Are you passionate about sourcing partnerships and finding innovative ways to monetize them? Are you a curious and critical thinker that enjoys digging into data and making actionable recommendations? Are you ready to drive impact?

Ascent Funding, LLC (Ascent) is an award-winning, rapidly growing company that is on a mission to revolutionize the way people pay for higher education. We’re looking for a Digital Marketer/Affiliate Strategist to join our team to exponentially grow our business through optimizing our digital channels and strategic partnerships.

WOULD WE BE A GOOD FIT FOR YOU? A FEW PRINCIPLES THAT WE HOLD DEAR:

• LOOK FOR THE RIGHT ANSWERS. We don’t always know them right away, and they change over time. Be diligent about driving toward good decisions, testing to find proof points and solve problems.
• BE COLLABORATIVE. Our team members and our partners are sharp, and come in a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Be willing to listen, to collaborate, and to grow together.
• LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Each of us are leaders, no matter our title, learning and growing each day, driving good outcomes for our fellow team members and our customers.

OBJECTIVE: The Digital Marketer/Affiliate Strategist is responsible for making an impact on our business  – from overseeing online campaigns (SEM) to optimizing our website (SEO) and managing our affiliate partners. This job description outlines the objective, primary responsibilities, requirements, and qualifications of the Ascent Digital Marketer/Affiliate Strategist.

REPORTS TO: Senior Director of Marketing

YOU MUST:

• Be excited about building our brand and relationships with our partners and customers.
• Understand the importance of brand consistency across all channels.
• Be diligent managing partners and be able to clearly identify opportunities to expand each partner.
• Be self-directed, flexible and responsive – things tend to change in this industry.
• Find data thrilling and enjoy leveraging data to tell a story that helps direct the marketing initiatives for maximum impact.
• Like getting your hands dirty – we’re a startup with a small, but mighty team.
• Be comfortable in an analytics-driven environment. We like numbers. You like tracking performance.
• Develop hypotheses, lots of them. Enjoy innovating and optimizing content in a test-and-learn environment.
• Get excited about following trends and best practices in affiliate and digital marketing.
• Be a creative problem solver. We work in a highly regulated industry – you create the best experiences in spite of that.
• Be willing to challenge the status quo. We are revolutionizing the way people pay for higher education, so we must be disruptive. 
• Be able to think outside of the box, enjoy being challenged to grow your skills, and not be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone.
• Be passionate about performance marketing that delivers large and measurable results. 
• Constantly review data to identify meaningful trends while recommending new initiatives to drive growth and optimization across channels. 
• Drive strategy around attribution, tracking, and landing page experiences for all digital marketing initiatives. 
• Provide weekly reports to the team on key growth and conversion metrics with clear takeaways and a plan of action on how to further optimize these partners/funnels. 
• Leverage data from our analytics platforms to define, analyze, and communicate key cross-platform user metrics and behavioral trends.
• Analyze and monitor lead pipeline and conversion funnels.
• Collaborate internally and externally, driving strong growth through successful marketing strategies rooted in data.

IN THIS ROLE YOU WOULD:

• Partner with our existing PPC agency for managing, reporting, analyzing, optimizing, and scaling existing Google AdWords & Display Campaigns and strategize for new campaigns.
• Research, evaluate, recommend, launch, test, and scale new ad formats, affiliate networks, etc.
• Create campaigns that engage and convert – then test and optimize through new targeting, placements, and creative (content/imagery).
• Oversee and improve processes and systems for our visitor/conversion funnels.
• Identify opportunities to monetize traffic across digital channels.
• Continuously optimize and test new ad creative and WordPress landing pages via Google Optimize - Build a formal plan, execute, and report back to key stakeholders.
• Manage and build out a diverse portfolio of partners and digital assets to support them.
• Optimize existing partners and affiliates on Commission Junction and identify new systems/platforms/agencies to grow the affiliate channel.
  • Ensure partners and referring domains have accurate information at all times.
• Partner with the analytics team/agency to create dashboards for the website and individual partners.
• Track KPIs and analyze performance against marketing goals (including partner, website, email and social channels) to inform and optimize the content strategy.
• Make recommendations to the UX Team to enhance engagement and conversion online.
• Monitor competitive landscape and assess trends/seasonality in campaigns.
• Partner with SEO agency to follow SEO best practices including keyword research and use SEO guidelines to optimize content.

DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERTISE:

• YOU COULD BE A FIT IF YOU HAVE:

• Minimum of 4+ years of experience managing digital campaigns and acquiring customers through Google AdWords, affiliate networks, email marketing, and direct media buys.

• Direct response online media acquisition, direct/email marketing, SEO, and/or e-commerce experience.

• Expertise working with DSPs, ad exchanges, ad servers, and creative formats.

• Experience in testing and optimizing ads and landing pages for conversions.

• General understanding of HTML, CSS, and web technologies.

• Knowledge of website conversion metrics, including CPM, CTR, CTL, CPC, CPL, and CPA.

• Exceptional strategic thinking skills and experience with web analytics tools. 

• Experience managing a budget and can track against spend and acquisition costs.

• Passion for building and maintaining relationships through excellent communication.

• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple projects at once in a fast-paced, environment.

• Exceptional creative and project management skills.

• BONUS POINTS IF YOU HAVE:

• Experience coming from working in an agency.

• Existing network of affiliates/platforms.

• Experience with Google Optimize, Google Data Studio, and WordPress (or similar).

• Google Analytics and/or Google AdWords certification.

COMPANY OVERVIEW Ascent is on a mission to revolutionize the way students pay for higher education by offering better financing options, student-driven innovation (co-created with students), and financial wellness resources to encourage more informed decisions today that open up brighter future opportunities.

We aim to fix a broken higher education system by being transparent and offering products that support a greater population of students through our Ascent College (cosigned and non-cosigned student loans for college and graduate school) and Bootcamp (student loans and Income Share Agreements (ISAs) for technical bootcamps and accelerated skills training programs) financing options.

We believe education is an investment for the future, and we want to empower students of all economic backgrounds and disciplines to maximize their return on that investment. Ascent offers exclusive  benefits (such as 1% cash back, scholarships, Refer A Friend Program, Rewards Program, and more), as well as free resources that set students and families up for financial success.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of the Company to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination. Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request.

Powered by JazzHR

m7VzupvC7y