56896644414- Director of Retention
Activate Talent
Posted: February 24, 2026
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Quick Summary
A Director of Retention who thinks like an owner and operates like a builder. This role is responsible for driving incremental revenue and customer lifetime value through strategic planning, execution, and lifecycle strategy.
Required Skills
Job Description
Role Overview
We’re looking for a Director of Retention who thinks like an owner and operates like a builder. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for driving incremental revenue and customer lifetime value, not just managing channels.
You will own the entire retention ecosystem — email, SMS, loyalty, onsite experiences, and lifecycle strategy — with a relentless focus on profitability, cohort behavior, and long-term customer relationships. This role requires someone who is both highly strategic and deeply hands-on, equally comfortable setting targets and forecasts as they are building flows, pulling cohorts, and diagnosing performance.
What You’ll Own
Revenue & Retention Strategy
• Own retention revenue, LTV, and contribution margin, directly tying lifecycle initiatives to incremental profit
• Set retention targets, forecast performance, and manage tradeoffs across promotions, cadence, and discounting
• Develop and execute a holistic lifecycle strategy spanning email, SMS, loyalty, and onsite personalization
• Leverage CDP capabilities to build advanced segmentation strategies that drive profitable LTV growth
Lifecycle & Experimentation
• Lead lifecycle marketing across flows, campaigns, segmentation, personalization, and automation
• Design and own a structured experimentation roadmap with clear hypotheses, controls, and success metrics
• Analyze cohorts, funnels, and campaign performance to identify behavioral drivers
• Diagnose why initiatives succeed or fail and translate insights into scalable, repeatable optimizations
• Move the team away from one-off wins toward a systematic testing and learning engine
Customer & Merchandising Insight
• Partner closely with Merchandising and Product to align lifecycle strategy with product priorities
• Develop a deep understanding of customer behavior from first purchase through repeat, replenishment, and loyalty
• Build cross-sell, replenishment, and education strategies that create habit formation and reduce reliance on promotions
• Apply strong product intuition to timing and lifecycle triggers (e.g., when to push bras vs shapewear, category sequencing, post-purchase behavior shifts)
Leadership & Execution
• Operate as a hands-on leader who can move seamlessly between strategy and execution
• Build scalable processes and frameworks for testing, optimization, and performance measurement
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Growth, Product, Data, and Creative to drive alignment and execution
• Think like a business owner, balancing customer experience with commercial outcomes
Requirements:
Requirements
Revenue Ownership & Business Acumen
• Proven experience owning retention or lifecycle revenue, not just managing channels
• Strong understanding of LTV, cohort behavior, and contribution margin
• Ability to set targets, forecast retention revenue, and make tradeoffs across promotions, cadence, and discounting
• Track record of tying email, SMS, loyalty, and onsite experiences directly to incremental profit
Lifecycle Marketing Expertise
• Deep, hands-on expertise across email, SMS, loyalty, and onsite lifecycle programs
• Mastery of flows, campaigns, segmentation, personalization, and automation
• Experience designing and scaling lifecycle strategies across the full customer journey
• Ability to build systems and frameworks, not just one-off campaigns
Data, Analytics & Experimentation
• Strong analytical skills with hands-on experience in cohort analysis, forecasting, and experimentation
• Ability to independently pull and analyze data to diagnose performance
• Experience designing clean experiments with clear hypotheses, controls, and success metrics
• Proven ability to build and maintain a structured, repeatable testing roadmap
CDP & Segmentation Expertise
• Experience working with Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
• Advanced segmentation capabilities leveraging behavioral, transactional, and lifecycle data
• Ability to translate CDP insights into actionable lifecycle strategies that drive LTV growth
Customer & Merchandising Intuition
• Strong understanding of product, merchandising, and customer purchase behavior
• Ability to align lifecycle timing and messaging with product priorities
• Experience building cross-sell, replenishment, and education strategies to drive habit formation
• Comfortable reducing reliance on promotions in favor of long-term customer value
Leadership & Operating Mindset
• Hands-on operator who can move seamlessly between strategy and execution
• Experience collaborating cross-functionally with Growth, Product, Data, and Creative teams
• Builder mindset with a bias toward action and measurable impact
• Ability to balance customer experience with commercial outcomes
Experience Profile
• Background in high-growth eCommerce or DTC environments
• Demonstrated success scaling retention programs as the business grows
• Comfortable operating in fast-paced, performance-driven teams