Growth Marketing Manager

About the role

Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. Substack empowers independent writers, artists, videographers, podcasters, and creators of all types to create, share, and make a living off their work through subscriptions - offering them creative freedom, ownership, and a direct connection to their audiences. This role is the first dedicated paid acquisition hire focused on owning strategy and execution across all channels to drive net-new, app-first user acquisition at efficient cost. You will manage budget, define channel strategy, run creative testing, instrument measurement infrastructure, and work cross-functionally with product, data, and creator partnerships to scale growth beyond existing organic and referral flywheels. You will operate at a pivotal moment for the company as it transitions from strong organic momentum to scalable paid growth. This is a high-ownership position where you will define what paid acquisition looks like at Substack, including frameworks, channels, metrics, and eventually the team.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Own paid acquisition end-to-end, including strategy, execution, optimization, and reporting across Meta, Google UAC, YouTube, TikTok, podcast, and emerging channels.
• Design and run rigorous experiments to find efficient customer acquisition cost on net-new users who have never previously engaged with Substack.
• Build and manage our mobile measurement platform infrastructure, including deferred deep linking, in-app event tracking, ad platform integrations, and fraud prevention.
• Partner with creator partnerships to develop first-party ad creative featuring Substack writers and establish the playbook for creator-led paid campaigns.
• Build and maintain lookalike audience pipelines, collaborating with our data team to transform high-quality install cohorts into scalable targeting seeds.
• Define the right optimization signals at each stage of maturity, from install volume during the learning phase to subscription starts at scale, and ensure correct event instrumentation.
• Develop a clear framework for CPI targets and payback windows grounded in install-cohort LTV data, evolving it as learning progresses.
• Collaborate with product on the new user onboarding experience, particularly the deferred deep link personalization flow that connects ad creative to the first app experience.
• Own budget pacing and efficiency reporting, and communicate performance clearly and transparently to leadership.
• Eventually hire and develop a small team as the function grows and the paid acquisition engine scales.

Requirements

• 5-8 years of experience in performance marketing or paid user acquisition, with meaningful time spent at a consumer subscription app or subscription media product.
• Deep channel expertise across Meta and at least one other major channel such as Google UAC, YouTube, or TikTok; experience with podcast and influencer-driven acquisition is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with an MMP such as AppsFlyer, including attribution setup, deferred deep linking, event schema design, and fraud prevention.
• Strong analytical foundation demonstrated through comfort with SQL and data warehouses, and the ability to build cohort analyses independently without heavy reliance on data teams.
• Experience building lookalike audience pipelines and thinking rigorously about seed quality, audience overlap, and creative-audience fit.
• Sharp instincts for creative, with the ability to brief creative teams and creators effectively and a framework for testing and iterating on ad concepts.
• Fluency with LTV modeling and payback window thinking, understanding why CPI is the wrong primary metric and being able to articulate the right metrics in context.
• High agency and low ego, with the willingness to do unglamorous instrumentation work while also executing high-leverage strategy.
• Genuine curiosity about media, writing, and the creator economy, with care about what Substack is building beyond the acquisition funnel.
• Based in San Francisco or New York.

Nice to have

Only items indicated as preferred in the original source are included, and no additional preferences have been added.

Practical notes

The engagement is full time, and the position is based in San Francisco at headquarters. The role requires relocation or local presence in one of the specified locations. No specific hours, travel requirements, visa details, or application deadlines are stated in the source.