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USA TODAY Co. Is looking for a Senior Marketing Strategist, Gaming & Subscriptions to own the end-to-end subscription growth model for PLAY—covering pricing and packaging, paywall and offer decisioning, registration to subscription conversion, onboarding, engagement/upsell, and churn mitigation. You’ll partner tightly with the PLAY business unit to deliver profitable subscriber growth, higher ARPU, and durable retention through experimentation and AI-enabled lifecycle programs.

USA TODAY PLAY is our casual entertainment destination that brings together crosswords, puzzles, horoscopes, comics, quizzes, and more. PLAY builds on a strong existing foundation from legacy Crosswords and is designed to significantly expand its share of the USA TODAY Network audience over the next several years. The long-term vision is for PLAY to become a major revenue driver through a combination of subscriptions, stacked bundles, and sponsorship opportunities.

What you’ll do

Own the PLAY subscription growth model

• Define the value proposition and pricing/packaging for PLAY in partnership with key leaders in Consumer and PLAY
• Build and iterate the known-to-paid subscription funnel, creating journeys that drive habit and, ultimately, purchase intent

Operate a rigorous experimentation program

• Stand up structured price/term tests for acquisition, stop‑save, and winback
• Maintain an always-on testing‑ backlog (paywall friction, day passes vs. subscription constructs, landing pages, overlays, lifecycle) and publish read‑outs; scale winners into playbooks.

Launch and scale lifecycle programs

• Design and optimize full lifecycle journeys for PLAY, including lead acquisition, nurture, onboarding, engagement, upsell, and winback journeys
• Partner with Product to optimize PLAY checkout, stacked checkout experiences including PLAY, and PLAY account management experiences
• Define targeting and suppression logic with the CDP for real-time, segment-level decisioning and experiences across web/app/email

Reduce churn and improve save rates

• Deploy AI-assisted churn mitigation and dynamic stop save flows; align onsite intercepts with account management journeys and call center policies.

Partner and govern

• Work within the PLAY–Consumer model, clarify strategy, approvals, and delivery calendars; communicate progress and performance.

Success measures (primary KPIs)

• Subscriber growth (net adds) and conversion rate from known to paid
• ARPU lift from pricing, annualization, and stacked add‑ons
• Churn / save rate improvement
• Time to launch experiments and scale learnings to drive optimizations
• Penetration of PLAY within USA TODAY Network audience and product add-on rate contribution to portfolio revenue 

What you’ll bring

• 5+ years in subscription growth, lifecycle marketing, with gaming/entertainment experience
• Hands-on experience with paywall strategy, dynamic offers, and churn mitigation (stop save, winback) at scale
• Proven success in developing and scaling multi-channel lifecycle programs that deliver measurable improvements in subscriber base and LTV
• Proficiency with A/B testing and experimentation frameworks; able to translate results into roll‑out playbooks
• Demonstrated fluency with marketing technology ecosystems (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, CDP, CRM platforms) and personalization at scale
• Strong analytical judgment with the ability to independently assess metrics, identify patterns and tradeoffs, and convert quantitative signals into strategic direction and recommendations
• Strong cross-functional leadership; able to work within the PLAY–Consumer operating model and align Product, Data, Activation, and Creative on shared goals

 

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The annualized base salary for this role will range between $100,000 and $110,000.  Base compensation is reflective of many factors, including, but not limited to, the market in which one lives/works, individual education level, skills, certifications and experience. Note: variable compensation is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable.