Lifecycle Marketing Manager, SMB Ads

About the Team OpenAI is building the next generation of advertising for an AI-powered world. As AI changes how people discover information, explore possibilities, and make decisions, we believe this presents a huge opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses to connect with customers in new ways. The SMB Ads Marketing team is building this opportunity from the ground up. We define how businesses discover OpenAI’s advertising platform, become successful advertisers, and grow their investment over time. Working closely with Product, Ads Engineering, Data Science, and Sales, we combine customer insight, rigorous experimentation, and fast execution to turn early opportunities into scalable growth. About the Role We are seeking a Lifecycle Marketing Manager to build, own, and lead lifecycle programs for SMB advertisers at OpenAI. This is a zero-to-one opportunity to establish the strategy and programs that guide businesses from initial interest and their first campaign to sustained success and growth. You will set the lifecycle strategy, own the program roadmap and performance goals, and lead delivery from customer insight and journey design through launch, measurement, and iteration. Combining behavioral insights, experimentation, and personalized engagement across email, product experiences, education, and other channels, you will build programs that scale with the business. Success requires independent judgment, analytical depth, cross-functional leadership, and hands-on execution. In This Role, You Will - Own the lifecycle program portfolio across prospect conversion, activation, retention, repeat spend, reactivation, and expansion. - Map advertiser journeys using cohort analysis, product behavior, campaign performance, and customer feedback to identify high-impact growth opportunities. - Build segmented, triggered journeys that connect advertiser needs, intent, readiness, and behavior to relevant messages and next steps. - Lead prospect nurture and email acquisition programs. Coordinate audiences, retargeting, and conversion experiences with Growth Marketing. - Launch onboarding and education programs that help advertisers create campaigns, understand performance, adopt capabilities, and grow their investment. - Coordinate delivery across email, in-product and onsite experiences, retargeting, education, and sales engagement with channel and product teams. - Test audiences, messaging, channels, timing, frequency, and offers. Use holdouts and downstream results to measure incremental customer impact. - Define data signals, segmentation, instrumentation, automation, and measurement with Data Science, Marketing Operations, prospect intelligence teams, and Ads Engineering. - Maintain high standards for journey quality, contact frequency, suppression, consent, and deliverability with operations and privacy partners. - Improve activation, time to first campaign, retention, repeat spend, reactivation, and expansion. Scale effective programs and use AI to accelerate content, personalization, and analysis. You Might Thrive in This Role If You - Demonstrate a track record of building and leading lifecycle programs from strategy through execution, with measurable activation, retention, or customer-growth results. - Translate customer behavior into effective engagement strategies through customer empathy, clear communication, and disciplined prioritization. - Build behavioral segmentation and triggered programs using product and customer signals across multiple channels. - Apply cohort analysis, funnel diagnostics, retention measurement, and experimental design to distinguish engagement from incremental customer outcomes. - Bring hands-on experience with CRM and marketing automation platforms, such as Marketo or comparable tools, including journey logic, personalization, and quality assurance. - Lead cross-functional programs with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Sales, and Marketing Operations, aligning priorities and driving delivery. - Set strategy and launch programs in fast-moving environments while establishing repeatable processes and reliable measurement. - Bring experience with SMBs, self-serve products, advertising, SaaS, marketplaces, fintech, or other high-volume customer journeys. Use AI thoughtfully to improve personalization and execution. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience building lifecycle programs for SMB advertisers or self-serve advertising platforms. - Track record launching onboarding and education programs that accelerate first campaign creation and repeat spend. - Experience connecting email, in-product messaging, retargeting, and sales engagement into coordinated customer journeys. - Experience using holdout tests and cohort analysis to measure incremental retention and revenue impact. - Hands-on experience establishing behavioral triggers, automation, and measurement for new lifecycle programs. - Experience applying AI to improve personalization, content development, and campaign analysis. Workplace & Location - San Francisco, CA. This role requires a hybrid schedule with an in office requirement from Monday - Wednesday. About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Aff