Director of Lifecycle and Retention Marketing

Who We Are

Spot & Tango is an innovative pet health & wellness brand that delivers personalized meal plans on a subscription basis. Our recipes are developed by leading animal nutritionists, and are made with only real, human-grade ingredients... and nothing artificial! We have lofty goals (to make every dog in the country healthier, and every pet parent happier!) and we are looking for the right people to help us get there. This is an exciting opportunity to join a VC-backed, high-growth, e-commerce startup and have an outsized impact in an extremely fast-paced environment. Plus, you get to think about dogs all day!

Who You Are

We’re looking for a bold, visionary Director of Lifecycle + Retention Marketing to set the direction for how Spot & Tango engages, delights, and retains our customers across every life stage. This role is central to our growth engine — blending analytical rigor, customer psychology, and creative marketing to craft bold, cross-functional programs that build loyalty, increase LTV, and reduce churn.

You’ll bring both the vision and the execution chops: defining where retention should go, inspiring the team around big ideas, and rolling up your sleeves to test, measure, and scale what works. You’ll be the kind of leader who can dig into the data, uncover insights, and then turn those insights into campaigns, offers, and experiences that feel inevitable to the customer. This role requires a strategic thinker, a strong operator, and a collaborator who can rally stakeholders across Marketing, Product, CX, and Ops to deliver customer experiences that truly set Spot & Tango apart.

Responsibilities:

• Own the strategy, build, and optimization of lifecycle journeys across email, SMS, and other owned channels—from onboarding through loyalty and winback.
• Lead segmentation, personalization, and journey mapping to drive customer engagement and retention
• Develop and execute data-backed retention programs (e.g., onboarding, replenishment, cross-sell, winback, loyalty)
• Partner with Data, Product, Strategy, Finance and cross-functional marketing team to develop and test customer journeys and improve retention KPIs and to ensure customer insights and retention goals are embedded throughout the organization.
• Track and report on key KPIs such as repeat rate, engagement, churn, and LTV. Translate insights into experiments and strategy improvements that drive measurable customer growth.
• Manage our retention tech stack and vendor relationships (e.g., Klaviyo)
• Champion a test-and-learn culture with rapid experimentation and iteration
• Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure consistent messaging across all customer touchpoints
• Lead and inspire a lean, high-performing retention marketing team and dotted-line manage / mentor junior team members cross-functionally

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in retention marketing, preferably at a DTC subscription company
• Proven track record managing CRM/Lifecycle programs that drive measurable growth
• Deep experience with Klaviyo and customer data tools such as GA4, Looker or similar
• Strong analytical mindset; comfortable synthesizing retention data into clear insights and actions; experience working with LTV/CAC models, churn/retention cohorts, and funnel performance reporting
• Excellent project management and cross-functional communication skills
• Passion for customer experience and continuous optimization
• Self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
• Experience with loyalty programs, referral programs, reviews, or subscription businesses

This is a hybrid position based in our Midtown Manhattan office. In office presence is required on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.