Director of Retention Marketing & CRM

About the Role

As a Director of Retention Marketing & CRM, you will build the customer journey by leading the development and execution of retention marketing strategies, the CRM channel and managing a team that is responsible for VICI’s email, SMS, app & web push, and loyalty programs. This leader owns the end-to-end customer journey to deliver a cohesive online and app experience from onboarding new customers through repeat purchases, winback of lapsed customers, and loyalty program performance. This role will also be responsible for the strategy and vision to grow VICI's active customer file, subscriber conversion, and churn prevention tactics that increase purchase frequency and lifetime value across retention channels.

What Will You Do:

• Customer Growth & Retention: Own list growth, subscriber conversion, retention strategy and the active customer file end-to-end, including segmentation, across email, SMS, app & web push, and loyalty.
• Testing Roadmaps: Build and manage an ongoing A/B and multivariate testing roadmap across the customer lifecycle, winback, and loyalty programs, and translate results into go-forward strategy.
• Reactivation Campaigns: Build winback strategies and targeted reactivation campaigns to reduce lapsed customer files and to recover revenue. 
• Email and SMS Campaigns: Lead end-to-end email and SMS campaign strategy, segmentation, execution, testing, deployment, analysis, and optimization across a high-volume send program with complex, multi-dimensional segmentation.
• Purchase Frequency: Increase customers' purchase frequency and overall lifetime value through lifecycle campaigns, personalization, and journey optimization.
• Loyalty Program: Own the loyalty program end-to-end: program structure, enrollment growth, utilization, tier progression, rewards and promotion calendar, and ongoing program optimization.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Utilize sales and campaign data daily to drive revenue performance, repeat purchase rate, retention/lapse rate, list growth, engagement rates, and loyalty KPIs, with regular, proactive reporting to leadership.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with leads across eCommerce, Social, Paid Media to optimize the customer experience to deliver a cohesive brand narrative and promotion calendar that works seamlessly across onsite/in-app journeys. 
• Vendor Management: Manage relationships with ESP, SMS, and loyalty technology platforms/vendors, staying current on platform capabilities and industry best practices.
• Team Leadership & Development: lead and development a team of two and remain hands-on while clearly assigning responsibility, setting objectives and measures, and monitoring process, progress, and results, with feedback loops built into the team's work.

What We’re Looking For:

• Strategic & Customer Obsessed: Strong analytical and commercial instincts with the ability to balance short-term revenue objectives with long-term customer health and retention, and experience driving results through structured testing methodologies.
• People & Culture: Proven people leadership skills, with experience managing and developing a team.
• Teamwork & Collaboration: Proactive and solutions-oriented, with a track record of bringing forward new ideas, identifying growth opportunities, and translating them into actionable strategies and tests in collaboration with others.
• Executive Communication: Executive presence, with clear, succinct written and verbal communication and the ability to build executive-ready decks for marketing plans, campaign strategy, and budget/performance reviews.
• Operational Excellence: Excellent project management skills, including conceptualization, cross-functional alignment, planning, resource management, and delivering analysis and recommendations.
• Innovation & Growth: Leads with curiosity — dig into both major trends and small signals in the data, and don't stop investigating until the underlying question is answered.
• Bias for Action: Thrives in a fast-paced, high-growth retail environment with competing priorities and tight timelines.

Education and Experience:

• 8+ years of direct-to-consumer marketing experience in lifecycle and retention marketing, including email, CRM, loyalty, and customer segmentation.
• Proven experience owning loyalty program strategy and performance, including program setup, driving enrollment, utilization, and tier progression.
• Experience managing a high-volume email/SMS program with complex, layered segmentation strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ownership of program performance — a track record of setting targets, reporting results transparently, and course-correcting based on data.
• Experience monitoring email/SMS deliverability and ensure compliance with applicable regulations (e.g., CAN-SPAM, TCPA) across a high-volume sending program.
• Hands-on ESP and SMS platform experience, including building automated/triggered programs within the technical capabilities of the platform.
• Prior people management experience required.
• BA/BS in business, marketing, analytics, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Work Environment and Location:

In office Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in Walnut Creek, CA
This position follows a hybrid work schedule, with in-office work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in Walnut Creek, CA.
Works in an indoor office or home office environment with temperature control.
Sits for extended periods, with intermittent standing and walking.
Uses office equipment such as computers, mice, keyboards, and printers.
Occasionally lifts or pulls up to 20 pounds.