Head of Digital Growth

Career Guide
Leads strategy and execution to acquire, activate, and retain customers across digital channels. Oversees performance marketing, experimentation, and lifecycle programs, manages budgets and teams, and partners with product and sales to drive revenue growth.

Key Responsibilities

  • Set and execute full‑funnel growth strategy across acquisition, activation, retention
  • Own performance marketing across paid search, social, display, and affiliates
  • Lead experimentation roadmap; design, run, and analyze A/B and multivariate tests
  • Drive conversion rate optimization for web/app, including landing pages and onboarding
  • Build lifecycle programs (email, push, in‑app) to improve retention, LTV, and reactivation
  • Develop attribution and forecasting models; manage budgets, CAC, and ROI targets
  • Hire, mentor, and scale growth, analytics, and marketing operations teams

Career Progression

Can Lead To
VP of Growth
Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) / Chief Growth Officer (CGO)
General Manager / Business Unit Lead
Transition Opportunities
Growth Product Manager
Director of Performance Marketing
Marketing Analytics / BI Director
Revenue Operations (RevOps) Director

Common Skill Gaps

Often Missing Skills
SQL for querying event and marketing dataMulti‑touch attribution and incrementality testingProduct‑led experimentation (feature flags, in‑app prompts)Advanced lifecycle automation and segmentationCRO research methods (heuristics, user testing, analytics triangulation)
Development SuggestionsBuild a GA4+SQL attribution/cohort dashboard from real or sample data; run end‑to‑end experiments (e.g., a Braze/Iterable journey and an Optimizely test), documenting hypotheses, results, and ROI.

Salary & Demand

Median Salary Range
Entry Level$100,000–$130,000
Mid Level$140,000–$180,000
Senior Level$190,000–$260,000
Growth Trend
growing - Growing need in SaaS/e-commerce for data-driven revenue leadership.

Companies Hiring

Industry Sectors
Technology (SaaS & Consumer Apps)E‑commerce & RetailFinancial Services (Fintech)

Recommended Next Steps

1
Earn GA4 and Google Ads certifications; publish a portfolio showing acquisition, CRO, and retention wins.
2
Run a measurable growth project (e.g., $2–5k paid spend + landing page test) and report CAC, LTV, and incrementality.
3
Join growth communities (e.g., GrowthHackers/Reforge) and schedule 3–5 informational interviews with Heads of Growth to benchmark playbooks and tools.