Growth Lead, SMB Ads

OpenAI

Growth Lead for SMB Ads developing acquisition strategies to onboard small businesses at OpenAI. Collaborating across teams to enhance advertiser experience and funnel effectiveness.

Posted 7/7/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $284,000 - $315,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Develop and execute acquisition and activation strategies that help SMB advertisers discover, sign up for, and begin spending on OpenAI's advertising platform.
Diagnose the advertiser funnel across awareness, landing pages, sign-up, onboarding, campaign creation, first spend, and early repeat spend.
Own the SMB acquisition strategy across paid, organic search (SEO & GEO), social, partnerships, referrals, product-led growth, and emerging channels, continuously optimizing channel mix, CAC, activation, and first spend.
Partner with Product and Engineering to improve sign-up flows, onboarding, campaign setup, billing, measurement, and first-spend experiences.
Translate SMB customer insight into positioning, messaging, funnel improvements, advertiser education, and product feedback.
Use AI tools to accelerate experimentation, analysis, prototyping, campaign development, creative variation, and internal growth workflows.
Build operating rhythms for experiment planning, performance readouts, funnel diagnostics, and cross-functional growth decisions.
Work with contractors, agencies, or growth operators as needed to increase execution velocity.
Help define how the acquisition and activation function should scale over time.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Have significant experience in growth marketing, product growth, performance marketing, demand generation, or SMB go-to-market roles with measurable ownership of acquisition, activation, or revenue outcomes.
Have improved self-serve, product-led, SMB, merchant, advertiser, or high-volume customer funnels & can move from strategy to execution quickly
Are highly analytical and comfortable using funnel analysis, cohort analysis, experimentation, and business metrics to make decisions.
Have strong product instincts and can partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Data Science to improve conversion and customer experience.
Are AI-native in how you work, using tools to move faster, generate leverage, prototype ideas, analyze data, and improve marketing workflows.
Can simplify complex advertising products into clear, compelling narratives for small business owners, operators, and marketers.
Have experience growing advertisers, merchants, creators, or SMB customers through scaled self-serve platforms such as Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok for Business, Amazon Ads, Reddit,, Shopify, Square, Intuit, HubSpot, or similar.
Have experience with advertiser acquisition, campaign launch, measurement, CAC, payback, LTV, retention, or spend expansion.
Thrive in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where you are building new growth systems from the ground up.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
Mental health and wellness support
Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Acquisition StrategyActivation StrategyDemand GenerationCohort AnalysisExperimentationConversion OptimizationCustomer Experience ImprovementSelf-Serve Platform GrowthPerformance MarketingRevenue Outcomes

Soft Skills

Analytical ThinkingCollaborationCommunicationProblem-SolvingAdaptability