Commercial Lead, Referrals

Meet Upside:

We created Upside to transform brick-and-mortar commerce. Our technology uses the sophistication of online retail—profit measurement, attribution, and incrementality—to provide users with more value on their everyday purchases and brick-and-mortar businesses with new, profitable customers. We’ve helped millions of users earn 2 to 3 times more cashback than any other product, and hundreds of thousands of brick-and-mortar businesses earn measurable profit. Billions of dollars in commerce run through the Upside platform every year, and that value goes directly back to our retailer partners, the consumers they serve, and important sustainability initiatives.

The Impact You’ll Make:

Upside's referral program is one of its highest-performing growth engines — referred users convert to first transaction at double the rate of paid and organic channels, carry meaningfully higher LTV, and account for a significant share of overall revenue. We are searching for a dedicated commercial owner leading the program to its full potential.

As a Commercial Lead, Referrals, you will own the end-to-end performance of the referrals channel — from strategy and incentive design through lifecycle activation, conversion optimization, and measurement. You will work closely with the Referrals Product Lead (PM) to shape the product roadmap and serve as the commercial and go-to-market counterpart: setting targets, prioritizing the highest-impact moments, and building the always-on system that keeps the referral flywheel turning.

What You’ll Do:

• Grow referrals as a share of total acquired new users — set the annual target, track weekly, and intervene when off-pace.

• Drive referred-user conversion: referral signup → first transaction → M1–M3 retention. Own the full funnel, not just top-of-funnel volume.

• Build and operate a cohesive, behavior-triggered referral engine — replacing one-off campaigns with an always-on lifecycle system that activates users at high-intent moments (first cash out, 3rd reconcile, heavy-active milestone, etc.).

• Define and execute incentive strategy: test and optimize referral bonus constructs by segment, balancing conversion rates against cost-per-acquired-user.

• Partner with the Referrals PM to shape the product roadmap — you set commercial requirements; they build the mechanics. Align on experiment prioritization, feature launches, and measurement.

• Unlock the never-referrer segment (the majority of the active base): develop and iterate on strategies to get users from 0 → 1 referral, with a clear path to repeat advocacy.

• Define success metrics, own the dashboard, and report progress to consumer growth leadership and company executives.

Competencies You’ll Need:

• 7+ years in growth, commercial, or lifecycle marketing roles — with a track record of owning acquisition or retention KPIs end-to-end.

• Deep experience running behavior-triggered lifecycle programs (email, push, IAM) in a consumer product environment (Braze, Iterable, or equivalent).

• Strong analytical ability: comfortable in Looker or similar BI tools, fluent in conversion funnel analysis, and experienced designing and interpreting A/B experiments.

• Experience collaborating tightly with product managers — you know how to write commercial requirements, participate in sprint reviews, and influence roadmap decisions without owning eng resources directly.

• Demonstrated ability to work across functions (product, engineering, creative, finance, legal) to ship programs on time.

• Clear, direct communicator — you can write a crisp exec summary and present tradeoffs to senior leadership without a handler.

• Direct ownership of a referral or word-of-mouth growth program in a consumer app, with a strong understanding of referral mechanics, fraud considerations, and the incentive design tradeoffs that drive sustainable performance preferred.

• Familiarity with PLG principles or viral loop design is a plus, especially if applied in consumer products to increase user-driven acquisition.

• Experience in consumer fintech, cashback, loyalty, or similarly economics-driven consumer businesses is strongly preferred.

Location:

This hybrid role is based in our DC, or NYC office. In-office attendance is required on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and may increase based on project-based needs and changes to Upside’s in-office policy over time.

Compensation:

The U.S. base salary range for this full-time position is $170,000 - $212,000 + equity + benefits. The final starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range during the hiring process.

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Benefits:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage starting on Day 1

• Equity (ISOs)

• 401(k) program

• Family planning programs + paid parental leave

• Physical fitness and wellness memberships

• Emotional and mental health support programs

• Unlimited PTO + 10 paid federal holidays + our annual, week-long Winter Break

• Flexible work environment

• Lunch reimbursement for in-office employees

• Employee Resource Groups

• Learning and Development stipend

• Transparent culture

• Amazing mission!

Diversity and Inclusion:

Diversity drives innovation, and our differences make us stronger. We‘re passionate about building a workplace that represents a variety of backgrounds, skills, and perspectives, and we do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Everyone is welcome here!

If there's anything we can do to support a disability or special need during your application or interview process, please email [email protected].

This email is for accessibility accommodations only, it should not be used to submit job applications.

Notice To Recruiters And Placement Agencies:

This is an in-house search with a dedicated recruiter. Please do not submit resumes to any person or email address at Upside. Upside is not liable for, and will not pay, placement fees for candidates submitted by any party or agency other than its approved recruitment partners.