If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Job Description
The Personalization Manager leads audience level personalization across the WGU marketing experience to increase positive user behavior, up to application. They develop/enhance and execute a website personalization strategy aligned with WGU's objectives, creating a one-by-one experience. Collaborating with internal teams, the manager leverages qualitative and quantitative data to find the right avenues to enrich the prospective student’s experience. This role is critical to connecting data and optimization, content and experience to specific marketing audiences, while helping to define and revise those audiences.
Primary Responsibilities
Develop and execute a comprehensive personalization strategy that optimizes individual marketing touchpoints as connected parts of a broader student journey, aligning personalization efforts on the website to both conversion goals and the overall student journey. in alignment with WGU's business objectives, creating personalized strategies that cater to different audiences, working with internal teams to develop personalized content and messaging.
Collaborate with internal Marketing and other Student Life Cycle teams such as email, lead generation, enrollment, scholarships, etc. to optimize each conversion path, identify opportunities for personalization, and increase marketing funnel efficiencies.
Work closely with the Audience Segmentation Manager to design requirements for ML/AI-driven segmentation in the CDP and effective triggers in personalization tools that target nuanced audiences.
Evaluate and select appropriate personalization tools and technologies to meet the company's needs.
Review user behavior analytics (e.g. web analytics, customer journey analytics, heatmaps and screen recording sessions) to discover personalization opportunities and evaluate performance of personalization campaigns.
Design personalized experiences in conjunction with UX Design and Web Operations.
Use data-driven insights to make informed decisions and improvements and communicate optimization performance and user behavior insights across Student Lifecycle Services.
Analyze user data, including behavior, preferences, psychographics, social context, and other demographics, to inform personalization efforts.
Work in conjunction with Marketing Research, Conversion Rate Optimization, and UX Design teams to identify and support research opportunities that support a continually developing understanding of the prospective student journey and audiences that drive a one-by-one approach to experience design.
Demonstrate commitment to WGU core values.
Assist with the conversion optimization of digital assets and campaigns across touchpoints and channels.
This job description includes a general representation of job requirements rather than a comprehensive inventory of all required responsibilities or work activities. The contents of this document or related job requirements may change at any time with or without notice.
Qualifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Data-Driven Decision Making: Demonstrated experience in using data to inform operational, design, and marketing strategies, focusing on delivering personalized user experiences.
Strategic Vision & Innovation: Ability to align audiences and personalization use cases with broader institutional growth ambitions and improved student outcomes.
Human-First Ethos: Student obsession is the UX Team’s credo. This role requires you to continuously explore new ways to leverage data and empathy for improved prospective student outcomes.
Collaborative Leadership: Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, with a proven ability to influence cross-functional teams, build consensus, and serve as a personalization evangelist.
Technical understanding: Working knowledge of website development and front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), with familiarity in personalization approaches across client-side, server-side, and API-driven architectures and the ability to collaborate with engineering teams on scalable personalization implementations.
Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving skills are required, including understanding how to interpret business and user needs and translating them into an optimized user experiences.
Familiarity with CMS (Content Management System) platforms (headless preferred) and knowledge of CDP (Customer Data Platform) systems and how they can be used to enhance data-driven personalization.
Experimentally minded: Strong understanding of experimentation and optimization methods for personalization, including A/B and multivariate testing. Working knowledge of adaptive approaches such as bandit methods—when and where they are appropriate for personalization use cases.
Project Management: Strong project management skills to oversee end-to-end personalization initiatives and track performance against KPIs.
Education
Bachelor’s degree
Experience
Five years or more of experience leading conversion rate optimization, website personalization, or quantitative user research with a proven track record of executing and evaluating tests to optimize conversion.
Proficient in personalization and A/B testing tools (VWO preferred), and experience with analytics tools (Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, Microsoft Clarity preferred).
Understanding of JavaScript, HTML & CSS.
Experience working in a Content Management Systems (headless preferred) and of UX Design principles and tools (Figma)
Experience in lieu of education
Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
Preferred Qualifications
Certifications in Conversion Rate Optimization, Digital Analytics, and/or User Research
Travel
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements
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Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.