Digital Experience and Growth Strategist

Franklin University, a private, independent, accredited, nonprofit university located in Columbus, Ohio, invites applications for the position of Director of Market Intelligence and Planning.

Founded in 1902, Franklin University has built its reputation on removing barriers to higher education for ambitious adults balancing educational goals with work, family, and other commitments. Accredited and nonprofit, Franklin is recognized as an innovator in online education and serves students through applied undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs designed to support career advancement and lifelong learning. More than 50,000 Franklin alumni live and work around the world, making meaningful contributions to their professions and communities.

Position Summary

The Digital Experience & Growth Strategist is a hands-on role responsible for implementing, maintaining, and optimizing Franklin University’s digital experiences to support marketing, enrollment, and growth objectives. The position works collaboratively with University stakeholders to understand business needs, identify opportunities for improvement, and develop and execute practical digital solutions. Responsibilities include website optimization, SEO and AI visibility, personalization, experimentation, analytics, and digital project execution. The Strategist applies technical expertise, analytical insights, and problem-solving skills to improve website performance, user engagement, and conversion.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with University stakeholders to understand business, marketing and audience needs; clarify the underlying problem; and recommend effective web and digital solutions rather than simply executing requested tactics.
• Help shape the strategy and ongoing evolution of Franklin University’s web and digital experiences, aligning user needs with marketing, enrollment and growth objectives.
• Own strategy and ongoing optimization for organic search and AI visibility, including technical and on-page SEO, structured data, content discoverability, AI and answer-engine visibility, and emerging search and discovery practices.
• Operate and advance personalization, experimentation and audience activation capabilities, including Adobe Target and Adobe Real-Time CDP, to create more relevant experiences and improve engagement and conversion.
• Translate stakeholder needs and marketing strategies into clear functional and technical requirements; evaluate options for impact, feasibility and maintainability; and work effectively with developers, Information Technology, Marketing and external partners.
• Independently execute appropriate web and digital solutions using content management systems, a working knowledge of HTML/CSS, browser tools, tags, tracking, APIs and integrations, while engaging technical specialists when deeper development expertise is required.
• Use website, search, AI visibility, personalization, user-behavior and marketing-funnel data to identify opportunities, diagnose performance issues, develop hypotheses and prioritize improvements to discoverability, engagement and conversion.
• Lead or coordinate web and digital projects from discovery and requirements through design, implementation, quality assurance and launch; manage dependencies and handoffs; and communicate recommendations, tradeoffs and next steps clearly to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Contribute to digital roadmaps and project priorities while monitoring changes in web technology, digital marketing, search, AI-powered discovery, personalization, accessibility and digital experience practices to identify practical opportunities for growth.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, digital media, information technology, user experience, or a related field, along with three to five years of relevant professional experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Demonstrated ability to work with stakeholders to understand business needs, define problems, develop practical digital solutions and move work from ambiguous requests toward successful execution.
• Working knowledge of HTML and CSS, familiarity with JavaScript concepts, and experience working within content management systems or modern web environments; software development expertise is not required.
• Experience using web analytics, search or marketing performance data to understand audience behavior and inform recommendations, along with knowledge of core marketing concepts, SEO fundamentals and emerging AI search or visibility practices.
• Strong collaboration, communication and project leadership skills, including the ability to ask effective questions, build relationships, translate between technical and nontechnical audiences, coordinate work across teams and know when to execute independently versus engage additional expertise.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Adobe Experience Manager or another enterprise CMS; Adobe Target; Adobe Real-Time CDP or another customer data platform; Adobe Analytics, GA4 or similar analytics tools; and/or tag-management platforms.
• Experience with technical SEO, structured data, AI visibility or answer-engine optimization, conversion optimization, experimentation, personalization, accessibility or web performance.
• Familiarity with APIs, system integrations, CRM or marketing automation platforms, audience activation, data flows or other Adobe Experience Cloud technologies.
• Higher education, enrollment, adult-learner or other growth-oriented digital marketing experience.

Additional Information

This position follows an on-site hybrid work schedule and requires flexibility to meet departmental and university needs. Evening and weekend events may be required, and some travel is expected.

Franklin offers a competitive benefits package, incentive program, and free parking. In addition, Franklin provides free undergraduate tuition for employees and eligible family members, graduate tuition assistance for full-time employees and eligible family members, and a discount on doctoral tuition for employees.

Franklin University is committed to creating a respectful and inclusive educational and workplace environment. Franklin does not discriminate on the basis of age, religion, race, ethnicity, color, national origin, ancestry, immigration status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or familial status, disability, or veteran or military status.