Overview:
Join Country Walkers and VBT Bicycling Vacations; an award winning, Vermont based, active travel company and be part of our high performing, international team. We offer deluxe, small-group bicycling, hiking and Discovery tours worldwide at a variety of levels and paces. Positively impacting people's lives through active travel experiences is what we’re all about! We're seeking an energetic Marketing Specialist to join our Marketing team.
The Acquisition Marketing Specialist owns the Acquire phase of the customer journey, driving new qualified contacts through word of mouth, organic search (SEO and AI), paid social, and print prospecting, and is accountable for the volume, quality, and cost-efficiency of contacts created. This individual-contributor role is the primary point of contact for the paid media and AEO/SEO agency partner, and partners with Lifecycle, Conversion, and Creative to ensure a smooth handoff into nurture. The role independently manages assigned channels, campaigns, and vendor relationships within established strategy, budget, and approval processes.
Responsibilities:
Acquisition Strategy and Campaign Management
- Develop and execute new-contact acquisition campaigns across word of mouth/referral, organic search (AI and SEO), paid social, and print prospecting
- Build referral and Group Organizer programs that make it easy and rewarding for guests to share VBT with others
- Lead organic and AI-search visibility strategy with the vendor and creative team, including content structure and schema markup
- Manage print prospecting campaigns, including lookalike list selection and landing page strategy
- Translate business priorities and audience insights into coordinated acquisition programs
Paid and Organic Channel Management
- Serve as primary point of contact for the paid media and AEO/SEO agency partner, managing briefs, approvals, and day-to-day communication
- Monitor channel-level cost efficiency (cost per contact, cost per qualified prospect) and reallocate spend based on performance
- Partner with content resources to produce on-brand, search- and AI-optimized content at scale
- Stay current on organic search, AI answer-engine, and paid social platform changes
Segmentation and Targeting
- Identify and refine target audiences for paid social and print prospecting using CRM and enriched contact data
- Partner with list and lookalike-audience vendors to identify high-fit prospecting segments
- Use fit scores and engagement data to prioritize audiences most likely to convert
Testing, Measurement, and Optimization
- Monitor new contacts created, cost per contact, cost per qualified prospect, organic traffic lift, and referral bookings
- Design and evaluate tests across channels, audiences, creative, and offers
- Hold the agency partner accountable to agreed performance targets and reporting cadence
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, analytics, or a related field, or equivalent experience
- 3+ years of experience in acquisition, growth, paid media, SEO, or digital marketing, ideally in a high-consideration purchase category
- Demonstrated experience managing paid social campaigns and vendor relationships
- Working knowledge of organic search and SEO fundamentals; AI/answer-engine optimization familiarity a plus
- Hands-on experience with a CRM or customer data platform
- Working knowledge of campaign analytics, testing methodology, audience segmentation, and performance reporting
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in travel, hospitality, tourism, or another customer-focused industry
- Experience with print prospecting, direct mail, or list/lookalike-audience programs
- Experience building or managing referral, loyalty, or word-of-mouth acquisition programs
- Familiarity with schema markup, structured data, and AI answer-engine optimization practices