Head of Customer Referral & Emerging Channels

About Gusto

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.

All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy .

AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process.

About The Role

Small businesses run on relationships, and word of mouth is one of the most powerful and underutilized growth levers in the SMB market. The small business owners who use Gusto are among our most vocal advocates, and this role exists to turn that goodwill into a scalable acquisition engine. As our Head of Customer Referral & Emerging Channels, you'll own the programs that harness how customers naturally talk about us, accelerating our referral program, activating customer reviews, and tapping chat and other emerging communication channels. You'll use AI to surface high-intent advocates, personalize outreach at scale, and identify the signals that predict who's most likely to refer. Partnering closely with our AEO team, you'll coordinate emerging acquisition plays across the funnel. This is a high-visibility role for someone equally energized by optimizing a mature program and standing up something net-new, and who sees the untapped potential in Gusto's customer base as the growth opportunity it truly is.

About The Team

The Demand Generation team at Gusto is responsible for driving qualified pipeline and customer growth across all channels. We're a detail-oriented, experiment-driven team that works closely with Sales, Product, and RevOps to build scalable programs that move the business. We believe great growth marketing is part art, part science, and we're always testing, learning, and iterating. You'll lead a team of sharp marketers who genuinely care about the small businesses we serve.

Here's what you'll do day-to-day

• Manage and develop the growth marketing team, setting clear goals, providing coaching, and fostering a culture of accountability and innovation.
• Own and evolve Gusto's customer referral program from strategy and incentive design, to measurement and optimization, driving meaningful new customer acquisition and revenue through word-of-mouth and network effects.
• Build and run a rigorous experimentation roadmap, using advanced testing and data analysis to identify growth levers and scale what works.
• Scout, pilot, and scale emerging acquisition channels, bringing rigor to what gets tested and moving quickly from hypothesis to results.
• Partner with the Web Marketing team to surface and prioritize conversion experiments, translating referral and emerging channel performance data into landing page hypotheses and post-click optimizations that improve acquisition outcomes.
• Partner cross-functionally with Growth, Product, Sales, RevOps, and Data teams to align growth programs with business priorities and optimize the full funnel from awareness to activation.
• Use AI tools as a consistent, habitual part of your workflow, generating referral program briefs, developing incentive copy variants, accelerating channel research, and building reusable systems that scale best practices across the team.
• Report on program performance to senior leadership, distilling complex data into clear insights and concrete recommendations.

Here's what we're looking for

• 10+ years of experience in growth marketing, demand generation, or performance marketing, with at least 3 years in a people management role.
• Demonstrated success building and scaling customer acquisition programs (referral, affiliate, and/or word-of-mouth) from concept to measurable growth.
• Working knowledge of paid acquisition channels (SEM, paid social, ABM, etc.) and a strong grasp of full-funnel growth strategy.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into decisions; experience with tools like Salesforce, Amplitude, redash, or similar platforms is a plus.
• AI-fluent in practice, not just in theory; you use AI tools consistently in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate briefs, copy, program design, and analysis, and you're building toward systematizing those habits for your team.
• Exceptional communicator who can influence across teams and present clearly to executive audiences.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; MBA or quantitative background is a plus.

Compensation

Our cash compensation for this role ranges from $141,000 to $176,000/yr in Denver, Phoenix/Scottsdale, Las Vegas, and Atlanta, and $166,000 to $207,000/yr in San Francisco and New York. Canadian candidates based in Toronto can expect a range of CAD $133,000 to $166,000/yr. Final offer amounts depend on a number of factors including candidate location, experience, and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer .

Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice .