Director, Audience Acquisition

Overview:

Fuel Cycle is hiring a strategic, hands-on leader to run our Audience Acquisition team. This role owns the entire respondent sourcing lifecycle—from vendor partnerships to innovative digital recruitment—and ensures we deliver high-quality participants for both research studies and long-term community engagement. The right candidate will combine deep experience in market research recruitment with a strong operational mindset, a bias for experimentation, and the leadership to scale respondent acquisition across evolving platforms and audience needs. 

 Key Responsibilities:

• Own Fuel Cycle’s audience strategy—including vendor partnerships, proprietary panel growth, digital campaigns, and community recruitment—to meet both client-specific and company-wide needs. 

• Lead and scale The Insights Lab, our proprietary research panel. Own panel health, growth strategy, engagement, retention, incentive design, and revenue performance. 

• Monitor and manage active recruitment through real-time dashboards to ensure accuracy, speed, and quality across all live projects. 

• Manage the department P&L, hitting project-level margin targets and driving cost-efficiencies across sourcing channels. 

• Launch new recruitment initiatives across channels—traditional, affiliate, in-person, and digital—with a focus on Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and emerging platforms. 

• Define and enforce respondent quality protocols, ensuring high engagement and low fraud rates across all studies. 

• Collaborate across Research, Customer Experience, and Product to align recruitment strategies with business needs and client expectations. 

Your Success Metrics:

• Design and implement a standardized panel/member health framework, with KPIs for retention, engagement, and source/channel performance. 

• Deliver margin and profitability targets across both community and ad hoc project recruitment, including commercial goals for The Insights Lab. 

• Expand vendor network to support hard-to-reach and high-value audiences (e.g., B2B, multicultural, Gen Z, etc.). 

• Test and optimize acquisition tactics regularly, using performance data to improve targeting, spend efficiency, and respondent outcomes. 

Who you’ll work with?

• Audience Experience

• Customer Experience

• Sales

• Research Excellence

• Marketing

• Finance 

Core Skills, Competencies & Attributes:

• Strategic Ownership: Think beyond operational execution. Define and drive a clear vision for Fuel Cycle’s recruitment engine. 

• Partner Management: Negotiate smart contracts, evaluate performance, and maintain a diverse ecosystem of sourcing partners. 

• Digital Acquisition Savvy: Deep understanding of recruitment via digital and social platforms; proven ability to adapt to platform shifts and audience trends. 

• Operational Rigor: Skilled in dashboarding, sampling logic, and process improvement to hit SLAs, budgets, and quality benchmarks. 

• Data-Driven Mindset: Use KPIs and analytics to guide recruitment strategy, optimize sourcing channels, and ensure high-quality outcomes. 

• Cross-Functional Leadership: Translate business requirements into action. Work closely with stakeholders to deliver recruitment solutions that scale. 

What you’ll bring:

• Minimum 8-10 years of experience in market research, audience recruitment, or panel/community management. 

• Demonstrated success building or managing high-performing research panels or respondent communities. 

• Strong track record in digital respondent acquisition across paid, organic, and social channels. 

• Experience owning vendor relationships, budgets, contracts, and P&L responsibility. 

• Confident team leader with a collaborative style and ability to influence cross-functionally. 

• Familiarity with sampling platforms, incentive models, fraud prevention tools, and dashboard/reporting systems. 

Benefits:

• Health/Dental/Vision Insurance

• 401k match

• Equity Purchase Option

• Flexible Work Schedule

• 15 Vacation Days + 7 Sick Days annually

• 12 Company Holidays + 4 Floating Holidays/Recharge Days (giving you the flexibil