Growth Marketer
City Innovations | A Traction First Company, Grand Rapids, MI, United States
Growth Marketer — Traction Labs by City Innovations
The Role
Most marketing roles ask you to run an engine someone else already built. This one asks you to
build the engine
with us.
Traction Labs is the growth studio inside City Innovations.
We help B2B teams build repeatable traction engines —systems designed to turn marketing investment into measurable, compounding returns. We don't run campaigns and hope for the best. We run rapid market experiments, learn from real signal, and iterate until we've earned the right to scale.
As the Growth Marketer you'll be embedded in that mission alongside our team. You'll work directly with clients—founders, executives, and innovation leaders to design and execute the experiments that reveal where traction actually lives. Then you'll help codify those learnings into repeatable systems their organizations can own.
This isn't a "run the ads and report the metrics" role. This is client-facing, experiment-driven, and fast—and it doesn't stop at the top of the funnel. You'll care as much about generating qualified conversations as you do about generating awareness. You'll also be joining a startup that's still being built, which means you won't just grow our clients—you'll help grow us. If that excites you, keep reading.
This position is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hybrid is an option.
Why This Role Is Different We're obsessed with speed to learning. Most agencies operate in long campaign cycles—set it, forget it, report on it quarterly. We don't. We run 2-week traction sprints designed to generate as many learnings as possible, as fast as possible.
The philosophy is simple: the faster you learn what the market actually responds to, the faster you earn the right to scale.
You'll be one of the people driving that pace.
You'll build traction engines, not just run marketing. There's a critical difference. Building a traction engine means figuring out the right offer, message, and market fit through experimentation—before scale. Running one means pouring fuel on a system that already works. Most teams skip straight to running and wonder why nothing catches. We don't. You'll live in the building and tuning phases alongside our team, where the real leverage is.
You'll own the full path to a qualified lead. We don't hand off a list of impressions and call it a win. You'll think beyond clicks and content—designing experiments that generate real demand signals, qualified conversations, and pipeline momentum. That means getting comfortable operating in the space where marketing meets outbound, where a well-crafted sequence or a scrappy direct outreach can be just as valuable as a paid campaign.
What You'll Do We build traction engines through four integrated disciplines we call the Traction Flywheel: Attraction (demand generation and market experiments), Conversion (agile sales and pipeline acceleration) and Expansion (product and service design). You'll operate primarily within Attraction—but because traction doesn't live in silos, you'll collaborate across all four as part of one integrated team.
Run traction sprints (2-week cycles) to test hypotheses across channels—email, paid, social, SEO, partnerships, and outbound.
Design small experiments, not large bets. Test offers, messages, segments, and channels quickly—then double down on what earns traction.
Measure what matters: qualified leads generated, pipeline influenced, and learnings captured—not vanity dashboards.
Surface learnings every sprint and share actionable insights with clients and internal stakeholders.
Build & Optimize
Rapidly spin up and refine landing pages using Webflow, Unbounce, HubSpot, Instapage, Carrd, or whatever gets us to signal fastest.
Map and optimize full funnels—from awareness to qualified lead—always asking, "Where's the traction?"
Run A/B tests, analyze campaign data, and translate results into clear next moves.
Document and codify learnings into repeatable playbooks that strengthen every venture we touch.
Work With Clients
Sit across from founders and executives to understand their growth challenges—whether that's scaling founder-led growth, breaking through a plateau, or navigating a strategic shift.
Translate client goals into traction experiments, run them, and present results with honest, proof-driven recommendations.
Help clients internalize the Traction First mindset so growth doesn't leave when we do. Traction that only works with consultants isn't repeatable traction.
Generate Demand, Not Just Awareness
Design and run outreach experiments—sequences, direct outreach, partnerships—that create qualified conversations, not just traffic.
Think beyond the campaign. Connect what you're learning from experiments to what's actually moving the pipeline forward.
Measure success in terms of qualified leads and conversations, not just clicks and impressions.
Be willing to run a discovery call, or work a lead directly when that's the fastest path to learning.
Leverage AI
Use AI tools to accelerate ideation, generate campaign variations, surface insights from messy data, and predict which segments to test first.
Help shape how the team uses AI through daily experimentation—your curiosity makes the whole team faster.
The Laws You'll Live By
Sell First, Build Later — We go to market before things are perfect. Signal from real buyers beats internal opinions every time.
Sell to Learn, Not to Scale — Early experiments aren't about revenue. They're about learning what the market actually wants.
Speed to Learning Over Activity As Progress — Moving fast matters, but only if you're learning fast. Output without insight is just noise.
Small Experiments, Not Large Bets — We'd rather run 20 scrappy tests than one polished campaign. The portfolio of learnings wins.
Pursue Traction, Not Strategy Decks — Proof beats plans. We earn confidence through market signal, not slide decks.
Stay Scrappy and Hands-On — You'll build the landing page, write the copy, launch the ad, read the data, and brief the client. That's the job.
Who You Are
5+ years of hands-on growth marketing, demand generation, or digital marketing experience. Side hustles, startup experiments, and self-taught traction count. Show us what you've learned, not just where you've worked.
Client-facing and comfortable in the room. You can run a discovery conversation with a founder, present experiment results to an executive team, and translate technical marketing into plain language.
Demand gen-minded, not just brand-minded. You care about generating qualified leads and pipeline, not just awareness. You're comfortable designing outreach, running sequences, and getting scrappy to create real conversations—whatever the experiment calls for.
Hands-on with the tools. Landing page builders (Webflow, Unbounce, Instapage, Carrd), social ad platforms (LinkedIn, Meta), demand gen platforms (Apollo, Dripify, HubSpot)—you've built and shipped with these, not just managed vendors who do.
Wired for experimentation. You believe proof beats opinions. You'd rather run a scrappy test today than build a perfect plan for next quarter. You understand the difference between building a traction engine and running one—and you're energized by the ambiguity of the building phase.
Comfortable with AI as a daily tool. You already use AI to generate ideas, analyze data, or accelerate execution—and you're curious about pushing it further.
Sprint-ready. You thrive in structured, fast-paced cadences. Experience with agile, scrum, or sprint-based work is a plus—but what matters most is that you can plan, execute, learn, and pivot every two weeks without losing momentum.
A systems thinker. You see marketing as an engine for traction, not a set of disconnected tactics. You naturally think about how channels, messages, and audiences connect into something repeatable.
Organized, coachable, and hungry. Early-stage environments are messy. You bring structure without rigidity, take feedback without ego, and find energy in building something that doesn't exist yet.
Founder-minded. You're not just looking for a role—you're looking for something to build. You think like an owner: you see gaps and fill them, you care about the business beyond your job description, and you're energized by the idea of shaping a company in its early stages, not just joining one that's already figured out.
About Traction Labs by City Innovations We're a growth studio devoted to helping B2B organizations find and build traction as fast as possible. We sit in a unique space: we're not a strategy consultancy that stops at the deck, not an agency that just runs campaigns, and not a RevOps team that only scales what exists. We help teams define, build, run, and tune end-to-end traction engines through rapid iteration and compressed learning cycles.
Our clients include organizations navigating scaling challenges, stalled growth, strategic shifts, M&A integrations, and AI-driven transformation. We work as an embedded growth team—not outside vendors.
Traction First. Everything Else Second.
What We Offer
Health coverage — Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
Unlimited PTO — We trust you to manage your time. As long as client work is met and the team is moving, take what you need.
401(k) — Plan for the long term while building for the short term.
Hybrid/remote flexibility — This role is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with flexibility to work remotely. We care about output, not where your laptop is.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
build the engine
with us.
Traction Labs is the growth studio inside City Innovations.
We help B2B teams build repeatable traction engines —systems designed to turn marketing investment into measurable, compounding returns. We don't run campaigns and hope for the best. We run rapid market experiments, learn from real signal, and iterate until we've earned the right to scale.
As the Growth Marketer you'll be embedded in that mission alongside our team. You'll work directly with clients—founders, executives, and innovation leaders to design and execute the experiments that reveal where traction actually lives. Then you'll help codify those learnings into repeatable systems their organizations can own.
This isn't a "run the ads and report the metrics" role. This is client-facing, experiment-driven, and fast—and it doesn't stop at the top of the funnel. You'll care as much about generating qualified conversations as you do about generating awareness. You'll also be joining a startup that's still being built, which means you won't just grow our clients—you'll help grow us. If that excites you, keep reading.
This position is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hybrid is an option.
Why This Role Is Different We're obsessed with speed to learning. Most agencies operate in long campaign cycles—set it, forget it, report on it quarterly. We don't. We run 2-week traction sprints designed to generate as many learnings as possible, as fast as possible.
The philosophy is simple: the faster you learn what the market actually responds to, the faster you earn the right to scale.
You'll be one of the people driving that pace.
You'll build traction engines, not just run marketing. There's a critical difference. Building a traction engine means figuring out the right offer, message, and market fit through experimentation—before scale. Running one means pouring fuel on a system that already works. Most teams skip straight to running and wonder why nothing catches. We don't. You'll live in the building and tuning phases alongside our team, where the real leverage is.
You'll own the full path to a qualified lead. We don't hand off a list of impressions and call it a win. You'll think beyond clicks and content—designing experiments that generate real demand signals, qualified conversations, and pipeline momentum. That means getting comfortable operating in the space where marketing meets outbound, where a well-crafted sequence or a scrappy direct outreach can be just as valuable as a paid campaign.
What You'll Do We build traction engines through four integrated disciplines we call the Traction Flywheel: Attraction (demand generation and market experiments), Conversion (agile sales and pipeline acceleration) and Expansion (product and service design). You'll operate primarily within Attraction—but because traction doesn't live in silos, you'll collaborate across all four as part of one integrated team.
Run traction sprints (2-week cycles) to test hypotheses across channels—email, paid, social, SEO, partnerships, and outbound.
Design small experiments, not large bets. Test offers, messages, segments, and channels quickly—then double down on what earns traction.
Measure what matters: qualified leads generated, pipeline influenced, and learnings captured—not vanity dashboards.
Surface learnings every sprint and share actionable insights with clients and internal stakeholders.
Build & Optimize
Rapidly spin up and refine landing pages using Webflow, Unbounce, HubSpot, Instapage, Carrd, or whatever gets us to signal fastest.
Map and optimize full funnels—from awareness to qualified lead—always asking, "Where's the traction?"
Run A/B tests, analyze campaign data, and translate results into clear next moves.
Document and codify learnings into repeatable playbooks that strengthen every venture we touch.
Work With Clients
Sit across from founders and executives to understand their growth challenges—whether that's scaling founder-led growth, breaking through a plateau, or navigating a strategic shift.
Translate client goals into traction experiments, run them, and present results with honest, proof-driven recommendations.
Help clients internalize the Traction First mindset so growth doesn't leave when we do. Traction that only works with consultants isn't repeatable traction.
Generate Demand, Not Just Awareness
Design and run outreach experiments—sequences, direct outreach, partnerships—that create qualified conversations, not just traffic.
Think beyond the campaign. Connect what you're learning from experiments to what's actually moving the pipeline forward.
Measure success in terms of qualified leads and conversations, not just clicks and impressions.
Be willing to run a discovery call, or work a lead directly when that's the fastest path to learning.
Leverage AI
Use AI tools to accelerate ideation, generate campaign variations, surface insights from messy data, and predict which segments to test first.
Help shape how the team uses AI through daily experimentation—your curiosity makes the whole team faster.
The Laws You'll Live By
Sell First, Build Later — We go to market before things are perfect. Signal from real buyers beats internal opinions every time.
Sell to Learn, Not to Scale — Early experiments aren't about revenue. They're about learning what the market actually wants.
Speed to Learning Over Activity As Progress — Moving fast matters, but only if you're learning fast. Output without insight is just noise.
Small Experiments, Not Large Bets — We'd rather run 20 scrappy tests than one polished campaign. The portfolio of learnings wins.
Pursue Traction, Not Strategy Decks — Proof beats plans. We earn confidence through market signal, not slide decks.
Stay Scrappy and Hands-On — You'll build the landing page, write the copy, launch the ad, read the data, and brief the client. That's the job.
Who You Are
5+ years of hands-on growth marketing, demand generation, or digital marketing experience. Side hustles, startup experiments, and self-taught traction count. Show us what you've learned, not just where you've worked.
Client-facing and comfortable in the room. You can run a discovery conversation with a founder, present experiment results to an executive team, and translate technical marketing into plain language.
Demand gen-minded, not just brand-minded. You care about generating qualified leads and pipeline, not just awareness. You're comfortable designing outreach, running sequences, and getting scrappy to create real conversations—whatever the experiment calls for.
Hands-on with the tools. Landing page builders (Webflow, Unbounce, Instapage, Carrd), social ad platforms (LinkedIn, Meta), demand gen platforms (Apollo, Dripify, HubSpot)—you've built and shipped with these, not just managed vendors who do.
Wired for experimentation. You believe proof beats opinions. You'd rather run a scrappy test today than build a perfect plan for next quarter. You understand the difference between building a traction engine and running one—and you're energized by the ambiguity of the building phase.
Comfortable with AI as a daily tool. You already use AI to generate ideas, analyze data, or accelerate execution—and you're curious about pushing it further.
Sprint-ready. You thrive in structured, fast-paced cadences. Experience with agile, scrum, or sprint-based work is a plus—but what matters most is that you can plan, execute, learn, and pivot every two weeks without losing momentum.
A systems thinker. You see marketing as an engine for traction, not a set of disconnected tactics. You naturally think about how channels, messages, and audiences connect into something repeatable.
Organized, coachable, and hungry. Early-stage environments are messy. You bring structure without rigidity, take feedback without ego, and find energy in building something that doesn't exist yet.
Founder-minded. You're not just looking for a role—you're looking for something to build. You think like an owner: you see gaps and fill them, you care about the business beyond your job description, and you're energized by the idea of shaping a company in its early stages, not just joining one that's already figured out.
About Traction Labs by City Innovations We're a growth studio devoted to helping B2B organizations find and build traction as fast as possible. We sit in a unique space: we're not a strategy consultancy that stops at the deck, not an agency that just runs campaigns, and not a RevOps team that only scales what exists. We help teams define, build, run, and tune end-to-end traction engines through rapid iteration and compressed learning cycles.
Our clients include organizations navigating scaling challenges, stalled growth, strategic shifts, M&A integrations, and AI-driven transformation. We work as an embedded growth team—not outside vendors.
Traction First. Everything Else Second.
What We Offer
Health coverage — Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
Unlimited PTO — We trust you to manage your time. As long as client work is met and the team is moving, take what you need.
401(k) — Plan for the long term while building for the short term.
Hybrid/remote flexibility — This role is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with flexibility to work remotely. We care about output, not where your laptop is.
#J-18808-Ljbffr