Audience Data Strategist

AP•New York, NY

33d•$103,000 - $128,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As an Audience Data Strategist, you'll be the bridge between data and decision-making across our digital publishing platforms. You'll uncover patterns in how millions of users discover, consume, and engage with AP journalism and then translate those insights into strategies that inform editorial priorities, product development, and revenue optimization. This role requires someone who can speak both the language of data and the language of newsrooms, comfortable presenting findings to both engineering teams and editorial leadership.

Requirements

3+ years professional experience working with content analytics, audience insights, or digital publishing platforms
Deep experience with Google Analytics 4 in an enterprise publishing environment; you understand pageviews, sessions, engagement metrics, and user journeys in the context of editorial content
Proven track record of uncovering actionable insights from large datasets related to content performance, audience behavior, or user engagement
Hands-on experience with Looker Enterprise for building dashboards and exploring data
Familiarity with Hex.Tech or similar collaborative analytics platforms for reproducible analysis
Practical experience using SQL to query datasets and Python to analyze patterns and trends (you don't need to be a software engineer, but you should be comfortable writing queries and scripts to answer questions)
Experience implementing and managing Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), including custom-event tracking
Ability to identify patterns and trends in data that others might miss, then articulate why they matter
Comfort translating technical findings into strategic recommendations for non-technical audiences; you can explain user behavior patterns to editorial teams and technical requirements to data engineers
Track record of building relationships across diverse teams: working with both highly technical stakeholders (data engineers, developers) and creative/strategic leaders (editors, product managers, executives)
Understanding of how audiences discover and consume news content across platforms (web, mobile web, apps)
Familiarity with content management systems, homepage modules, recirculation strategies, and the metrics that matter in digital publishing
Interest in questions like: What makes content engaging? How do users navigate between stories? What drives return visits and loyalty?
Curiosity about audience behavior and a passion for understanding why users make the choices they do
Collaborative approach-you see your role as enabling others to make better decisions, not gatekeeping data
Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to define your own analyses when questions are open-ended
Adaptability to propose new approaches, test them, and iterate based on results

Nice To Haves

Experience with donation, subscription, or reader revenue analytics in publishing
Background working with BigQuery or other large-scale data warehousing platforms
Familiarity with content recommendation systems or personalization strategies
Experience with A/B testing platforms and experimental design

Responsibilities

Mine large datasets using Google Analytics 4, Looker Enterprise, and Hex.Tech to then identify patterns in audience behavior, content performance, and engagement trends across our publishing platforms
Discover opportunities in user journeys, content placement, and engagement funnels that drive strategic recommendations for homepage optimization, recirculation strategies, and content distribution
Analyze how different audience segments interact with our journalism and identify opportunities to deepen engagement and build loyalty
Transform complex audience data into compelling narratives that inform editorial strategy, product roadmaps, and monetization decisions
Build relationships with editorial teams to understand their questions and translate them into data-driven insights about what content resonates, when, and with whom
Partner with product managers and engineers to identify data patterns that reveal opportunities for platform improvements and new features
Use SQL, Python, and R to query large datasets, identify trends, and build repeatable analyses that surface actionable insights about content performance and audience behavior
Design and build dashboards in Looker Enterprise and Hex.Tech that make complex audience patterns accessible to non-technical stakeholders
Implement tracking strategies in Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager to ensure we're capturing the right data to answer critical business questions
Uncover patterns in highly engaged users and design strategies to grow this valuable audience segment
Evaluate A/B tests and product experiments to determine impact on engagement, retention, and revenue metrics
Build trusted relationships with editorial leaders, helping them understand audience trends and content performance patterns
Collaborate with technical teams (data engineering, product development) to ensure data infrastructure supports strategic decision-making
Communicate findings to diverse stakeholders; from reporters asking about story performance to executives evaluating strategic priorities