Director of Marketing Cloud Operations in Ames, Iowa at IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION

Join the Iowa State University Foundation in its charge to advance Iowa State University through philanthropy, helping thousands reach new levels of greatness. The Iowa State University Foundation is seeking outgoing, enthusiastic, hard-working, goal-oriented individuals to join our digital marketing and creative services team.

This position will support the day-to-day operation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), focusing on execution, platform coordination, and technical enablement – helping ensure campaigns, journeys, and automations are built, maintained, and released smoothly and consistently.

Based on qualifications and experience, a selected candidate may hold one of these titles: Associate Director of Marketing Cloud Operations or Director of Marketing Cloud Operations.

Core Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Provide day-to-day direction for SFMC across Email Studio, Journey Builder, Automation Studio, and Contact Builder to ensure platform stability and on-time campaign delivery.
• Validate audience readiness in SFMC: Data Extensions, SQL/filters, refresh cadence, exclusions/suppressions, and consent status; confirm upstream data availability and completeness before sends.
• Deliver detailed documentation and Jira stories for SFMC builds and operational work (email/Journey/ automation setup, audience, quality assurance, deployment), aligned to Product Owner priorities and sequencing, ensuring clear requirements, acceptance criteria, and cross-team handoffs.
• Design, build, and maintain SFMC automations and journeys; perform quality assurance and ongoing monitoring to ensure reliability and effectiveness; partner with other teams to troubleshoot failed activities, data loads, sends or reporting and to resolve dependencies outside of Marketing Cloud; coordinate incident response, escalation, and post-incident documentation.
• Deliver detailed documentation and Jira stories for SFMC builds and operational work (email/Journey/automation setup, audience, quality assurance, deployment), aligned to Product Owner priorities and sequencing, ensuring clear requirements, acceptance criteria, and cross-team handoffs.
• Define and maintain SFMC operational standards and governance for in-platform usage including folder structure and naming conventions, data retention practices, and change/release coordination.
• Support SFMC releases and enhancements by coordinating UAT, managing deployments, communicating change impacts, and maintaining a backlog of operational improvements.
• Partner with deliverability stakeholders on list hygiene, bounce/spam complaint monitoring, and sender reputation best practices; recommend operational adjustments based on SFMC tracking and performance signals.

Qualifications

Education & Work Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, information systems, or another related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in email marketing operations or marketing automation including campaign execution and delivery.
• Minimum of 1 year of experience operating Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Email Studio, Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Contact Builder) including release/change management and production support.

Skills & Experience

• Hands-on Salesforce Marketing Cloud experience building and maintaining Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Email Studio, Contact Builder, and Data Extensions.
• Ability to write and troubleshoot SQL, write and use AMPscript
• Validating data, audiences, and campaigns before deployment.
• Supporting day-to-day platform operations and stability, including performing quality assurance, troubleshooting issues, and resolving problems.
• Ability to partner effectively with technical teams such as systems, data, analytics, or technology groups.
• Strong problem-solving skills, ability to think creatively and work through complex issues.
• Strong organization, communication, and documentation skills.
• Excellent interpersonal and customer service skills.
• Training, supporting, or enabling marketers and platform users is a plus.
• Creating documentation, office hours, user guides, or operational resources is a plus.
• Experience with CloudPages, Marketing Cloud reporting, Data Cloud, Einstein, AI, or other advanced Salesforce capabilities is a plus.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and the ability to learn new software.
• Must be able to handle several activities simultaneously with attention to detail and adherence to deadlines and accuracy.
• Must adhere to strict confidentiality standards.

Travel: None

FLSA Status: Exempt

Location: Ames, IA; potentially hybrid

For additional information, visit the following pages:

• Iowa State University Foundation
• Benefits Package Information
• Iowa State University