Ad Sales Lead

Duolingo Ads Ad Sales Lead

Our mission at Duolingo is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. It's a big mission, and that's where you come in! At Duolingo, you'll join a team that cares about educating our users, experimenting with big ideas, making fact-based decisions, and finding innovative solutions to complex problems. You'll have limitless learning opportunities and daily collaborations with world-class minds — while doing work that's both meaningful and fun. Join our life-changing mission to develop education for our half a billion (and growing!) learners around the world.

Join us to build Duolingo Ads, Duolingo's direct ad business. Duolingo is used by over 120 million users every month to learn a language, music, math, or chess. The vast majority of our learners engage with the free, ad-supported version of our app, which is core to our mission of delivering a learning experience that is accessible to all. As our reach continues to grow, we want to elevate Duolingo's free experience by introducing higher-quality ad formats that delight learners and offer substantial monetization potential for Duolingo. We are seeking an Ad Sales Lead to scale our direct ad business, Duolingo Ads.

As a founding member of our sales team, you'll play a key role in developing Duolingo's ad strategy while scaling revenue in a priority U.S. region. You'll collaborate closely with our Business, Monetization, Product, and Design teams to formulate strategies for innovative ad formats that excite advertisers while building on Duolingo's tenets of gamification, delightful design, brand equity, and character IP. This role reports into our Head of Ad Sales, where you will work in a high-velocity environment to scale revenue by building on Duolingo Ads' foundation, leveraging your extensive network to generate demand and drive value to Duolingo and our advertising partners. This position offers a unique, early-stage opportunity to play a pivotal part in shaping the trajectory of ads on Duolingo for hundreds of millions of learners.

You will...

• Develop the revenue strategy for your region, aligning with our mission, business objectives, and product guardrail to maintain a high-quality free user experience.
• Have input on Duolingo's "ad menu" and rate cards, identifying standard and native formats that drive value for our advertisers.
• Drive revenue growth by generating demand within key verticals and maintaining a pipeline of new and existing advertising clients.
• Establish and implement efficient, repeatable sales strategies and operational processes, prioritizing accounts and managing key relationships effectively.
• Monitor market trends and perform competitive analyses to inform strategic decisions and identify emerging opportunities.
• Create compelling sales presentations and proposals using internal and external data.
• Represent Duolingo at relevant industry events, showcasing our product and expanding our network.

You have...

• 10+ years of experience in direct ad sales, preferably with a focus on innovative formats and delightful user experiences.
• Early stage sales success with experience thriving in ambiguity and creating GTM playbooks from scratch.
• Proven track record in building a book of business of top-tier advertisers in your region.
• Strong understanding of the ad tech and mobile app ecosystems.
• Strong understanding of the Duolingo product and experience working directly with product, engineers, and designers.
• Expertise in using data to derive insights and assess the performance of ad campaigns.
• Experience negotiating and structuring standard and innovative ad buying agreements.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to engage C-suite while also rolling up your sleeves to build sales collateral, troubleshoot issues, and directly bring in revenue.
• Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment.
• Entrepreneurial attitude that favors starting things from scratch, reducing complexity, and quickly testing and reiterating on ideas and processes.

We post a multi-level salary range for all of our roles. This is not inclusive of the rest of our awesome portfolio that includes equity compensation and world-class benefits. Our salary ranges are the same for all US locations. Your recruiter can share more details about the range for a specific level during the hiring process. The actual salary within the range is determined by many factors including but not limited to, skills, experience, education, and internal equity. Salary Range: $172,000 — $312,000 USD.