Principal Analyst (Washington DC-Baltimore Area)

What to know

As Principal Analyst, you serve as Analytics Lead and subject matter expert on projects and retainers. You are highly adept at using data, statistics, strategic insights, and your knowledge of data management, data warehousing, and digital channels—including CRM, email, media (both paid and owned)—to reach clients’ goals. You are expected to work on complex accounts with ambitious goals and, at times, ambiguous challenges, and to meet those challenges with innovative solutions and deliverables.

You provide coaching—training new staff, helping to shape and standardize deliverables, and sharing technical knowledge and strategic expertise across the agency as a whole as well as externally.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From UNICEF and Patagonia to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is an independent agency and has 150+ employees in the US and London.

A day in the life

• Collect and analyze data to serve the needs of your client portfolio, including but not limited to: web traffic and user behavior, email messaging statistics, paid media performance, and social media trends
• Transform your analysis observations into insights and actionable strategic recommendations for fundraising, marketing, and communications programs
• Develop scalable industry best practices, and drive core insights from data to suggest, create, and execute multivariate or A/B tests that drive fundamental improvements
• Work collaboratively with a cross-disciplined team of creative directors, copywriters, designers, strategists, and account managers as a leader in your craft on client engagements
• Plan measurement strategies for key performance indicators, develop and execute testing plans, and monitor existing properties to ensure all tracking and data collection works properly
• Provide strategic leadership on analytics projects and act as the senior expert on analytics, data management, and data fidelity issues
• Develop effective and persuasive presentations, dashboards, and memos demonstrating the value of our work for client teams, business development, and partners
• Knowledge of performance marketing across grassroots fundraising, website strategy, supporter mobilization, customer engagement, and brand strategy
• Stays current on discipline trends and industry standards, identifies new frameworks, tools, platforms, and methodologies, and finds ways to implement them in our work.
• Identifies opportunities to expand our Analytics offerings to meet business needs of clients and potential clients.
• Partners with leaders at Blue State to integrate our services and deliver stronger work.
• Assist with coaching and mentorship of analysts located across offices
• Work with Analytics Team leadership to identify offering, product, and project opportunities
• Promote and cultivate skill development and professional growth of members of the team

The team

The Analytics team is the backbone of our agency, supporting efforts and people that span web development, email, social media, design, and paid media. This is a team that challenges the status quo and pushes us all to move toward better results, whether that’s money raised or actions taken or perceptions changed. So, if you geek out over data, want to develop groundbreaking digital campaigns that will inspire and affect change, and work with people who are talented and passionate about what they do, then let’s talk!

What we offer

• Unlimited time-off (inclusive of sick, personal, and vacation days)
• $1,250 annually in professional development funds
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible and health savings accounts
• 401K & employer match
• Generous paid holiday schedule
• 12-week fully-paid parental leave for all parents-to-be
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Remote work flexibility

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is welcome for US staff who are within commuting distance of the NY or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person.

The salary range for this position is $113,500 - $125,000; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Some things we're looking for

• 7+ years of experience in digital analytics, ideally with direct experience working on marketing, direct response, or fundraising campaigns.
• Extensive experience working with CRMs and/or Salesforce Marketing Cloud, data from paid media, and a web analytics suite such as Google Analytics, A/B testing solutions such as Optimizely (or equivalent).
• You are an expert in SQL, and feel comfortable managing, optimizing, and troubleshooting in a data warehouse environment, such as BigQuery or Snowflake. The ideal candidate will have experience in data modeling, familiarity with ETL processes, and deep expertise in leveraging large datasets to enable strategic decision-making.
• You have working-level experience with Python, R, or other statistical packages, as well as experience with data science and data visualization. In addition to data manipulation and processing, you have experience with statistical methods (significance testing, regression analysis, etc), and willingness to learn new data tools and programming languages.
• Strong mentorship and leadership skills. You are able to create a positive learning environment and provide clear and actionable feedback. You resolve conflicts constructively. You proactively identify and communicate growth goals for yourself and others. You are an exceptional listener.
• You can take a step back to see the bigger implications of your analysis work and lead program strategy. Beyond data observations, you have client presentation experience crafting the data and insights story to arrive at a strategy.
• Strong collaborator and relationship builder.
• Excellent communication skills. Ability to interact with all levels of end users, and colleagues.
• Ability to adapt to new situations, solve problems on the fly, and communicate with those around you. Teamwork and scrappiness required.
• A shared passion and curiosity for making change. This includes comfort with ambiguity, a restlessness that resists the status quo, and a commitment to quality that ensures we’re always making progress.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, including the use of AI tools throughout the hiring process, please contact us at View email address on apply.placed-app.com with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.

This position is part of the CWA collective bargaining unit; ie, the Blue State Union.

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