Posted today · be early

AEO Specialist/Lead (AI / Answer Engine Optimization) - Contractor

Thorne

WorldwideremotePosted today

Skill Required

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Key highlights

3–5+ years in a technical or analytical marketing role.
Hands‑on SEO experience with understanding of SEO and AEO/GEO overlap.
Experience using AI‑visibility/analytics platforms such as Profound.
Demonstrated project‑management/quarterback experience across cross‑functional teams.
Enthusiasm for AI tools and workflow automation.
Owns AI‑visibility roadmap and collaborates with agency Croud.

Role overview

Responsibilities

Monitor Thorne's AI visibility, share of voice, average position, sentiment, and citation performance daily in Profound.
Flag competitive movement and emerging negative sources before they erode rankings or sentiment.
Distill Profound data into clear, actionable insights and recurring readouts for the VP of Growth and broader stakeholders.
Own and maintain the AEO/AI-visibility roadmap, translating Croud's strategic recommendations into a prioritized, resourced execution plan.
Partner with Croud on quarterly strategy, topic prioritization (Defend / Grow / Repair / Build), and measurement — this person helps define the strategy, not just execute it.
Relentlessly prioritize the backlog based on business impact, competitive pressure, and available resourcing.
Project-manage AEO initiatives across every key channel + channel owner: content/blog, site/ecommerce, and PR / media affiliate.
Partner directly with Product and Dev to scope, prioritize, and track AEO-related tickets (crawlability, structured data, PDP fixes) through a backlog with significant competing demand.
Apply the repeatable citation model across owned and editorial (for credible third-party validation).
Bring a builder's instinct to the role — spot manual, repetitive AEO work (data pulls, competitive tracking, content briefs) and use AI tools or lightweight automation to remove it.
Where there's appetite, extend that same AI-native approach to other growth marketing workflows across the broader team.

Requirements

3–5+ years in a technical or analytical marketing role (SEO, growth, content ops, or similar) — or a clear track record of being AI-native even without traditional tenure.
Hands-on SEO experience and a working understanding of how SEO and AEO/GEO overlap and diverge.
Comfort working in AI-visibility or analytics platforms (Profound or similar); able to turn raw data into a clear narrative and prioritized action plan.
Demonstrated project management / quarterback experience — able to rally and hold accountable stakeholders across content, product, dev, PR, and agency partners without formal authority over them.
Comfortable operating in a complex environment with a dev backlog and competing priorities; prioritizes relentlessly.
Genuine enthusiasm for AI tools and workflows, with interest in applying them to scale marketing execution.

Nice to have

Experience with digital PR or earned-media citation building.
Familiarity with ecommerce PDP/PLP optimization.
Prior experience managing an SEO/content agency relationship (agency- or client-side).
DTC, health, wellness, or CPG category experience.