CRM Manager

Travellab Africa Group; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 600 000 - 800 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online travel agency in Cape Town is looking for an experienced CRM Manager to own and scale customer engagement across multiple African markets. This leadership role involves defining CRM strategies, managing a team, and developing personalized customer journeys to enhance retention and loyalty. Ideal candidates will have over 6 years of CRM experience and a strong analytical mindset. Competitive compensation and innovative work environment offered.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in CRM or lifecycle marketing roles.
• At least 3 years in a leadership role.
• Experience in e-commerce or subscription-based businesses.

Responsibilities

• Own the CRM strategy across key markets.
• Build advanced segmentation frameworks.
• Drive mobile app adoption and engagement.

Skills

CRM tools expertise (Iterable, Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud)

Segmentation knowledge

Analytical mindset

Project management skills

Communication skills

Job description

Travelstart, Africa’s leading online travel agency, is looking for a strategic and data-driven CRM Manager to own and scale our customer lifecycle, engagement, and retention across South Africa, Nigeria, and other key African markets.

This is a high-impact leadership role sitting within our Growth Team, working closely with Performance Marketing, Product (Web & App), Data, and Brand to drive sustainable revenue growth, repeat bookings, and customer loyalty across our app and website.

About the Role

As the lead for CRM, you will define and execute Travelstart’s multi-channel lifecycle strategy - spanning email, app push, in-app messaging, SMS, and audience management.

You will lead our CRM roadmap across platforms and markets, building personalised journeys that increase retention, frequency, and customer lifetime value.

Your mission: Convert first-time bookers into loyal Travelstarters, enhance the value of TS+, and expand our app ecosystem into a primary booking channel.

Key Responsibilities

CRM Strategy & Leadership

• Own the full CRM strategy across South Africa, Nigeria, and additional markets.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing CRM team.
• Partner closely with Growth, App Product, Marketing, and Data to drive cross-functional initiatives.

Customer Segmentation & Lifecycle Management

• Build advanced segmentation frameworks using behavioural, transactional, and demographic data.
• Develop lifecycle programmes across onboarding, activation, repeat booking, winback, loyalty, and TS+ membership.
• Scale personalised, multi-step journeys across channels (email, push, in-app, SMS).

App Engagement & Retention

• Drive adoption and engagement of the Travelstart mobile app.
• Build app-specific CRM journeys including app onboarding, search/browse abandonment, price alerts, loyalty nudges, and TS+ upsell flows.
• Support our strategy to significantly increase the app booking share.

Data, Personalisation & Martech

• Own the CRM platform roadmap (Iterable or relevant tools).
• Collaborate with Tech & Data teams to optimise integrations, event tracking, and data quality.
• Partner with the Performance & App teams to leverage tools like AppsFlyer for audiences, attribution, and lifecycle optimisation.

Testing, Analytics & Reporting

• Develop a rigorous experimentation framework (A/B & multivariate testing).
• Track lifecycle KPIs such as engagement rate, conversion-to-booking, repeat booking rate, retention cohorts, and LTV.
• Report performance insights to senior leadership and recommend strategic next steps.

Requirements

Experience

• 6+ years in CRM, lifecycle marketing, growth marketing, or retention roles.
• At least 3 years in a leadership or managerial CRM role.
• Experience at an e-commerce, travel, fintech, marketplace, or subscription-based technology business.
• Strong understanding of mobile app CRM and push messaging.
• Experience working with multi-market strategies (Africa experience a bonus).

Skills

• Expert in CRM tools (Iterable, Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Klaviyo, etc.).
• Deep understanding of segmentation, customer journeys, event-based triggers, and lifecycle automation.
• Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate data into decisions.
• Passion for delivering best-in-class customer experiences and driving long-term loyalty.
• Comfortable working cross-functionally with product, engineering, data, and marketing.
• Strong project management and communication skills.