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

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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

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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

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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.