Head of Digital & Performance Marketing

A vacancy exists for a Head of Digital & Performance Marketing within the Lesaka's Merchant Division

The Head of Digital & Performance Marketing owns the digital growth engine for the Merchant Division, across both corporate and community segments. This person is accountable for turning marketing spend into measurable business outcomes, qualified leads, activated merchants, and revenue, not vanity reach.

You will lead paid media, web, SEO, and digital analytics as a single, accountable performance system, closing the loop from first impression through to a qualified lead in Salesforce and beyond. You will set the standard of how the division measures, reports and optimises digital performance, and build the team and capability to scale it.

This is the divisional digital leader for Merchant. The role works in close partnership with any group-level digital function on shared platforms, standards and data, while retaining ownership of divisional strategy, budget and execution.

Key Responsibilities

Digital & Performance Strategy

• Own the digital and performance marketing strategy for the Merchant division.
• Translate divisional commercial targets into a digital growth plan with clear lead, activation and revenue contribution goals.
• Set the channel mix and budget allocation across paid media, owned, earned and lifecycle channels and reallocate against performance.
• Define the segment-specific approach for reaching township merchants (spaza shops, informal traders) vs corporate merchants.

Paid Media & Performance

• Lead paid media strategy and execution across all relevant digital platforms, with a lead-generation and merchant activation focus.
• Hold the team to a diagnostic, outcome-led standard.
• Govern creative testing, audience strategy and budget pacing, ensure tracking integrity (conversion tags, attribution, UTM discipline) so reporting is trustworthy.
• Move the division beyond reach and impressions to qualified pipeline and cost-per-qualified-lead as the primary measures of success.

Web, SEO and Owned Channels

• Own divisional web properties and landing pages, optimising for conversion and lead capture.
• Set the SEO and organic strategy to grow qualified, intent-led traffic across both segments.
• Oversee the division’s organic social and content marketing strategy.

Analytics, Reporting & Optimisation

• Build and own the division’s digital reporting framework, connecting media, web, CRM and revenue into a single performance view.
• Produce executive-ready reporting that closes the CRM loop from spend to qualified lead, and that distinguishes business outcomes from vanity metrics.
• Run a continuous test-and-learn program and embed a culture of optimisation across the team.

Leadership & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build, lead and develop the digital team.
• Manage agency and platform partners, holding them to measurable outcomes.
• Partner with trade marketing, GTM, product marketing and sales to align digital plans with go-to-market priorities.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

• Partner closely with the GTM Manager who owns Salesforce Marketing Cloud, to ensure the platform powers digital activity effectively.
• Own the digital requirements feeding into the platform.
• Use Marketing Cloud signals to sharpen retargeting, lookalike audiences and full-funnel attribution, ensuring digital performance is consistently visible within the consolidated GTM reporting view.

Experience and Qualifications

• 8+ years in digital and performance marketing, with 2-3 of those years at a leadership or Head level managing teams and budgets.
• Fintech, payments or financial services experience is advantageous.
• Google Ads, Meta Blueprint, GA4 etc certifications are a strong plus.
• Demonstratable track record of owning performance marketing as a P&L style accountability, driving measurable leads, activation and revenue, not just reach.
• Hands-on depth in paid media and in lead-generation models that close the loop through CRM.
• Strong working understanding of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
• Proven analytics and reporting capability: funnel diagnostic, attribution, and translating data into executive decisions.
• A commercially sharp mind, strong cross-functional instincts, and the communication skills to make complex data land with non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience leading and growing teams and managing agency/partner relationships.