Head of Digital Growth

Job description

ABOUT LULA Lula is on a mission to simplify business funding for South African SMEs. We build fast, digital-first fintech tools that make cash flow management seamless so business owners can focus on doing what they love. We’re a fast-growing, tech-driven team that values curiosity, collaboration, and high impact over red tape. Speaking of love, we’re looking for Lulas who love to make a difference to join our team and change the game. CULTURE CODE We Embrace Curiosity - We continuously seek better ways to deliver value with a solutions-over-problems mindset. We win as One - We collaborate, build strong relationships and value diverse perspectives We’re Driven by Purpose - We are passionate and committed to delivering the best products and services for SMEs We Execute with Ambition - We set ambitious goals, embrace challenges, and deliver with focus and determination. ROLE PURPOSE Your core purpose in this role is to scale customer acquisition profitably through digital channels. Stepping into this position means taking full ownership of how Lula captures and converts demand online, spanning paid media, organic search and GEO, website, and the application journey. This is a unique opportunity to build a high-performing in-house digital team driven by one clear outcome of delivering more funded SMEs at an economically viable cost. Because success here is measured by the real impact of approved and funded customers rather than vanity metrics like applications or traffic, you will partner closely with Brand, CRM, Analytics, Product, Sales, and Credit to bring this vision to life. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Build and scale a profitable in-house paid media engine Lead the handover of paid search from our UK agency and consultant to an in-house team over 3–6 months, without compromising performance. Take full ownership and control of all ad accounts, tracking and campaign data. Rebuild the paid media mix around unit economics, moving budgets to where marginal returns are highest based on our allowable cost per funded customer. Set up deep-funnel optimisation by integrating approved and funded outcomes from Segment back into Google, Meta, and Microsoft Ads, shifting bidding strategies from sheer volume to high quality. Evaluate campaign performance, decisively pivoting away from channels that don't align with our target economics. Own search: paid, organic and GEO together Manage paid and organic search as one system, including brand-term protection and how paid and organic overlap on brand searches. Lead our SEO and GEO (visibility in AI answer engines) strategy, through the Content & Organic Growth Manager while successfully transitioning remaining SEO agency work in-house. Partner with the Brand and Analytics teams to track share of search and brand search volume, leveraging these critical metrics to validate and shape our ongoing brand investments. Drive conversion, build the team and lead the operating rhythm Take full ownership of website and application conversion across both mobile and desktop, collaborating seamlessly with Product and Engineering to build a robust experimentation program driven by approved and funded outcomes. Strategically shape pre-qualification and onboarding enhancements to continually elevate the quality of incoming applications. Hire, mentor, and inspire a high-performing digital team, fostering a culture of data-driven excellence. Spearhead digital performance discussions in weekly growth meetings, presenting a clear, unified funnel view from first impression through to funded customers. Collaborate deeply with Analytics to drive advanced attribution, incrementality, and geo-lift testing. Partner closely with the Credit team to unpack and optimize approval outcomes across every channel, campaign, and audience segment. SUCCESS MEASURES Funded customers and disbursement value from digital channels Cost per funded customer against the agreed allowable CAC (customer acquisition cost) Approval rate of digital-sourced applications Application completion rate, especially on mobile Brand search volume and share of search (shared with Brand) OUR TECH STACK Segment, Snowflake, Mix Panel, GA4, Iterable THE SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE WE’RE LOOKING FOR 10+ years in digital or performance marketing, including at least 3–5 years leading teams. Deep, hands-on expertise in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and strong working knowledge of Meta and other channels. A track record of optimising to deep-funnel outcomes (qualified, approved or revenue-generating customers), not just leads, ideally using offline conversion imports and value-based bidding. Experience in lending, fintech, financial services or another high-consideration lead-generation category. Practical experience of conversion optimisation and experimentation, ideally with product and engineering teams. A strong understanding of SEO, and interest in how AI search is changing discovery. Experience bringing agency work in-house, or building a digital team from scratch. Strong commercial and analytical skills: you are comfortable with unit economics, payback and marginal return, and with GA4, Mix panel, snowflake or similar tools.