Customer Data & CRM Marketing Manager

Extended Stay America•Buffalo Grove, IL

12d•Remote

About The Position

Extended Stay America (ESA) is seeking a highly analytical Customer Data & CRM Marketing Manager to oversee our customer data platform (CDP) and lifecycle marketing programs across eMail, SMS, and Push. This role is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of customer data, marketing technology, segmentation strategy, and performance analytics. Unlike traditional CRM roles focused primarily on campaign coordination or lead management, this position is responsible for managing and optimizing a large-scale CDP containing millions of customer profiles and transforming that data into actionable marketing strategies. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience working with large, complex datasets, customer segmentation, data governance, audience architecture, and marketing automation platforms. They are equally comfortable partnering with technical teams on data structure and with marketing teams on customer engagement strategy. This position will guide systems integrations, maintain daily operations, conduct deep data analyses, and recommend omni-channel customer journey campaigns to improve guest acquisition and retention. The position will work to acquire, nurture, and retain email and mobile messaging subscribers. The Customer Data & CRM Marketing Manager is viewed as a critical role in the organization that will enable ESA to maximize the returns of our investments by achieving better guest insights, improved guest experience, increased loyalty and revenue, as well as more personalized, productive, and profitable marketing. This position will report directly to the Senior Director of Marketing and will work closely with leaders in the Marketing and eCommerce department and across the company.

Requirements

Strong experience working with large-scale customer databases and CDPs containing high-volume customer records
Proven ability to build and manage complex audience segmentation strategies using behavioral and transactional data
Strong analytical mindset with experience interpreting customer data, campaign metrics, and performance trends
Experience managing lifecycle marketing channels including email, SMS, and push messaging, with experience collaborating with Creative teams
Hands-on experience with CRM/CDP and marketing automation platforms
Comfortable working cross-functionally with technical, analytics, and engineering teams
Advanced proficiency in Excel and familiarity with SQL, BI tools, or data visualization platforms strongly preferred
Experience in hospitality, travel, loyalty, or multi-location consumer brands is a plus
Strong attention to detail, data accuracy, and operational execution
Ability to manage a diverse range of projects simultaneously
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Strong business acumen
Strong collaborator and great at building strong working relationships
Able to work independently and solve problems with minimum supervision
Bachelor's degree from an accredited 4-year university
5+ years of experience in CRM, customer data, lifecycle marketing, marketing analytics, or marketing technology roles

Nice To Haves

Experience in hospitality, travel, loyalty, or multi-location consumer brands is a plus
Familiarity with SQL, BI tools, or data visualization platforms

Responsibilities

Oversees and optimizes the company's CDP, including data integrity, profile governance, audience management, and segmentation strategy across millions of customer records
Partners with data, technology, and marketing teams to ensure accurate customer data flows, integrations, and campaign execution.
Guides the integration of systems with the CDP, ensuring optimal data structure and accurate mapping.
Partners with the Senior Director of Marketing in the development of the customer journey contact strategy across multiple channels, including web, display, email, SMS, push, social, etc.
Serves as the organization's primary point of contact for our CDP/CRM vendor.
Maintains and monitor CRM data flow across systems to ensure timeliness and accuracy.
Monitors database health, profile quality, consent management, and channel performance metrics.
Partners with our vendor to develop and refine consumer scoring algorithms regarding purchase propensity, price elasticity, and LTV.
Performs regular and ad hoc data analyses on our database to inform the company on our consumer and to aid in strategy development across departments.
Identifies consumer purchase trends and provides segmentation recommendations to improve conversion and profitability.
Develops and maintains a robust reporting dashboard.
Translates complex customer data into actionable insights and recommendations for leadership and cross-functional teams.
Regularly presents to leadership on current state, analytical findings, and future roadmap of the platform.
Enables constant testing and optimization across channels via production of data analyses and segmented audiences.
Works closely with various stakeholders to maintain the integrity of the database and to develop product roadmaps and enhancements.
Identifies opportunities to improve systems and processes to support the platform.
Partners with various functional teams to develop and implement strategies to increase capture rate of accurate guest data across all channels.
Works with digital marketing agencies and partners to leverage customer data for more targeted and productive marketing.
Leads the CDP/CRM vendor RFP process, including providing vendor recommendations, developing RFP content, and managing project timeline and logistics.
Manage and optimize our CRM communication channels of eMail, SMS, and Push.
Works closely with cross-functional teams to grow the subscriber database and increase revenue generation from the eMail, SMS, and Push channels.
Acts as business owner for all business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) communications.
Develops scalable audience and lifecycle marketing strategies using behavioral, transactional, and engagement data.
Builds and maintains sophisticated customer segments, triggers, automations, and personalization strategies to maximize adoption, retention, frequency, and loyalty.
Leads the development of the campaign, promotional, and testing calendars.
Spearheads testing strategies including A/B testing, audience experimentation, and incremental lift analyses.
Directs the content, messaging hierarchy, and creative development for all sends, both promotional and transactional in nature.
Oversees all aspects of the Email Service Provider (also used to deploy SMS and Push) to include integrations, maintenance, optimization, upgrades, data cleansing, and account management.
Influences KPIs via constant testing and optimization.
Manages external eCRM/SMS/Push agency.
Performs all other duties as assigned.