Senior Retention Manager

Join the rebellion against bland.

We’re on a mission to rid the world of generic sentiment.

To make it more thortful. One brilliantly specific card at a time.

Rulebook? Shmulebook.

We’re not looking for followers.

We’re looking for smart, opinionated, high-performing humans who challenge the status quo. Kindly.

People who

• Back themselves.
• Push ideas further.
• Take smart risks (not reckless ones).
• Have strong opinions, lightly held.
• And are, crucially, good to work with. (No brilliant jerks. Life’s too short.)

We’re transforming a category. That takes ambition, focus and character.

If you want to hide in the middle, we’re not your people.

If you want to help shape what comes next, pull up a chair.

Who we are

We’re thortful, an online greetings card marketplace powered by 6,000+ independent creators.

With 85,000+ brilliantly original cards (and some properly good gifts), we help people find that “so us” connection, from milestone birthdays to “congrats on the boob job” moments.

We’re not just another disruptor (ugh).

We actually mean it.

• We back real humans – Every sale puts real money into the pockets of independent creators.
• Born in Sheffield – Our print-on-demand model means no warehouses full of waste. Every card, like Sean Bean, is born in Sheffield.
• Recyclable as standard – 100% recyclable. Even though they’re good enough to frame.
• Vegan inks – Because David Attenborough raised us better than that.
• Carbon-conscious – Through our sustainability partner Ecologi, we’ve funded 4,450 trees and avoided 630.04 tonnes of CO₂e. We also use lower-carbon delivery partners, including DPD and Royal Mail.

We care about people.

We care about purpose.

We care about proper lovely bits of folded paper.

Who we’re looking for

• The challengers.
• The smart risk‑takers.
• The go‑getters who know progress beats perfection.
• The ones who’d rather ask “why not?” than “are we allowed?”
• Who speak up with honesty, clarity and kindness.
• Who do what they say they’re going to do.
• Brave and thoughtful.
• Ambitious but decent.
• Fearlessly original. Endlessly curious.
• Collaborative. Low ego. High standards.
• If you’re tired of being a cog in a faceless machine and want to actually make a dent, we should talk.
• Let’s make the world more thortful.

The role

We’re looking for a Senior Retention Manager to join our marketing team and report into our Head of Growth.

What you’ll be doing

• Own and build thortful’s Next Best Customer Action (NBCA) model, including developing propensity models and deploying them through Bloomreach. Use it to decide the right action, offer and moment for every customer, and get more value from the existing base.
• Own the growth of Xtrathortful, our subscription. Use NBCA to find the customers most likely to join and convert them, then drive active use and renewal to grow subscriber numbers and LTV.
• Own and evolve the wider retention strategy to drive repeat rate, frequency and LTV, with clear targets and incrementality testing behind every lever.
• Identify and drive onsite opportunities to improve engagement, conversion and repeat behaviour.
• Lead day-to-day CRM performance across email, push, WhatsApp and SMS, continuously optimising lifecycle journeys (onboarding, repeat, reactivation)
• Line manage and develop a CRM team (1 direct report, 2 team members in total), providing clear direction, coaching and accountability
• Drive retention performance against key KPIs, using testing, insight and optimisation to improve impact and efficiency over time
• Identify and prioritise the highest-impact opportunities across lifecycle, product and channels
• Work cross-functionally with Brand, Product, Ops and Customer Happiness teams to improve the end-to-end customer experience and reduce friction
• Execute retention plans for key trading moments, including Christmas and Q1 occasions, ensuring activity is set up to maximise peak performance
• Take ownership of advocacy channels, building the strategy to integrate referral into acquisition and post purchase journeys and turning customers into active promoters.
• Define the segmentation, personalisation and testing frameworks, including new ways to grow our customer database and own the strategic relationship with Bloomreach to ensure our tech stack scales with the roadmap.
• Own the strategic roadmap for automation as a core growth lever, continually identifying new opportunities to expand its impact, exploring how AI can push personalisation and automation further.

About you

• You have strong experience in retention, CRM and lifecycle marketing, ideally within e-commerce or a fast-paced digital business.
• You’re both strategic and hands-on - able to set direction, but equally happy getting into the detail to deliver.
• You possess a good technical understanding.
• You are a proficient user of Bloomreach (or a similar level platform), and are confident in running and creating reports. An understanding of how to optimise Bloomreach would be a real advantage.
• You’re confident working cross-functionally with Brand and Product teams to drive better customer outcomes
• You’re great at building relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
• You’re a strong communicator, able to translate data into clear, actionable insights and recommendations
• You have experience managing and developing team members, bringing clarity, structure and accountability
• You’re naturally curious and proactive, always looking for new opportunities to improve the customer experience and drive value
• You bring a challenger mindset and are comfortable questioning the status quo, pushing thinking forward and finding smarter ways to win in a competitive market
• You’re passionate about what we do and want to be part of our vision to make the world a more thortful place, one card at a time.

Some of the thortful perks

• Hybrid working model
• Flexi time
• One work from anywhere week per quarter
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays (increasing with length of service)
• Private health insurance with Vitality
• Life Assurance
• Sanctus coaching for personal and professional development
• thortful credits worth £300 per year
• A minimum of 4 learning and development days per year
• Departmental learning and development budget
• Cycle to work scheme and interest free travel loan
• Salary Exchange Pension
• Staff discounts and employee referral scheme
• Regular team socials
• Enhanced parental leave (subject to length of service)
• Birthday wheel of thortune

Excited about this role but worried that you don’t meet all the criteria?

As with our creative marketplace, we’re after voices from all different walks of life who are united by a truly thortful outlook on life.

So if your past experience doesn't perfectly align to the job description, apply anyway! Even if we haven’t considered it, your work history could still be ideal for this role, or maybe suit another elsewhere in our team.

If you might need some adjustments, feel free to reach out to us so we can help you get the most out of your application.