Advertising Account Manager, Mandarin & English (Cross-Border)

takealot.com, South Africa's leading e-commerce platform and a proud member of the Prosus ecosystem, is seeking a driven and commercially minded Advertising Account Manager, Mandarin & English (Cross-Border) to join our Takealot Group Advertising team in Cape Town. In this role you will be the primary partner for our fast-growing community of international Marketplace sellers, equipping them with the knowledge, strategy, and hands-on support needed to unlock the full potential of Takealot's self-service Sponsored Advertising platform. Sitting at the exciting intersection of retail media, e-commerce, and cross-cultural commerce, you will bridge the gap between our Cape Town-based advertising team and Mandarin-speaking sellers — driving advertising revenue, accelerating seller growth, and shaping the future of retail media on Africa's largest online shopping destination. Proficiency in both Mandarin and English is essential to succeed in this role.

 Advertising Account Manager, Mandarin & English (Cross-Border)– International Sellers is a specialist commercial role within the Takealot Group Advertising team. You will manage a portfolio of Mandarin-speaking Marketplace sellers, driving adoption and performance on Takealot's Sponsored Advertising platform while consistently achieving retail media revenue targets. You will combine strong consultative sales skills with deep platform expertise and a data-first mindset to deliver measurable results for sellers and for Takealot.

This position reports to the Portfolio Account Lead.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Retail Media Sales & Revenue Growth: Consistently meet and exceed advertising sales targets; proactively identify and convert upsell opportunities across international seller accounts.
• Seller Onboarding & Platform Enablement: Drive adoption of Takealot's self-service Sponsored Advertising platform by Mandarin-speaking Marketplace sellers; deliver platform training and skills transfer in Mandarin, ensuring sellers can independently operate and optimise campaigns.
• Strategic Account Management: Serve as the primary point of contact for a portfolio of international sellers; build trusted, long-term partnerships that deepen seller engagement and increase advertising investment over time.
• Media Planning & Consultative Selling: Develop tailored media plans and advertising strategies for top-tier sellers, aligned to their business objectives, seasonal peaks, and product launch calendars; present compelling, data-backed recommendations.
• Campaign Performance Management: Monitor live campaign performance against agreed KPIs (e.g. ROAS, CTR, conversion rate, spend pacing); generate regular performance reports (weekly/monthly/quarterly) and deliver actionable optimisation insights to sellers.
• Campaign Execution & Coordination: Coordinate the collection of creative assets; manage the integration of booked campaigns into the marketing calendar; liaise with retail marketing managers to ensure on-time, on-brief delivery.
• Billing & Financial Operations: Ensure managed services campaigns are invoiced accurately and on time each month; oversee reconciliation and invoice adjustment processes.
• Seller Acquisition: Develop and implement acquisition strategies to grow the base of international sellers investing in advertising on the platform.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with creative, analytics, campaign management, and CRM teams to ensure seamless execution and alignment with client objectives; support Marketplace Account Managers to drive advertising uptake across their key accounts.
• Seller Education & Content Development: Contribute to the development and hosting of educational webinars and training sessions in Mandarin; collaborate with the CRM team to produce seller-facing case studies and adoption/retention enablement materials.
• Platform Issue Resolution: Act as the first point of escalation for seller platform queries; escalate operational and technical issues to the relevant engineering and product teams and manage resolution timelines.
• Market & Platform Intelligence: Stay current with global retail media trends, platform updates, and competitive marketplace advertising developments; share insights internally to inform product and commercial strategy.

Attributes required:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong attention to detail and follow-through
• Ability to persuade sellers to adopt new technology
• Excellent content design; and presentation skills
• Strong analytical and critical thinking, using data to inform decisions
• Ability to work independently to achieve sales targets
• Solutions-oriented, can-do attitude, self-motivated
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Understanding of the digital advertising and e-commerce environments

Qualification & Experience:

• Mandarin proficiency (spoken and written) — essential for seller communication, platform training, and skills transfer with international sellers.
  
  
• English proficiency (spoken and written) — essential for internal communication with line management and all South African-based stakeholders.
  
  
• Bachelor's Degree or Advanced Diploma in Marketing, Business, Commerce, or a related field. In the absence of a formal qualification, a minimum of 5 years of demonstrated account management experience will be considered.
  
  
• Minimum 3 years' experience in advertising sales and/or account management, with a proven track record of achieving or exceeding revenue targets.
  
  
• Solid experience in digital marketing and advertising (search, display, sponsored ads, or programmatic).
  
  
• Demonstrated ability to use data and campaign metrics to drive commercial recommendations and client decision-making.
  
  
• Strong consultative sales skills with a track record of managing and growing a portfolio of accounts.
  
  
• Excellent relationship management skills — ability to build trust and rapport across cultural and language boundaries.

Advantageous

• Experience working in or with e-commerce marketplaces (e.g. Takealot, Amazon or similar).
• Familiarity with retail media platforms and self-service advertising tools
• Experience with campaign analytics platforms.
• Understanding of cross-border e-commerce dynamics, particularly between China and emerging markets.\
• CRM platform experience and comfort working with performance dashboards and reporting tools.

 The Environment:

• takealot.com employees are entrepreneurial and dynamic, smart, customer-centric, fun and have the shared ambition of takealot.com being the leading e-commerce company in Africa.
• We have fun, work hard, take ownership, work in teams to create solutions, and are always open to direct feedback/new ideas on where we can improve
• We are short on ego and high on output
• We are doers and not only thinkers, it’s all in the execution after all
• We love what we do and what we are creating

If you meet the above you are an Extraordinary Mind so come and join us!
Takealot Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage applicants from the previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities, to apply.