Marketing Data Scientist
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Job Summary
Hostelworld is the worlds leading Social Travel platform - a social network-powered OTA on a mission to help travellers find their people and create unforgettable moments together. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Ireland were a team of around 270 people serving hostel partners across more than 180 countries.
Since launching our social network in 2022 weve welcomed over 3.4 million social members who arent just booking trips theyre messaging finding events meeting up and becoming powerful brand advocates. This community generates a rich proprietary dataset of 16 million chat messages and 17 million bookings powering AI-driven personalisation and network effects that no generalist OTA can replicate.
We are not just another OTA - we created an entirely new category Social Travel. If you want to shape the future of travel by putting people and shared experiences at the heart of it youll fit right in here - Learn more about our Team!
Our Culture
At Hostelworld our culture is a direct reflection of our customers: adventurous curious and social. We have a shared love of travel that fuels our work and connects us on a deeper level. Its a fast-paced environment that blends the agility and scrappy resourcefulness of a start-up with the experience and ambition of a global publicly listed company.
We are a team of pragmatic optimists who are data-obsessed and results-driven. We value a test and learn mindset encouraging experimentation and empowering our teams to take calculated risks. We believe in doing the right thingfor our customers our partners and each other. We foster a supportive and collaborative atmosphere where diverse perspectives are celebrated and where every team member has the opportunity to make a significant impact on our journey. We embrace the journey not just the destination and we seek leaders who will thrive in a dynamic environment and inspire their teams to do the same.
This role is based in Portugal. We have an office hub in Porto available for those who prefer a hybrid model where you can spend time with colleagues in-person. You will need to be able to commute to our office hub as required from time to time.
You will play a key role in a diverse highly-talented Analytics & Insights team providing insights across a number of growth units including paid marketing customer analytics and app analytics to support decision making at C and senior management level. The Marketing Data Scientist will play a pivotal role in driving data-informed marketing strategies and decisions with a particular emphasis on managing and optimising Google Ads bidding algorithms. As a key member of the Analytics and Insights team this role will involve close collaboration with paid marketing app marketing and data teams to uncover insights optimise campaigns and contribute to business growth.
You will hone and develop a wide range of technical skills in managing our data analytics and data science products. The paid analytics team require a person who is flexible adaptable and able to translate business needs into measurable results. Its a rewarding experience with exciting diverse work:
Bidding & spend optimisation
Develop manage and optimise bidding algorithms for Google Ads campaigns (Search and Hotel Price Ads) using Python translating business objectives into bidding logic that maximises profitability (Direct Margin).
Optimise budget allocation across channels markets and campaigns using elasticity and response-curve models to improve profitability.
Continuously monitor campaign performance identify inefficiencies and evolve the bidding logic accordingly.
Marketing measurement & incrementality
Design run and analyse incrementality tests (geo-lift / holdout experiments) using causal inference methods such as synthetic control Bayesian structural time series and difference-in-differences to quantify the true incremental impact of paid channels.
Build and maintain marketing mix models (MMM) to estimate channel contribution saturation and diminishing returns and translate the outputs into budget recommendations.
Own and improve our attribution framework evaluating multi-touch attribution against experimental results and platform-reported figures and reconciling the gaps.
Design implement and analyse A/B tests and other experiments to assess the impact of marketing initiatives including sample-size power and pre-registration standards.
Insight & influence
Provide data-driven recommendations on marketing spend customer acquisition retention and lifetime value to C-level and senior management.
Serve as a subject-matter expert on data science and measurement best practices within the Analytics & Insights team and productionise analyses into reusable tools and recurring reports.
Experience & Qualifications:
Minimum 3 years of experience in a Data Analytics or Data Science role preferably within a marketing department.
Advanced skills in SQL Python R or similar programming languages.
Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
Communicate clearly and with purpose working effectively with team members and stakeholders across the organisation.
Ability to work independently and as part of a team in a fast-paced environment.
Essential Skills:
Competency in Python/R.
SQL (preferably BigQuery Snowflake).
Strong proficiency in statistical analysis machine learning and predictive modelling techniques.
Desirable Skills:
Experience with marketing measurement: incrementality / geo-lift testing holdout experiments.
Applied causal inference: synthetic control difference-in-differences Bayesian structural time series (e.g. CausalPy CausalImpact PyMC linearmodels).
Understanding of attribution modelling (multi-touch data-driven attribution) and its limitations relative to experimental measurement.
Understanding of digital marketing metrics SEO SEM and customer-journey analysis.
Experience with data visualisation tools (Tableau Looker Power BI) or building lightweight apps (Streamlit).
Familiarity with orchestration and ETL/ELT tools (Apache Airflow dbt).
Experience with version control (Git) and collaborative code review.
Competitive salary & benefits
Enhanced annual leave plus 3 Wellbeing Days per year
Paid family leave (maternity paternity surrogacy & adoption)
Agile working (plus a Working from Abroad Policy!)
Support for your ongoing growth & development
Inclusive people policies (sickness menopause compassionate and fertility leave)
A chance to give back to your local community with 5 paid volunteering days
Grow others - We fundamentally believe that investing in growing others benefits everyone whether its helping them develop hard or soft skills. We want learning and growing to be part of our DNA to help makes us a better team together.
Master it - We are obsessed with our area of expertise and enjoy developing our skills. We rarely take things at face value; we investigate interrogate and always look for the why and wherever possible we use data to find the best solution.
Collaborate - We are in it together for the tough stuff and the celebrations too. To achieve the best results we need expertise from all areas of the organisation and we wholeheartedly welcome diverse thinking.
Adapt - We work fluidly adapting to new information and the evolving environment while staying committed to our goals. Innovation and experimentation fuel our projects and were never afraid to pivot.
Deliver - Our focus is always on the end result; we value outcomes over activity. We collaborate to deliver work at speed without dropping any of our other behaviours.
We believe in talented and diverse teams that reflect the diversity of our customers and the communities in which we operate. Everyone brings different perspectives and experiences. We lay out the above requirements to guide applicants to the experiences that we believe will allow you to be successful in the role. If you dont meet them all please consider applying if you think you can still perform the role as described.
About Company
Hostelworld Group plc is a ground-breaking social network-powered Online Travel Agent ("OTA") with a clear mission to help travellers find people to hang out with. Our mission is founded on the insight that most travellers go hostelling to meet other people. Our platform connects trav ... View more
