Speak to Z21

Careers | Z21 STUDIO

leadership, story, OPEN POSITIONS

About Z21 & Careers

Scaling retail and e-commerce brands in Malaysia & Singapore—because we only win when you do.

Who we are

We built Z21 to do one thing properly: grow direct website revenue for retail and e-commerce brands. Instead of relying on marketplaces like Shopee or Amazon, our 40-strong team across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia focuses on driving traffic, optimising conversions, and maximising retention. Today, we partner with brands in Southeast Asia, the US, and the UK, running on the exact same principle we started with: an allergy to churn-and-burn contracts. We focus on deepening our capabilities to do great work for great clients, with great people.

2019

Founded

TEAM MEMBERS

Growth Levers: Traffic, Conversion, Retention

markets served & Growing

OUR PRINCIPLE

“We aren't here to build a trophy cabinet. While a lot of agencies optimise for industry awards, we operate on a simpler principle: build the best customer journeys and grow your revenue efficiently. We prefer shared risk—we only profit when your business actually grows.”

Daryl, Founder of Z21 Studio

The Z21 Ecosystem:
Specialised to Grow Your Revenue

Daryl Diong | Z21

Jonas Lim | ConVX by Z21

Thomas | A22A by Z21

Daryl Diong

Founder · 2019

“Most agencies try to be everything to everyone. We do one thing properly: grow your revenue.”

Before founding Z21 Studio in 2019, I ran growth for a direct-to-consumer brand. I juggled multiple agencies for media buying, design, and web development, but they all shared one glaring problem: a complete lack of e-commerce specialisation.

I am a firm believer in being hyper-focused. Instead of building a generalist agency that offers too many services, I started Z21 to dominate a single niche. Today, we focus purely on the mechanics that actually move the needle for your business: Traffic, Conversion, and Retention.

Fun Fact: Why Z21? The name comes from Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One. But the logo tells the other half of the story: the "Z" is actually a percentage sign (%). It is a constant reminder that we operate on first principles, focusing entirely on data and the numbers that matter.

Jonas Lim

Co-founder · ConVX by Z21 · 2021

“Traffic is expensive. Guessing why it doesn't convert is even more expensive.”

I partnered with Daryl in 2021 to co-found ConVX because we saw a clear next step for growing brands. Z21 excels at building data-backed stores and driving high-intent traffic to them. However, when a client's traffic surpasses 100,000 visitors a month, a great baseline is no longer enough. The store needs to become a testing ground.

ConVX exists to turn that massive traffic into a compounding advantage. We use A/B testing, data analytics, and tech stack optimisation to continuously iterate on the user experience. While Z21 handles customer acquisition and the core store build, ConVX runs the ongoing experiments that maximise your revenue per visitor.

Thomas Au

Co-founder · A22A by Z21 · 2026

“Paid advertising burns through creatives. But expecting your designers to scale output by just typing prompts into a chatbox is a massive bottleneck.”

After eight years directing commercials globally, I joined Z21 to build our internal AI production workflows. As we scaled campaigns for our clients, a clear pattern emerged: media buying and store conversions were highly optimised, but creative production was a massive, expensive bottleneck.

Clients were trying to adapt, but their in-house designers were stuck doing basic, chat-based image prompting. The process was slow, outputs were inconsistent, and it simply could not generate usable, brand-aligned assets at the volume required for modern paid media. They had the tools, but they lacked a proper system and the know-how.

That is why we launched A22A. As an HRDC-certified training provider across Malaysia and Singapore, we teach the exact, battle-tested AI workflows we developed at Z21.

Leadership

Our leadership is organised by function.

Daryl Diong

Core Clients & Partnerships, Finance & HR

Jonas Lim

Core Clients & Partnerships, Finance & HR

Lee Vinnie

Sales & Marketing

John Cheong

Traffic & Retention

Lee Cheng Pin

Conversion



Traffic

Paid and organic demand that brings the right shoppers to your store — not just impressions.

Conversion

Engineering the store experience through data and A/B testing to ensure those shoppers actually buy.

Retention

Email, lifecycle and loyalty that keep customers coming back — the cheapest revenue you own.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

Whether you’re a brand ready to grow or someone who wants to build with us — the door’s open.

View Vacancy

Join the team

Candidates based in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta are preferred. Fully remote options are available for outstanding candidates.

Key Responsibilities

Growth strategy: Develop and execute full-funnel growth strategies across paid, owned, and earned channels to hit client revenue and ROAS/CAC targets.
Audience & market research: Identify and segment target audiences; research market trends and competitor activity to find growth opportunities and new channels.
Tracking & measurement: Implement and QA tracking (GA4, Meta Pixel/CAPI, TikTok pixel, server-side where relevant). Own attribution logic so the numbers you report are numbers you can defend.
Data-driven optimisation: Analyse performance daily; make evidence-based adjustments to bids, budgets, audiences, and creative to improve results.
Creative & CRO testing: Run structured A/B tests on ad creative and landing pages. Feed winning insights back into the creative and CRO pipeline.
Budget management & planning: Manage daily spend for efficiency and forecast/plan budgets across channels to hit outcomes.
Acquisition ↔ retention: Plan and execute acquisition and retention strategies — coordinate paid with email/SMS lifecycle so you're growing LTV, not just buying first orders.
Reporting: Produce clear daily/weekly/monthly performance reports; automate reporting where possible so time goes to thinking, not formatting.
Client management: Communicate directly with clients — present performance, set expectations, and turn data into decisions they trust.
Mentorship (Senior / AM): Coach junior team members in growth and performance best practices.
Paid media execution (optional): Set up, manage, and scale campaigns on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google Ads, and TikTok — structure, targeting, bidding, and daily optimisation.

Requirements

Numbers-literate — comfortable living in a spreadsheet and a dashboard; can spot when a metric is lying.
Hands-on paid media experience (optional) across at least one of Meta / Google / TikTok, with genuine appetite to own all three.
Demonstrated e-commerce / DTC understanding — how online stores make money, and marketplace vs owned-store economics. (This replaces the vague "familiar with dot-com shopping.")
Technical troubleshooting — pixels, tags, feeds, and tracking break constantly; you can diagnose and fix rather than escalate everything.
Strong communication — can explain a result to a client without hiding behind jargon.
Excellent problem-solving and attention to detail.
Mandarin a plus for MY/SG brands running bilingual creative and audiences.

Positions

Junior/Senior/Assistant Manager
Relevant experience required, weighted on demonstrated competence over years served.

Apply Now

Key Responsibilities

Flow architecture: Build and continuously improve the core automated flows — welcome, abandoned checkout, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment, winback, and VIP. These run 24/7 and typically carry the majority of email revenue, so they get maintained, not "set and forgotten."
Campaign calendar: Plan and ship the promotional and editorial campaign calendar per client — sales, launches, newsletters — coordinated with each brand's wider promo plan and paid media.
Segmentation: Build and maintain segments (engagement tiers, RFM, predictive analytics, purchase behaviour). Send the right message to the right slice; stop blasting the whole list.
Deliverability ownership: Protect sender reputation. Manage authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sunset/suppression of dead contacts, list-cleaning, and keep spam-complaint rates within bulk-sender limits. Inbox placement is the whole game — a beautiful email in spam earns nothing.
List growth: Build and test signup forms and pop-ups; feed opt-ins from paid, on-site, and events into Klaviyo/Dotdigital/Braze cleanly with correct consent capture.
SMS / WhatsApp: Run SMS/WhatsApp where clients use it, coordinated with email so the customer isn't double-hit.
Testing: Run a structured A/B testing roadmap (subject lines, offers, timing, creative) and act on results rather than collecting them.
Reporting: Produce client-facing performance reporting — flow vs campaign revenue, revenue per recipient, list growth, deliverability health — and translate it into next actions.
Briefing design and dev: Write or brief email copy, and work with design/dev on templates, dynamic content, and Shopify catalogue sync.

Requirements

Hands-on Klaviyo/Dotdigital/Braze experience — has personally built flows, segments, and campaigns and read the reporting.
Working knowledge of ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and how they integrate with Klaviyo/Dotdigital/Braze (catalogue, events, purchase data).
Understands e-commerce economics — why retention margin beats acquisition margin, and what a healthy email revenue share looks like.
Deliverability literacy: authentication, sender reputation, suppression, and the current bulk-sender rules (see below).
Proficient written English; strong copy instinct or the honesty to say design/copy isn't your strength so we can staff around it.
Comfortable juggling multiple client accounts and deadlines without dropping QA.
Attention to detail — a broken merge tag or a wrong discount code goes out to the entire list at once.

Positions

Junior/Senior
Relevant experience required, weighted on demonstrated competence over years served.

‍

Apply Now

Daryl:

Inspired by Peter Thiel’s book “Zero to One”, I founded a performancemarketing agency in October 2019 and named the company after thebook, “Z21 Studio”. When working at a direct to consumer brand, Ipartnered with multiple agencies on different areas of the business -media buying, design, web development, etc. There is one common problem - most lacked e-commerce specialization and expertise. As a firm believer of being *hyper-focused*, I did not want to build a company thatprovides all services to all companies.The day-one mission was to dominate a small niche - to be the bestperforming and known Facebook ad growth agency for fashion ecommerce brands. This strategy worked really well, acquiring a number ofbig fashion brands based in Malaysia within the first 9 months, includingBonia, Braun Buffel, Oxwhite, and SPAO.

Still a one-man agency in March 2020, the first person I decided to hirewas a web developer. Since I took great care of the “Traffic” pillar throughpaid advertising, I wanted to build inhouse capability to design anddevelop e-commerce stores with great conversion rates. That was the startof our relationship with Shopify, as one of the first Shopify Partners in theregion. Fast forward to the end of 2020, the company grew to 5 people - 3in performance marketing, 1 in web development, and 1 in emailmarketing. Though not clearly defined at the time, these 3 pillars servedstrong synergies as ‘Traffic’, ‘Conversion’, and ‘Retention’ are the mostimportant levers to grow any brands digitally. Today, built on these 3pillars, we have grown to become a highly capable e-commerce growthagency.

In 2021, Jonas joined Z21 as a partner. We were both allergic to thetraditional churn-and-burn model of building an agency, we still are. Webelieved in building long-term client relationships that has allowed us tofocus on deepening in our capabilities, rather than worry about acquiringnew clients all the time. There is only 1 person in charge of sales in Z21 atthe end of 2024, out of a total head count of 32. This ratio is unusually lowin the agency industry.We turned 5 recently. The first few years of building Z21 have beenincredibly rewarding — seeing some young graduates who started theircareer with us and grew so quickly in hard and soft skills, seeing brandswith shared values who have not just grown with us but made sure wegrow as well, and me personally learning how to lead a company. We havemade much progress compared to day one - but in this fast-movingindustry we remind ourselves constantly that the moment we getcomplacent is when we lose relevance.Jonas and I share a goal that cascades to the team - to do great work forgreat clients, with great people. How will you be involved in our journey?

Experienced team specialised in ecommerce growth

We have worked with over 100 brands, so rest assured that our team has the context and experience to deliver results. The best part? Don’t worry about hiring, training and retaining an in-house digital team anymore. We’ve got you covered!

Our Core Values

The things we believe in that help make this company extraordinary. Remember them, practise them and share them at every point in your journey here at Z21.

Our success depends on our client's success

All our internal and external key performance indicators (KPIs) are tied directly to our clients' success. This even dictates our own internal performance reviews.

Kaizen

Kaizen means "continuous improvement." We constantly challenge ourselves to do better each day and never allow our achievements to plateau by just relying on what worked yesterday.

High freedom, high accountability

At Z21, we provide flexibility in our daily working arrangements but expect full accountability in return. We give you the trust; we expect you to keep it.

Join Our Team If You:

Value Agility: You thrive in an environment free from corporate bureaucracy.
Embrace Freedom with Responsibility: You take initiative and are deeply committed.
Learn Quickly: You ask questions and seek better ways to do things.
Think Critically: You approach challenges with a first principles mindset.

No seniority - best idea wins

Flexible working hours and remote working policies

Fast paced and competitive

Above average employment benefits

Our Official Marketing Technology Partners

Platinum Services Partner

& more...

Digital Engagement
& Growth Meisters

Sed enim, suspendisse in vel gravida neque, nec. Vestibulum in viverra turpis condimentum sed.

2019

Founded

$60.78M

Annual Revenue Generated

Our story

Founded in 2019, Z21 has managed to grow to a team of 35 within 4 years of its inception. The rapid growth of the company is very much attributed to the nature of our service - delivering TRUE growth to businesses, which we believe is your priority too.
‍
Now, if you have spoken to enough marketing agencies around, you would have noticed that many of their services are project-based, short term engagements that focus on branding. Few focus on the sales growth of e-commerce brands.

Z21 is specialized to help you achieve this goal, by providing practical suggestions based on industry best practices to assist you in capitalising on opportunities and overcoming challenges in the digital space.

Trust us, we totally understand the struggles of growing a brand alone in this constantly evolving digital space. We believe that brand owners like you shouldn’t be spending late nights trying to keep up with the ever-changing Facebook and Google algorithms. Instead, the time can be well spent on delivering better experiences to your valued customers.

Moving forward, we aim to expand our expertise and presence through 3 key priorities:
1. Exploring wider range of industry segments,
2. Expanding our presence geographically,
3. Advancing the scope of services provided

To achieve our goal, our day-to-day mission is largely focused on building a realistic growth strategy around your business goals and slowly making it a reality. After all, our success depends on your success.

Our Core Values

Our success depends on client's success- Internal KPI built upon client's successes

Kaizen (continuous improvement) working culture- we constantly challenge ourselves to do better each day, and never allow achievements to plateau by sticking to what has worked well in the past

Committed and accountable - highly proactive attitude with full accountability to our daily tasks

Careers | Z21 STUDIO

About Z21 & Careers

Who we are

The Z21 Ecosystem:
Specialised to Grow Your Revenue

Leadership