Client Services Team Lead

GradBay; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

GradBay, an ambitious independent digital marketing agency, is looking for its first dedicated Client Services Lead to own client relationships and build a first-class client services function. You will connect client objectives with agency work, ensuring strategic alignment and commercial health across retained accounts.

This hands-on leadership role involves coordinating across paid media, SEO, content, creative and digital strategy, with clear potential to progress into Head of Client

Qualifications

• Experience leading client services in digital marketing agencies.
• Ability to translate client goals into strategic plans across paid media, SEO, content and creative.
• Strong ability to manage senior stakeholder relationships and renewals.

Responsibilities

• Act as primary day-to-day relationship lead for a portfolio of retained clients.
• Lead client meetings with clear objectives, agendas and actions.
• Develop and maintain a clear account plan with KPIs and priorities.
• Coordinate with specialists to deliver coherent, strategic client work.
• Support renewals, upsell and account growth opportunities.
• Establish onboarding processes and regular health reporting for clients.

Skills

Client management

Relationship building

Strategic planning

Leadership

Client communication

Job description

An ambitious independent digital marketing agency is looking for its first dedicated Client Services Lead.

The agency works with growing brands to deliver measurable commercial results through paid media, SEO, content, creative and digital strategy. Its model is built around a close-knit team of experienced specialists, allowing it to remain agile, collaborative and genuinely connected to its clients.

As the agency enters its next stage of growth, this newly created role will take ownership of its client relationships and help build a first-class client services function.

You will connect client objectives with the work being delivered across the agency, ensuring that accounts remain strategically aligned, commercially healthy and exceptionally well managed.

This is a hands-on leadership opportunity with clear potential to progress into a Head of Client Services position as the agency grows.

The Role

You will oversee the day-to-day health and development of a portfolio of retained clients.

You will understand what each client is trying to achieve commercially, align internal specialists around those objectives and ensure every client has clarity around the strategy, activity and next steps.

You will be the person with the complete picture of each account.

Specialists will continue to lead technical conversations within their areas of expertise. Your role is to bring those workstreams together into a coherent strategy and consistently strong client experience.

Working closely with the CEO initially, you will progressively take ownership of most day-to-day client management.

Key Responsibilities:

Client Relationships

• Act as the primary day-to-day relationship lead across a portfolio of clients.
• Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders.
• Lead effective client meetings with clear objectives, agendas and actions.
• Provide proactive updates and ensure clients never need to chase for information.
• Develop a strong understanding of each client’s wider business and commercial priorities.
• Identify potential relationship risks early and take ownership of resolving them.
• Manage challenging conversations calmly and constructively.
• Maintain a clear account plan for every significant client.
• Connect marketing activity to each client’s commercial objectives.
• Work with specialists to establish meaningful KPIs and measures of success.
• Translate technical recommendations and performance data into commercially relevant client conversations.
• Coordinate quarterly business reviews and strategic account meetings.
• Keep internal teams focused on the priorities that will have the greatest client impact.

Project and Delivery Coordination

• Translate client conversations into clear briefs, actions and deliverables.
• Coordinate activity across paid search, paid social, SEO, content, creative and other specialist disciplines.
• Ensure actions have clear owners and realistic deadlines.
• Maintain momentum across projects and proactively address anything that begins to drift.
• Ensure commitments made to clients are delivered.
• Protect specialist delivery time by keeping meetings focused and involving the right people.

Commercial Account Management

• Understand the commercial scope and agreed deliverables of every account.
• Monitor client requests against retained services and identify scope creep.
• Hold confident conversations when requirements fall outside the agreed scope.
• Identify opportunities where the agency can solve additional client challenges.
• Work with the CEO and specialist teams to develop appropriate proposals.
• Support contract renewals and extensions.
• Grow existing relationships where additional services will create genuine client value.

Over time, you will take measurable responsibility for both client retention and account growth.

Client Services Operations

As the agency’s first dedicated client services hire, you will help establish how the function operates as the business grows.

This will include:

• Creating a consistent client onboarding experience.
• Introducing straightforward account health reporting.
• Establishing account-planning and quarterly review processes.
• Improving how actions, decisions and client briefs are documented.
• Increasing visibility across scopes, priorities and workloads.
• Simplifying unnecessary meetings and processes.

The agency is not looking for bureaucracy. It needs someone who can introduce the right amount of structure to help a growing team perform brilliantly.

About You

You will probably have around four to seven years’ experience within a digital, performance or integrated marketing agency, although your achievements and level of responsibility matter more than the exact number of years.

You will ideally have experience of:

• Managing multiple retained client accounts.
• Building relationships with senior client stakeholders.
• Leading client meetings, strategic reviews and QBRs.
• Working closely with paid search and paid social teams.
• Interpreting digital marketing performance and reporting.
• Addressing scope creep and handling commercial discussions.
• Supporting renewals, retention and account growth.
• Working within an independent or growing agency where people are expected to take ownership.

You do not need to personally build or optimise campaigns. However, you should be comfortable discussing metrics such as CPA, ROAS, conversion rates, attribution, creative performance, media budgets and landing-page performance—and explaining what those numbers mean commercially.

The Person We’re Looking For

You are:

• Commercially curious: You want to understand how a client’s business makes money, not just what is happening within its marketing account.
• Proactive: You communicate before clients need to ask and address problems before they escalade.
• Calm under pressure: When something goes wrong, you assess the situation and create a clear plan.
• Highly organised: You can manage multiple clients, deadlines and workstreams without introducing unnecessary process.
• Confident with clients: You are comfortable constructively challenging senior stakeholders when required.
• Collaborative: You respect specialist expertise and enable colleagues to produce their best work.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: You can operate effectively within a growing business where every process has not yet been established.
• Accountable: When you spot a problem, you take responsibility for getting it resolved.

What Success Looks Like

During your first six months, you will:

• Take ownership of most day-to-day client relationships.
• Become a trusted senior partner to clients.
• Establish clearly documented objectives, KPIs and priorities across major accounts.
• Introduce consistent account planning and strategic reviews.
• Ensure actions have clear owners and deadlines.
• Identify and manage scope creep effectively.
• Surface client risks before they become significant problems.
• Proactively identify appropriate account-growth opportunities.
• Reduce unnecessary demands on specialist delivery time.
• Enable the CEO to focus on onboarding, major strategic conversations and senior relationship development.

Why Join?

This is an opportunity to build—not simply inherit—a client services function.

You will work directly with the CEO and a highly experienced team of digital specialists, with genuine influence over how the agency manages its clients, structures its accounts and scales its services.

For the right person, there is a clear opportunity to develop into Head of Client Services, building and leading the function as the agency continues to grow.

The agency is committed to creating an inclusive workplace and welcomes applications from people of all backgrounds, experiences and identities.