Marketing Lead

Plato; Christchurch; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Plato is seeking an experienced Marketing Lead to drive performance and growth across a portfolio of client brands. You will guide the team, set strategic direction, and own annual plans and budgets, ensuring campaigns align with commercial goals.

You’ll leverage AI, data and cross-channel expertise to optimize outcomes and deliver measurable results. You will collaborate with web, creative and brand teams to push performance further, delegating effectively while maintaining high-quality

Qualifications

• Proven track record leading marketing teams across multiple client portfolios.
• Strong ability to set strategy, budgets and annual plans that drive growth.
• Experienced with AI-enabled marketing, analytics, and cross-channel measurement.

Responsibilities

• Lead project teams of marketers across a portfolio of clients.
• Own delivery quality and ensure alignment with strategy and commercial goals.
• Develop client marketing strategies and build annual plans and budgets.
• Drive performance through marketing mix optimization and QA across work.
• Provide strategic leadership across initiatives with web, creative and brand input.
• Spot opportunities and innovate to improve client performance.
• Build narratives from data-driven results and insights for clients.
• Apply specialist marketing and strategy skills to strengthen outcomes.

Skills

Marketing leadership

Martech strategy

AI-native marketing

Strategic & commercial acumen

Digital channels expertise

Data tracking & reporting

Tools

Google Tag Manager

GA4

Programmatic platforms

Job description

We're looking for an experienced, strategic Marketing Lead to join our high-performing team. You'll lead marketers across a portfolio of clients and drive performance, growth and integrated opportunities for the brands we work with.

About us

At Plato, we blend creativity with a commercial focus to fuel the growth of ambitious brands. Our high-performing team thrives in a collaborative and supportive environment, valuing talent, ambition, and continuous learning. Strong relationships both within our team and with our clients are at the heart of everything we do. Joining Plato means making a real impact and contributing to our bold growth strategy.

About the role

As a Marketing Lead, you'll set the strategic direction for a portfolio of clients and own the performance of their marketing. You'll also be responsible for the marketers working across that portfolio and the work they deliver, keeping projects efficient, workflows on track and capability growing.

You're an expert in the craft. You can do complex marketing work yourself, and you understand the technical foundations so your strategies hold up once they hit the channels. You'll drive performance hands-on while running the governance layer over your team's work.

A lot of the role happens up front. You'll work with clients to understand the commercial goals they're chasing and how marketing can move their business towards those milestones. Then you'll develop the strategy and build the annual marketing plan and budget that put it into action. You'll optimise activity towards measurable outcomes and keep looking for ways to innovate, bringing in other parts of the agency like web, creative or brand when they'll push performance further. Delegating well and managing multiple projects will be key to your success in this role.

Key responsibilities

• Lead project teams of marketers across your portfolio of clients.
• Own the results. Make sure delivery is high quality, the work lines up with the strategy, and every initiative and channel helps clients meet and exceed their commercial objectives.
• Develop client marketing strategies, then build and manage annual plans and budgets that drive the performance each client needs to reach their next commercial milestone.
• Drive marketing performance and growth through the technical setup and optimisation of the marketing mix, with effective QA across delegated work.
• Provide strategic leadership across marketing initiatives, bringing in web, creative, brand and other parts of the agency where they'll lift results.
• Use a deep understanding of each client's business to spot opportunities and areas to innovate that improve performance.
• Build a clear narrative from data-driven results and insights that takes clients on a journey, so they understand where things stand and what needs to happen next.
• Apply specialist marketing and strategy skills to strengthen client outcomes and agency capability.

Skills required

• Proven experience in marketing leadership, overseeing performance and workflow across a client portfolio and the team delivering it. You know how to balance innovation with BAU: when a new idea will move a client forward, when an experiment is worth the time, and when the job in front of you just needs to get done.
• A knack for spotting martech that solves a client problem or opens up a new growth lever. You find it, test it, teach yourself how to use it and turn it into a solution that delivers results.
• You're an AI-native marketer. You use AI to expand your bandwidth so more of your expertise reaches clients. That shows up across your work: research and competitor analysis, the AI features inside ad platforms, automation that frees up time for strategy, data analysis and reporting, and presentations that tell a clear story. You know where AI speeds you up and where your own judgement needs to lead, and you keep up as the tools change.
• Strong strategic and commercial acumen. You get to the heart of a client's commercial hurdles, build a strategy that drives growth, and manage the marketing plan and budget that fuel the next steps.
• A strong specialist skill set across the core digital channels, including Google, Meta and programmatic, with good working knowledge of offline media.
• Specialist skills in tracking, data and reporting. You can build the measurement setup in Google Tag Manager and GA4 that gives you reliable data and a story worth telling.
• Excellent project management skills, with a structured approach to planning, execution and optimisation.
• The ability to turn complex marketing insight into plain English recommendations, so clients understand the problem, where we're heading, how things are performing and what comes next.
• An innovation-driven mindset. You look for solutions early and act on the ones that move the needle for a client's business.
• Strong delegation skills. You give your team ownership and keep the quality of execution high.
• Confident communication and presentation skills. You can explain your work and the thinking behind it, so clients get on board with what you're doing and why.

At Plato, you'll be part of a high-growth, high-performance team that values creativity, commercial thinking, and collaboration. We offer exciting client projects, unlimited learning opportunities, and a fantastic team culture.

Find out more about life at Plato: https://platocreative.co.nz/careers