Performance Director

Salary £55,000–£65,000 per annum, dependent on experience

Location Lichfield, Staffordshire – Hybrid Working

Reports to Managing Director – Client & Business Operations

Level Senior Leadership

About ClickThrough

ClickThrough is an independent marketing agency with over 20 years of experience helping ambitious brands grow.

We believe better marketing starts with finding what's true. That means looking beyond channel metrics, questioning assumptions and understanding what's really driving business performance. Because great-looking reports mean very little if they aren't translating into meaningful commercial results.

Our approach brings together expertise across Demand, Discovery and Experience, supported by strategic consultancy, data, technology and AI. We combine specialist knowledge with evidence-led thinking to make better decisions, solve complex challenges and deliver measurable growth.

We're proudly independent, commercially curious and unafraid to challenge conventional thinking. We believe in honest conversations, collaborative problem-solving and doing the work that makes a genuine difference.

The Opportunity

We're looking for an experienced digital performance leader who believes that good-looking reports aren't enough. Someone who questions the numbers, challenges assumptions and understands that the real measure of success is the difference our work makes to our clients' businesses.

As Performance Director, you'll take overall accountability for the effectiveness, quality and outcomes of our client delivery, ensuring that strategies achieve their intended objectives within agreed timescales and budgets.

You'll lead our multidisciplinary performance function, bringing together expertise across Demand, Discovery and Experience, developing our people and establishing a culture where performance is consistently evaluated, challenged and improved.

Working alongside Strategy, Client Services and Operations, you'll ensure that we understand what's working, recognise when something needs to change and act before challenges become problems. You'll help our teams lead confident, evidence-led conversations with clients and demonstrate the value of the work we deliver.

This is an opportunity to shape the future of performance at ClickThrough, introducing fresh thinking, stronger accountability and new ways of working that support our next stage of growth.

Ultimately, your responsibility is to ensure that ClickThrough doesn't simply deliver work — we deliver work that works.

What You'll Be Responsible For

Client Performance & Results

• Take overall accountability for client performance, ensuring strategies deliver measurable outcomes against agreed objectives.

• Maintain clear visibility of performance across the client portfolio, identifying risks, opportunities and underperformance early, with appropriate corrective action.

• Challenge existing approaches and work with Strategy and Client Services to ensure performance insights inform decisions and improvements.

• Act as a senior performance escalation point, supporting complex client challenges and contributing to client conversations where required.

Quality & Performance Standards

• Establish consistent standards for performance evaluation, technical quality and delivery effectiveness.

• Build a culture of constructive challenge, independent review and continuous improvement, where work is evaluated on its impact rather than simply its completion.

• Empower senior specialists to provide technical leadership, quality assurance, coaching and sign-off within their areas of expertise.

Leadership & People Development

• Provide direct line management and leadership to the multidisciplinary performance team, including regular one-to-ones, performance reviews, personal development and coaching.

• Champion an outcome-led approach across Demand, Discovery and Experience, encouraging collaboration rather than channel-led working.

• Take responsibility for individual performance, capability development and succession planning, working with the Managing Directors to evolve the structure and skills of the function.

• Support the development of flexible ways of working that enable specialist expertise to be deployed effectively across client accounts.

Delivery & Commercial Effectiveness

• Share accountability for delivering client outcomes to the required standard, within agreed timescales and allocated delivery budgets.

• Work closely with Delivery Operations and Business Operations, who oversee resource allocation, capacity planning and day-to-day delivery coordination, to ensure performance priorities and delivery plans remain aligned.

• Identify and challenge inefficiencies, overservicing and risks to delivery profitability, ensuring corrective action is taken where required.

• Contribute to improvements in delivery effectiveness without owning client pricing, contracts or day-to-day resource scheduling.

Strategic Contribution & Improvement

• Contribute to the development of ClickThrough's performance proposition, capabilities and wider business priorities.

• Work collaboratively with Strategy to ensure client strategies translate into effective delivery, contributing expertise and challenge where appropriate.

• Champion innovation, technology and AI where they can demonstrably improve client outcomes, quality or efficiency.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 12 months, we'll expect to see a measurable difference in how ClickThrough understands, manages and improves client performance.

• Clear performance visibility

We can confidently demonstrate whether our work is achieving the intended outcomes and making a meaningful difference to our clients' businesses.

• Proactive performance management

Underperformance and emerging risks are identified early, with clear ownership and corrective action before issues escalate.

• Confident client conversations

Our teams lead discussions about performance, explaining what's working, what isn't and what we're doing next, supported by evidence.

• Consistent quality and accountability

Clear standards, technical assurance and ownership of results are embedded across the performance function.

• A stronger, more collaborative team

Specialists work together around client outcomes, with clear expectations, effective leadership and meaningful opportunities for development.

• Commercially sustainable delivery

Client outcomes are achieved effectively and efficiently, within agreed budgets and timescales.

What You'll Bring

We're interested in experienced digital performance leaders from both agency and in-house backgrounds. What's important is your ability to take ownership of results, challenge thinking and lead meaningful improvement.

Essential

• Significant experience in a senior digital marketing or performance leadership role, with accountability for delivering measurable results.

• Strong understanding of digital performance, reporting and evaluation across multiple disciplines, with the ability to turn insight into action.

• Proven experience identifying underperformance, challenging strategies and delivering measurable improvements.

• Experience leading and developing specialist teams, establishing standards and holding people accountable.

• Strong commercial awareness, including budgets, return on investment and delivery efficiency.

• Confidence influencing senior stakeholders, making evidence-led decisions and communicating performance clearly, including in challenging situations.

Desirable

• Experience working in a digital marketing agency, particularly across multiple client accounts.

• Understanding of agency commercial models, including retainers, utilisation and delivery profitability.

• Experience establishing performance assurance, quality control or continuous improvement processes.

• Experience leading organisational change or developing multidisciplinary teams and new ways of working.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary: £55,000–£65,000 per annum, dependent on experience.

• Generous annual leave: 24 days' holiday, increasing to 30 days with service, with options to carry forward up to three days or purchase five additional days.

• Flexible working: Hybrid and flexible working arrangements, with our office based in Lichfield.

• Health and wellbeing: Employee Assistance Programme, including access to a video GP, counselling and support services, alongside Simplyhealth healthcare benefits.

• Family-friendly benefits: Enhanced maternity and paternity pay.

• Learning and development: Continuous professional development, training and opportunities to grow your expertise and leadership capabilities.

• Recognition and rewards: Peer-nominated recognition initiatives celebrating individual contributions and achievements.

• Team culture: Regular social events, team activities and opportunities to connect and celebrate together.

Beyond the benefits, this is an opportunity to take on a pivotal leadership role at an important stage in ClickThrough's development, helping shape our people, capabilities and performance culture.