Head of Marketing Operations

About us: We are one of the top three automotive retailers in the UK, proudly representing 32 manufacturer brands, selling a huge range of new and used vehicles from over 150 dealerships across the UK and Ireland.

We believe our people are our greatest asset, and we're committed to recognising the valuable contribution each person makes. That's why we continue to invest in a leading rewards and benefits package designed to support your career, wellbeing, and life outside of work.

Head of Marketing Operations

Hybrid - with travel as required

Salary - Competitive

Contract: Permanent, Full-Time

This role leads and develops the strategic systems, data, planning frameworks, processes and governance that underpin how marketing operates. It will be a leading force in building the infrastructure that ensures the team have what they need to operate effectively and make good, confident decisions with more time spent delivering value.

The role is accountable for setting up the infrastructure that powers marketing effectiveness, from data and reporting to MarTech, planning and production, while ensuring day-to-day execution is delivered through a high-performing operational team.

Marketing Operations is a critical strategic enabler, creating the conditions for marketing to deliver measurable commercial impact, not just activity.

What You'll Be Responsible For

Strategic Marketing Planning & Activity Visibility

Own the central marketing trading plan and processes, ensuring full visibility of activity across brands, divisions and channels

Ensure the organisation understands what activity is running, when, and why, linked to commercial priorities

Bring structure and visibility to a complex OEM and group campaign environment

Operations, Process & Workflow Design

Define and embed the key team wide operating processes, including briefing, workflow, production and approvals

Ensure processes are efficient, scalable and consistently adopted across teams

Set the standards for how marketing operates at pace without compromising quality

Delegate day-to-day execution of briefing and production processes to the Marketing Operations Manager

Work with marketing and compliance to ensure the marketing governance and compliance framework is well embedded across processes

Embed processes that ensure compliance is delivered systematically without slowing delivery

Production & Delivery Enablement (Through Team)

Own the overall production model and capability, ensuring marketing operates as a high-performing delivery engine

Drive the use of automation, AI and process optimisation to improve speed, efficiency and scalability

Ensure the structure and processes are in place for effective asset delivery

Line manage the Marketing Operations Manager, who is accountable for day-to-day production execution and delivery teams

MarTech Strategy & Capability

Own the shared MarTech ecosystem and roadmap, ensuring the team has the tools and capabilities required to deliver its strategy

Identify and implement improvements to systems, integrations and ways of working

Lead vendor strategy, optimisation and capability development

Data, Insight & Reporting

Work with functional and data team stakeholders to define and develop the marketing data, reporting and performance framework.

Work with data team to ensure the right data and martec infrastructure is in place to support targeting, measurement and optimisation

Lead the development of marketing attribution (starting with foundational capability) with central data team, analyst and specialist expertise as required

Ensure integration of external data sources and market insight to inform strategy and decision making

Ensure data is accessible, well-structured and actionable for the team

Line manage a Marketing Data Analyst responsible for delivering reporting, dashboards, modelling and insight outputs

Data & Technology Partnership Leadership

Own the senior relationship with the central data team, ensuring marketing requirements are prioritised and delivered

Coordinate across:

Data engineering

MarTech

Tagging and tracking pipelines

Data ingestion and CDP

Audience segmentation

Work with external third-party data providers to support the evolution of marketing data capability

Budget Management & Financial Control

Own the end-to-end marketing budget framework in partnership with Finance

Ensure full visibility and control of spend, commitments and performance across all activity

Work with channel owners and divisions to improve forecasting accuracy, transparency and accountability

Enable better investment decisions through clear financial and performance linkage

The Team!

The Head of Marketing Operations leads a small, high-impact team responsible for enabling the wider marketing function:

Direct Reports:

Marketing Operations Manager(s)

Owns day-to-day campaign briefing process

Leads production and delivery operations

Manages production resources and campaign execution workflows

Co-ordination of team wide trade plan accuracy and administration

Marketing Data Analyst

Owns reporting, dashboards and performance tracking

Delivers insight to support optimisation and decision-making

Works with internal and external data sources to enhance customer and market understanding

Wider Responsibilities:

Leads relationship with central data team (data engineering, CDP, integrations, tagging, tracking)

Works with external data and technology partners to evolve marketing capability

What We're Looking For!

Essential

Significant marketing operations experience in a complex, multi-site or multi-brand retail, automotive, or consumer business

Strong data and analytics capability with the ability to design reporting infrastructure, interpret performance data and drive insight-led decisions

Track record of building and improving marketing processes at scale, from briefing and campaign management to budget governance

Experience managing agency and MarTech supplier relationships, including commercial negotiations

Hands-on working knowledge of attribution modelling, tagging, and digital tracking

Highly organised, commercially fluent, and able to operate in a fast-paced environment with competing priorities

Desirable

Experience in automotive retail or adjacent sectors

Familiarity with DMS platforms (e.g. Keyloop/CDK) and automotive CRM environments

Understanding of OEM and manufacturer marketing realities

Experience implementing or scaling AI-driven marketing automation tools

Core Benefits:

Competitive salaries with structured pay scales and progression as you grow within the business

Generous annual leave that increases with your length of service

Enhanced family leave, including 6 months' full pay for maternity and adoption leave, and 2 weeks' full pay for paternity leave

Access to Techscheme for discounted technology purchases with flexible payments

Health & Wellbeing:

Eyecare vouchers to help cover vision care needs

Smart Health – 24/7 access to GP services to support your mental and physical wellbeing

Dental insurance for everyday dental care and unexpected treatments

Optional critical illness cover for peace of mind during life's most challenging moments

Financial Wellbeing:

MyView PayNow – access a portion of your pay as you earn, with features to stream, save, and track your money through a user-friendly app

Free will writing services to help plan for the future

Flexible life assurance options and partner life assurance for added protection

Leisure & Lifestyle:

Discounted gym memberships to support an active lifestyle

Travel insurance to help you explore with confidence

Access to home and technology vouchers

bYond card and a wide range of exclusive retail and lifestyle discounts

We strongly believe in nurturing and providing our people with specific manufacturer brand and management training to enhance career development opportunities. We have a great bunch of people, and we like to celebrate and encourage success at all levels.

Lookers and Charles Hurst are an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to a working environment that is free from discrimination, is inclusive, and empowers our people to bring their whole self to work and reach their full potential.

If your application is successful, we will conduct relevant employment checks prior to you commencing employment with us. These will include verifying your recent employment, address, credit history and a standard criminal record check. For roles that require you to drive, a driving licence check will also be carried out. Please note, all offers of employment are made subject to a 6 month probation period commencing from your start date.

We take our data protection responsibilities very seriously and are committed to upholding and respecting your privacy rights. Information about how we will process your data including the types of data we collect, the purposes for which we use it, who we may share it with and how long we keep it are set out in our privacy notice. It also includes information about your individual privacy rights. Please make sure you read our Privacy Notice so that you understand how we may collect and use your data.