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 int