Head of Retention

Role: Head of Retention

Function: Management | Klaviyo and SMS services | Retention Strategy

Responsibility: Ensuring the retention team is driving growth across our portfolio of clients

Reports to: COO

Location: Hybrid/flexible - Leeds Head Office and working-from-home options

Compensation:Competitive Salary + Audit Bonus Scheme + 26 Days Paid Holiday

Our core values: 

1. Extreme ownership - taking responsibility for every outcome within your control.
2. Quality - how you do one thing is how you do everything.
3. Profit - we think making money is great, especially for our partners.
4. Personal happiness - you are here because you want to be.

Background:

Founded by Olly Hudson and Joe Marston in 2019, Soar With Us is one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies for e-commerce brands in the UK with a team of 30+ A-Players. In the last 12 months, we’ve generated over £30m revenue for our clients using retention methods, including The Essence Vault, Spacegoods, Contempee, and many more.

We’ve been making changes to our organisational structure, recruitment processes, and sales funnels to unlock the next phase of growth. The Head of Retention will play an important and exciting role in overseeing our team of Retention Managers, designers and Klaviyo Technicians ensuring they are growing the retention efforts on behalf of our clients.

Reporting directly to our COO, you will ensure the success of a multitude of clients from a range of different niches. From onboarding to Soaring, you will help brands achieve their goals and scale them to the moon, all while upholding our core values of extreme ownership, quality, happiness, and profit. 

On a day-to-day basis, you’ll be responsible for the development and success of our retention account managers and Senior account managers, along with our retention service as a whole. You may also have 1 or 2 of your own accounts and will have complete autonomy in formulating their retention strategies.

This is a career-defining opportunity; allowing the right candidate to take on start-up-style responsibilities and have a direct impact on catapulting Soar into the stratosphere.

Main Accountabilities:

• Mentor, guide, and manage the retention team, ensuring consistent and outstanding service delivery
• Lead quarterly review sessions for the retention team members, ensuring their professional development is prioritised and career progression is in place
• Lead, develop, and optimise our retention service to ensure it is market-leading
• Assist in the hiring process for any new team members we bring into the retention team
• Strategise, build, and execute high-profile Klaviyo accounts. You will be strategising, building, and executing campaigns and automations on accounts on an ongoing basis for a few of your own clients
• Overseeing and retaining a diverse portfolio of clients across your department
• Lead and facilitate a department re-brand alongside providing marketing output for the agency
• Work alongside the Partner Manager to nurture relationships between the retention tack stack
• Communicating with your team and your own clients regularly via Slack and Google Meet
• Work closely with the COO to align on activity and progress of the retention service
• Implement and enhance eCommerce best practices within your department, including but not limited to creative, CRO, landing pages, product strategy, Shopify, forecasting, analytical tools, etc
• Keep up to date with eCommerce best practices of tomorrow through training, research, etc
• Effectively communicate and collaborate across the Company
• Think how our clients think.

Success in 6 months:

• Demonstrate measurable improvement across our portfolio of Retention client results, correlating directly with strategies and ways of working that you’ve implemented;
• Pushing the COO/leadership. Questioning the way we do things and bringing new ideas to the table on a weekly basis;
• The COO is overheard saying to the MD, “The new Head of Retention is killing it, I can’t believe how lucky we were to have found them…”

Success in 12 months:

• Have an immaculate track record in establishing robust, efficient, and highly effective strategies that are consistently delivering exemplary results for clients
• Churn rates within the Retention service are the lowest they’ve ever been in 3 years;
• Have consistently raised the bar within the Retention team by placing an emphasis on employee development/progression
• Have started to take on (and excelled) at COO-level responsibilities by thinking more big picture across Paid Social, Paid Search, Retention, and Creative services.

Success in 24 months:

• Established the greatest Retention department in the world, which is recognised for consistently delivering exemplary results for clients. Big e-commerce brands only want to come to Soar
• You will have progressed up the ranks to Head of Performance
• You will have made a name for yourself in the e-commerce industry
• Have implemented a handful of new processes or technologies that have forever changed the way we do things;
• Have promoted a handful of Retention Managers to Senior Retention Managers
• Contribute significantly to the overall success and growth of Soar With Us, ensuring the retention department is integral to the agency’s achievements.

Attitude: You,

• will take complete ownership of your successes and failures
• are entrepreneurial with the ability to see the bigger picture
• have a proactive approach
• have exceptional attention to detail
• confident in building long-term relationships with your client base
• are able to self-manage and prioritise tasks efficiently
• have excellent leadership qualities

Requirements

• You need at least 3 years of experience running Klaviyo accounts for e-commerce brands at a high level;
• You need at least 2 years of management experience within the marketing industry.
• Previous agency experience managing a team of Retention Account  Managers is strongly preferred. If not, you must have experience managing a small marketing team within an 8-9-figure e-commerce brand.
• A broad understanding of Shopify and e-commerce. If you’ve never heard of Shopify, Klaviyo or Triple Whale then this role won’t be for you. You must have extensive knowledge of the operations and advertising strategies of high-level ecom brands;
• Top-notch research skills. With the need to pivot from client to client, you’ll need to be able to do in-depth research and get up to speed on the industry and market quickly.

Benefits

• Our incredible client base. We work with a wide range of companies, spanning multiple niches and continents. You will be working in collaboration with some of the fastest-growing and most established DTC e-commerce companies in the world.
• Building your skills. Our diverse service offering and client base ensure that no two days are the same - with opportunities to broaden your skillset at every turn. We’re committed to ensuring that all of our team are constantly developing and evolving toward their own personal goals and you would be no exception
• Ongoing mentoring. You will get many hours of 1-on-1 coaching/mentorship with our senior management team, and learn to expertly advertise DTC brands which is an incredibly sought-after skill.
• Start-up sensibilities. You have the rare opportunity to work with a 3-year-old agency and have a huge impact on how we do things.
• Flexible, hybrid working. We’re a modern agency, with trust and respect for everyone who works here. As such, we offer the option to work from our vibrant Leeds office, from home, or a combination of both.
• Private health insurance, life insurance, and cash plan enrollment.
• Numerous internal social activities are arranged by our social sec at the end of each month. We also host larger social events at the end of each quarter