Account Director (Performance Marketing)

IRIS is a global integrated agency driven by one simple philosophy: Participate or Perish. We create ideas that earn attention and inspire people to interact with brands in meaningful ways. Working with some of the world’s most ambitious brands, we combine strategy, creativity, technology, and media to deliver impactful campaigns.

We’re looking for an Account Director to join our search-focused Client Leadership team, working across the Beiersdorf suite of brands including NIVEA, Eucerin and Hansaplast. This is a senior client leadership role, combining strategic thinking, commercial ownership and a deep understanding of the evolving search landscape across SEO, PPC and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).

The role involves acting as a senior strategic partner to Beiersdorf across the EU region, owning client relationships across multiple markets and helping shape how their brands show up throughout the modern search journey. Our ambition is to maximise brand visibility and discovery through best-in-class SEO, paid search, website content, CRO and emerging search capabilities, while demonstrating clear commercial impact and sustainable growth.

You’ll help lead this evolution, connecting traditional search strategy with GEO and broader visibility across platforms including Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. You’ll be responsible for connecting client objectives with our SEO, PPC and GEO strategies, leading performance conversations, challenging briefs, identifying growth opportunities and influencing senior stakeholders across global and regional markets.

This is a role for someone who can combine commercial leadership, search expertise, strategic thinking and strong client relationships, while bringing curiosity and a forward-thinking perspective to how brands can win in an increasingly complex search environment.

What you’ll be doing:

• Lead senior client relationships: act as a trusted strategic advisor to senior global and regional stakeholders, building strong partnerships and confidently challenging legacy thinking.
• Own the search strategy: connect SEO, PPC and GEO strategies to client objectives, shaping long-term roadmaps that deliver meaningful commercial value.
• Lead the shift towards GEO: help clients navigate the evolution from traditional search to AI-powered discovery, developing strategies that increase brand visibility across LLMs, AI search and traditional SERPs.
• Turn performance into action: lead performance conversations, reporting and recommendations, translating complex data and search behaviour into clear commercial opportunities.
• Drive growth across markets: identify and develop opportunities across SEO, PPC, GEO, content, and broader strategic consultancy, turning successful initiatives into scalable solutions.
• Lead global and regional planning: work closely with channel leads on quarterly and annual planning, balancing local market nuances with global objectives.
• Oversee delivery and quality: ensure strategies and execution across multiple markets are delivered to a high standard, stepping in at the right moments to challenge thinking and maintain momentum.
• Champion innovation: stay ahead of emerging search technologies, AI developments, automation and new ways of working, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Connect multidisciplinary teams: act as the central point of connection between clients, SEO, PPC, GEO, project management and senior strategy teams, bringing clarity and alignment across complex workstreams.
• Lead and develop talent: mentor and support search specialists, helping build their strategic, commercial and client leadership capabilities while keeping the team close to developments in the search landscape.
• Own commercial performance: support SOW creation, forecasting, billing, retainer utilisation and scope management, ensuring work is commercially healthy and operationally efficient.
• Proactively solve problems: identify risks, performance shifts and market concerns early, bringing clear thinking and solutions-focused leadership to resolve them.
• Contribute to new business: use your expertise and network to identify opportunities, contribute to pitches and help strengthen IRIS's competitive position.
• Bring an external perspective: stay close to developments across AI, search, technology, performance marketing and consumer behaviour, bringing fresh thinking that strengthens the client partnership.

What we’re looking for:

We’re looking for an experienced agency Account Director who combines commercial confidence, strategic thinking and strong client leadership with a genuine passion for the evolving world of search and performance marketing. You’ll be someone who:

• Has strong experience within an agency environment, ideally across SEO, PPC, performance marketing, search strategy or a closely related discipline.
• Understands the wider search ecosystem and is excited by the evolution from traditional SEO and PPC towards GEO, AI-powered search and broader digital visibility.
• Can build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders and confidently influence, challenge and advise at a strategic level.
• Is commercially minded and understands how to protect and grow an agency relationship, with experience of scope, budgets, forecasting and profitability.
• Has a track record of identifying opportunities to grow client accounts and expand an agency’s remit.
• Can translate performance data, insights and market trends into clear strategic recommendations and commercial value.
• Is comfortable working across complex, international accounts and balancing global objectives with local market needs.
• Is naturally curious about technology, AI and emerging platforms and actively looks for ways they can improve both the work and client relationships.
• Can lead multidisciplinary teams and create clarity across complex projects, stakeholders and workstreams.
• Is an experienced people leader who enjoys mentoring and developing others.
• Is confident presenting to senior audiences and can communicate complex search and performance topics in a clear and compelling way.
• Thinks beyond the immediate brief and is motivated by helping clients solve bigger business and marketing challenges.
• Wants to contribute to the wider agency through new business, thought leadership, innovation and the development of our search and performance offering.

Why IRIS?

IRIS is built around the belief that integrated thinking creates better work and better business outcomes. We bring together different disciplines, perspectives and capabilities to solve problems in ways that go beyond traditional agency boundaries. Our search offering sits at the intersection of SEO, PPC, content, performance, technology and now AI-powered discovery. This means you’ll have the opportunity to work at the forefront of how brands are discovered, considered and experienced online, helping clients navigate one of the fastest-changing areas of marketing.

We’re looking for people who bring the same mindset: commercially sharp, creatively driven, culturally curious and tech-forward. Our culture is built around three things: Passion, Proactivity and Performance. We want people who care deeply about what they do, take the initiative to make things happen and hold themselves and others to a high standard.

IRIS is an advocate for equal opportunity in the workplace. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability and gender identity. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.