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CASE STUDIES
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2025
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Performance Marketing Agency
Building a delivery operating system in ClickUp for a performance marketing agency
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OVERVIEW
About the client
The client is a 35-person performance marketing agency, with 28 people on the delivery side. They work with e-commerce and SaaS clients across several markets.
They were already using ClickUp to manage client work, but lacked visibility into team capacity, workload, and client profitability. Many operational decisions still depended on manual coordination instead of reliable reporting.
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CHALLENGES
A delivery system without structure, visibility, or reliable data
On paper, the agency’s billable utilisation was 23%. In practice, that number was hard to rely on. Part of the work never got logged properly, and time tracking varied from person to person.
The workspace had grown without a clear structure. Client work and internal work were mixed together. Tasks were missing key fields. Time entries were not reviewed before showing up in reporting. Because of that, managers could not plan capacity properly, and overload usually became visible only after deadlines started slipping.
Billable and non-billable work weren't separated
Revenue-generating work and internal activities were tracked together, making utilisation and profitability reports difficult to rely on.
Work entered the system without key details
Estimates, owners, start dates, and due dates were often missing, so work wasn't ready to be planned the moment it entered the workspace.
Tasks lived in chats instead of ClickUp
Requests often arrived through messages and conversations, with tasks only added to ClickUp later. In some cases, work could sit outside the system for several days before becoming visible, even though it could have already been completed.
A lot of our process used to depend on people holding everything together manually. Now it’s built into the system, and we have a much clearer view of delivery and billable time across the team.
Tomas Richter
Founder & CEO, Performance Marketing Agency
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SOLUTIONS
Split client delivery from internal operations
We separated the workspace into two clear parts: Client Delivery and Internal Ops.
Client work became billable by default. Internal work stayed non-billable. Each client got a dedicated folder with a standard structure: backlog, current work, intake, and reporting.
This gave the team something they didn’t have before: a clean line between work that generates revenue and work that supports operations. Once that split was in place, utilisation numbers started reflecting reality.
Make tasks plannable before work starts
We rebuilt task creation rules so every task had the minimum data needed for planning.
Each task now includes required fields such as client, service line, role, work type, engagement type, budget hours, and time estimate. We also set a simple baseline: if a task has no assignee, estimate, start date, or due date, it is not ready for work.
That changed how managers used ClickUp. Workload view stopped being decorative and started helping with actual planning. It became easier to see who was overloaded, where there was free capacity, and which deadlines were already under pressure.
Structured intake and time tracking
Intake
All new requests now enter through forms with required fields. Automations route tasks to the right roles and teams. Recurring work uses pre-built templates. Even saving 10–15 minutes per person per day adds up to 50–75 hours per month for a team of this size.
Time tracking
We rebuilt the time tracking process with four components: daily time logging, weekly timesheet submission, team lead approval (or return for corrections), and dashboards built exclusively on approved time entries.
After these changes, the leadership team gained three reliable data views: planned hours versus actual hours, the share of billable versus non-billable time, and where over-servicing was happening across clients.
Capacity planning starts not when people log time, but when work enters the system with an owner, estimate, and date.
Oleksandr Vivchar, Operational Manager in Byte&Kite
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RESULTS
Better delivery structure led to nearly 2x billable output
Operational effect
Managers can now see team capacity and workload before assigning new work. Bottlenecks become visible earlier, making it easier to balance workloads and address risks before deadlines are affected. Planning is now based on consistent data rather than assumptions.
Business impact
After the rollout, billable utilisation increased from 23% to 44.5%, adding 963 billable hours per month. Based on a model rate of €60 per billable hour, this represents approximately €57.8k in additional monthly delivery value.
×1.93
Billable output
+963
Extra hrs/mo
+€57.8k/mo
Delivery value
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CASE STUDIES
