Article by Marin Dimitrov, Operations Lead at eDesign Interactive.
When you invest in a new website, you expect more than a pretty design or clean code. You want a digital platform that supports your business goals, engages your audience, and drives measurable results. That kind of success does not happen by accident. It occurs because a team of people with clearly defined roles works together in sync.

Two of the most overlooked roles in this process are the account manager and the project manager. At first glance, they seem like an unnecessary expense. After all, they don’t design the homepage or write the backend logic. But they are the glue that holds the entire project together. They protect your investment, keep the project aligned with your goals, and ensure your internal team is not overwhelmed with the agency’s work.

These roles are not billed separately. They are built into the Statement of Work (SOW) as part of the delivery process. Without them, even the best designers and developers can end up spinning their wheels, creating delays, or building something that misses the mark.

The Account Manager: Your Voice Inside the Agency

An account manager (AM) is your direct line to the agency. Their responsibility is to understand your business, your goals, and your priorities - and then make sure the team delivers a website that reflects them.

Imagine launching a new e-commerce store. You want it to look great, but you also want customers to have a frictionless checkout experience. You want sales reports that are actually useful. You want the site to integrate with your inventory system. The account manager connects all these dots for the team. They don’t let the focus drift toward what looks trendy but doesn’t serve your bottom line.

The AM is also the one who helps you make decisions when things get complicated. Say your leadership team decides midway through the project that they want to add a loyalty program. That could add weeks of development time. The account manager will walk you through the trade-offs: how it affects your timeline, what features may need to shift, and whether the added value justifies the delay. They give you clarity, preventing the project from spiraling into scope creep.

And let’s not forget communication. Without a dedicated AM, you would be forced to email the designer about content, the developer about bugs, and the strategist about analytics. Information gets fragmented, answers conflict, and you end up acting as the coordinator. The account manager prevents that headache by centralizing communication and keeping the conversation consistent.

The Project Manager: Turning Plans Into Action

While the AM is focused on the relationship and the business goals, the project manager (PM) is focused on execution. They are the planner, the scheduler, the organizer - the person who makes sure the right work happens at the right time.

Here’s a simple example. Your designer creates a beautiful product page layout. However, the copy for the product descriptions is not yet ready. The developer can’t start coding the template without the final text, so progress stalls. Without a project manager, that gap might sit unnoticed for weeks. With a PM, the issue is spotted early, tasks are rearranged, and the team keeps moving forward.

The PM also handles risk management. Suppose the content management system (CMS) you chose releases an update that breaks one of the plugins. A less organized team might panic, waste days researching, and blow past deadlines. The PM, on the other hand, quickly gathers the right people, evaluates solutions, updates the timeline, and clearly communicates the impact to you. The project stays under control.

Think of the PM as the conductor of an orchestra. Without them, each musician might be brilliant, but the performance would sound chaotic. With them, everything comes together in harmony.

What Happens If These Roles Fall on Other People

Clients sometimes ask, “Can’t the designer or developer just handle these responsibilities?” It’s a fair question, but here’s what really happens when specialists take on AM or PM duties:
A designer trying to manage client communication spends less time on design. They get pulled into writing emails, chasing feedback, and explaining strategy. The creative work suffers, and the final design feels rushed or inconsistent.
A developer who is asked to coordinate timelines or field change requests tends to code less. Bugs sneak in, best practices get skipped, and deadlines slip. The technical quality drops because their focus is split.

When no one owns the relationship or the process, messages get lost. One person promises a feature in two weeks, another says four. Priorities shift depending on who you ask. The project feels unpredictable, and frustration grows on both sides.

We have seen projects where these roles were not clearly defined. Designers became de facto project managers, developers became unofficial account managers, and the result was always the same: a project that took longer, cost more, and created tension between client and agency.

Why Both Roles Are Built Into the SOW

It’s important to understand that these roles are not billed as extras. They are not a separate line item you can remove to save money. They are part of the Statement of Work because they ensure the rest of the work - design, content, development - happens efficiently and delivers the right outcome.

You’re not paying for overhead. You’re paying for a process that protects your investment. The AM and PM free up the specialists to focus on what they do best, while giving you peace of mind that someone is watching the big picture and someone else is driving the day-to-day.

The Payoff for You

The value of having both roles is simple:
- You spend less time chasing updates and more time making informed decisions.
- You avoid costly delays caused by miscommunication or poor planning.
- You get a smoother experience, with one clear voice guiding you and one clear hand steering the work.
- Most importantly, you get a website that is both well-built and strategically aligned with your goals.

At eDesign, we’ve seen the difference firsthand. Projects with dedicated AM and PM support launch faster, run smoother, and result in websites that continue to deliver value long after they go live. Clients walk away not just with a finished product, but with the confidence that their investment was managed carefully from start to finish.

In short, an account manager and a project manager are not optional. They are the foundation of a successful website build. They ensure the right thing gets built, and that it gets built right.

Your website deserves strategy, structure, and standout design. Get in touch with our team to discuss your project.