What you consider your role is irrelevant. Your role is what the client wants it to be. For example, they don’t want your role to be setting up a gmail account

What you consider your role is irrelevant. Your role is what the client wants it to be. For example, they don’t want your role to be setting up a gmail account even though that would make the spam problem mostly disappear (and avoid a bunch of other email footguns) so you aren’t doing that. Even though they need a gmail account because potential customers will expect and accept it. And if your client already has email and use it, they already have practice dealing with spam because putting an email address on the web hasn’t been necessary to attract spam for a couple of decades.