A Day in the Life of a Digital Marketer

What is a typical day like for a Digital Marketer? We caught up with Senior Digital Marketing Specialist and Springboard mentor, Jonathan, to learn more about the tools and tasks that make up his day. Jonathan maps out how he went from junior-level to senior-level, his tips for other digital marketers looking to rise up the career ladder, and how the field has changed. Whether you’re just starting out, expanding your own business, or you’re a seasoned marketer looking to upskill, Jonathan breaks down how the Digital Marketing Professional Certificate program at Springboard offers invaluable insight into this exponentially growing industry. 

How did you get into digital marketing?

I had a career as a digital producer for several well-known consumer publications before I completed a traditional degree in Business Marketing. In 2006, I landed an entry-level digital marketer role at Warner Brothers Television. Over the years, I’ve managed over 200 digital marketing campaigns for numerous companies including Warner Brothers and The CW Television Network.

How has digital marketing changed since you got into the field 16 years ago?

This field has changed by leaps and bounds! Many of the tools we currently leverage for digital marketing were not in place 16 years ago when I started my career. Social media was not anything like it is today — Facebook was not even open to the general public when I first started in digital marketing! You had to have a university email address to access the platform. 

In 2020, e-commerce accounted for about $4.3 trillion of global sales with over two billion people making purchases online. As people are more comfortable with doing business online than ever before, digital marketing continues to grow and advance. It's more important now than ever to understand digital marketing.

What does your typical day look like on the job as a Senior Digital Marketing Specialist?

Before I go into the office, I start every morning catching up on the latest news and trends. My two favorites being Digiday and Marketing Dive. 

One of the greatest things about digital marketing is that it's always changing. That said, I generally begin my work day catching up on communications, checking in on my campaigns and reviewing the day's schedule. In my current role, I oversee search engine marketing (SEM) strategy, email marketing strategy, and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. I'm constantly looking for ways to improve the digital marketing campaigns and platforms that we have in place, which includes reviewing key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine what's working and what's not. 

Digital marketing is an on-going process that requires constant updates and adjustments to campaigns to ensure they're successful — you can't just launch a campaign and call it a day. A large part of my day is determining what we need to tweak based on what is and isn't working. 

What kinds of tools do you rely on every day on the job?

The very first tool that I leverage on a daily basis is Microsoft Office, which I use primarily for communications and Excel reporting. I also use Adobe Analytics and Content Square on a daily basis to review metrics and engagement patterns. In addition, my team utilizes Basecamp quite a bit for project communication.

I rely on Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising for ad campaign management, and I use the Meta Business Manager regularly to manage social placements. I use Sprinkler for social media management, which allows you to schedule out posts for social media and monitor engagement with reporting, very similar to Hootsuite. 

I leverage PeopleCloud Messaging for email marketing, which is essentially a campaign management tool. I also utilize Optimizely on a regular basis as an A/B testing and multivariate testing tool. For SEO optimization, I use Semrush, which is helpful for things like keyword research.

What are the typical kinds of projects that you handle?

I manage and create the email campaigns that our company executes, which are designed to follow up with individuals who have shown an interest in the company. Many of the email campaigns are ongoing, while others are more ad hoc in nature. I also develop email communications for our existing customers to communicate product updates and announcements, working with the creative team to design and produce the campaign.

In addition to that, I manage all of the search, social, display, and video campaigns that we run for the company, which are targeted to specific audiences by using different channels based on that individual's interest in our company.

Lastly, I work to ensure that our company has a solid organic presence in the digital space. For instance, I review SEO reports on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis to determine what's working for us and what's not.

How do you work with other teams in your organization?

I am embedded within the marketing team as a digital marker, but I work very closely with other departments, such as:

• Our data analytics team, who assist us with reporting.
• The interactive team, who assist us with our website updates.
• The IT team, who manages the technology behind all the digital tactics that we leverage. 
• Our design team, who manages the look and feel of all of our creative.
• Our agency team, who helps with some of our search and display advertising.

Over the past 16 years, you’ve gone from Junior to Senior-level roles in digital marketing. What is the difference in responsibilities between Junior, Mid, and Senior-level digital marketing roles?

In a junior-level role, you're often focused on more entry-level tasks, like pulling together recap reports for further analysis and scheduling pre-approved posts. Today, junior level digital marketers often work in Google Ads Manager to set up pre-approved campaigns. They may also use Hootsuite to schedule out content, and they may leverage Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics to pull some very basic reporting that can be distributed to the Senior Digital Marketing team to determine what's working and what's not.

Overall, my entry-level position was very task-based in the beginning. As I became familiar with the tasks, I was given additional opportunities, essentially allowing me to expand my understanding of digital marketing. Some of those initial tasks were: 

• Scheduling marketing content
• Scheduling pre-approved emails
• Setting up pre-approved ad campaigns 
• Producing daily and weekly recap reports using hard data that leadership could use to make strategic decisions

The mid-level-role becomes more involved with the bigger picture, including digital marketing strategy and optimization. 

In a senior level role, the majority of your time is focused on strategy and ownership of your digital marketing channels. As a senior level digital marketer, you should know what it takes to make a successful digital marketing campaign. The senior-level still performs daily tasks to keep their skills sharp, but the role is more strategic thinking-focused. It's the senior’s job to ensure everything comes together from start to finish.

What is your advice on climbing the digital marketing career ladder? 

It's important to continually evaluate your skill set as a digital marketer. Digital marketing is an ever-changing (and exciting!) field! It requires you to stay on top of your skill set to make sure you understand the latest trends and are involved with the changes that are happening. Education is one of the biggest tools you can leverage to help you move up that career ladder, and certifications are very important. Springboard’s Digital Marketing Professional Certificate is a great example! In addition, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) offers some informative vital marketing webinars, and so does Adweek. LinkedIn is another great resource to explore digital marketing groups and network with other digital marketers. 

I started out by learning the processes and procedures that were in place at my company. I shadowed a senior-level team member to learn more about the digital tools they were utilizing. This helped me to become more familiar with the different stakeholders on the projects, like who I could go to if I had questions about metrics, who might be involved in the design of creative placement, or who was in charge of updating the website.

Do you recommend that digital marketers specialize their knowledge in the field? 

Generalization and specialization will depend a lot on the company you want to work for. In smaller companies, you are very often a generalist in the sense that you're managing many tasks. In a larger company, your tasks can be more segmented. For instance, at a larger company, an individual may be hired to focus entirely on SEO.

What’s the difference between working at large corporations versus smaller companies as a digital marketer?

I've been fortunate to work at both large and small organizations. The difference mostly comes down to the organization. I find that digital marketers who work in smaller companies generally take on a wider set of tasks, whereas the job can get more segmented within a larger organization. For example, most large organizations have teams dedicated to data analytics and digital development, but as a digital marketer in smaller organizations, you will often take on those tasks in addition to your campaign management. If you’re working on an SEO project in a smaller organization, you might be tasked with identifying the optimization, and then implementing it as well.

You’re a mentor for Springboard’s Digital Marketing Professional Certificate students. What do students learn in this program?

The Springboard curriculum enables students to challenge themselves in all areas of digital marketing. It allows them to identify areas that they would like to explore more deeply, and then to seek the support of their mentor if they have questions about any of those areas.

The curriculum covers:

• Digital strategy. It's not enough just to know the concept of what a channel or a metric is — you also need to understand strategy and how to execute successfully on these tactics. 
• Customer personas. You need to understand your audience: who they are, how they think, and where might be the best channel for you to reach them. 
• SEO, SEM, social media, email, and influencer and affiliate marketing.
• Marketing analytics. We teach students how to evaluate and set KPIs for each campaign. 
• Digital marketing tactics like A/B testing. 

Is the Digital Marketing Professional Certificate at Springboard aimed at career changers, upskillers, or both?

It's a mix of both in our cohorts! Some people enter the program with a high interest in digital marketing and want to break into the career with no experience whatsoever. Others have worked in traditional marketing, but don't fully understand digital marketing and want to learn more. 

I've taught consultants and freelancers looking to expand their knowledge of digital marketing, and even business owners who run their own business and want to learn how to effectively digital market on their own. I've also mentored students who are already in digital marketing, but are looking for a deeper understanding into one of the different topics like say SEM or SEO. 

Springboard offers 1:1 mentorship for its students. What does this look like for students in the Digital Marketing Professional Certificate program?

Mentorship is one of the key highlights of the program. We match students with mentors based on their needs. The 1:1 mentorship helps advance a student’s knowledge in the field. We want to make certain that we match compatibility, so we're very specific when it comes to the matching process.

During weekly mentor meetings, we discuss content and answer any questions the student has. Mentors are always available via email if a student is struggling with anything outside that time frame. The mentor is there to help them get through the program and offer them any additional insights into digital marketing that they may be looking for.

There's also a Springboard digital marketing community, where students can attend monthly video sessions to meet mentors during office hours. That community base is unique to this digital program and adds to the Springboard curriculum. 

What are some of your past students up to now?

One of my students currently works for a digital marketing agency in the pharmaceutical industry. Another recently reached out, just a couple of weeks ago, to let me know that he was accepted into USC's Marshall School of Business program. He’s working towards his MBA! There's nothing more rewarding to me than helping others achieve their goals — it's one of the things I love most about being a mentor. I was floored when I heard he'd been accepted into a program he was pushing towards.

One of my other students went on to open his own digital marketing agency specializing in SEO. It’s awesome to see that he took what he learned at Springboard to that level. 

Find out more and read Springboard reviews on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with Springboard.