6 Skills You Need to Work in Paid Media

Looking for a career in Paid Media or PPC? Want to find out what skills you need to have to work in paid media? Let’s have a look at what makes an awesome paid specialist.

1. Inquisitive

An inquisitive and curious mind are a vital part of working in paid media. If you like picking things apart, finding out how it works and what improvements, you can make to get even better results then paid media is for you. The channel is fast paced with constant challenges and changes made by platforms. New tactics, industry best practice and client demands make it an exciting place to be. Quick wins can be made, and results can be much faster than its cousin SEO. Understanding how other channels make a difference and how paid has a very important role in a digital marketing campaign means an inquisitive mind is a core part of a paid specialist.

2. Analytical

Data, data and more data. If you love looking at the detail and working out how you can build, test, optimise and improve campaign performance by tweaking elements or the structure, then PPC is party central. Using a variety of tools, you can get down and dirty analysing campaign results and gain fantastic insight into how things work and what you can do to make improvements to campaigns. Paid media constantly pushes you to learn and build upon your knowledge.

3. Creative

Paid isn’t all about the numbers and analysing data it’s about being creative with the message. Paid search can be innovative and fun to, pushing you to think outside the box. Being bold with copy and targeting can pay off massively helping brands get found across all media platforms such as paid search, display, shopping, and paid social etc.

4. Organised

Organisation is a key skill in paid media. With so many elements to consider such as building, optimising and testing campaigns; bid management, budget pacing, campaign performance, looking at audiences and working around regular and sometimes unannounced platform updates. There is a lot to do and staying on top of it all by being super organised is a fundamental part of the role.

5. Thirst for Knowledge

To compliment an organised, inquisitive, creative and analytical mind you need a thirst for knowledge. Google and Bing like to release regular updates throughout the year, and they can have a dramatic impact on results. It constantly pushes you to learn, understand the changes being made, search trends and the fact that with constant updates the goal posts are being moved and you need to stay ahead of the game. A career in paid media is all about constantly learning and growing, its not a static service and keeping up with the industry makes it an exciting place to be.

6. Problem Solver

Last, but by certainly no means least. Being a problem solver is a valuable trait to have as a paid media specialist. Results will go up and down and understanding the how and why behind these results will help you. Inheriting accounts and understanding they way they have been built and coming up with solutions to the problems you will encounter on a day to day basis will challenge and stretch you. ThoughtShift are an award-winning agency and our campaigns speak for themselves. Check out our case studies to see the sort of results we deliver for our client.

 Passion for Success is the Key

Together these six skills are fundamental traits of an awesome paid search specialist. If they resonate with you and you’re interested in a career in digital marketing check out our Academy page. You never know, it could lead to an amazing career in a diverse and rewarding industry.

Thanks for reading. Follow my contributions to the blog to find out more about our work in the community and Digital Marketing careers or apply for a role with our awesome agency.