A Practical Guide To Paid Social – Digital Marketing Apprenticeships

Digital Marketing is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and covers a wide range of skills. One of the biggest channels within digital marketing is paid social (Paid social is the practice of displaying sponsored advertising content on third-party social networking platforms with the goal of targeting specific customers. Marketing leaders often use paid social media to increase marketing efficiency and capture new subsets of customers.)


After completing a L3 digital marketing apprenticeship myself, I received a job offer as a paid social executive. 

However, I never knew I wanted to be in digital marketing. It covers such a broad range of interests, that whether you prefer creative, analytical, or technical tasks, there’s always something for you.

Back to paid social – After being on a paid social team for awhile, I’ve built an understanding of how the process works, but also tips and systems that may seem minor, but can have a great impact. From split testing, to attribution tracking, a few small tweaks can turn a mediocre campaign into a star!

Split Testing

Split Testing, also known as A/B Testing, may be seen as a more scientific aspect of advertising. It is the process of making small adjustments between two nearly identical ads/audiences and using their results to see which performed better.

For example, say we have an ad for a brand new pair of football boots. The creative, the audience targeting, and the landing page are all identical, but we write two separate chunks of copy for each ad.

By then analysing the results of these two ads, we can see the incremental difference each set of copy had. A clear winner will usually appear, making us certain which copy to use for the future.

This process may then be repeated for the audience, the landing page, the ad image, pretty much any element of the campaign. This is an incredibly useful process and has the potential to grow wildly successful ads.

Attribution

A problem many advertisers face is effective attribution modelling.

Attribution models are a term for assigning value to interactions users have with you. It’s about identifying which touchpoint on the user journey led the customer to make a purchase. More often than not, the customer had multiple touchpoints before making the purchase.

Without knowing which touchpoints or channels are having the most effective returns, how will you know which channels to invest more money into?

With attribution models, you hold your advertising accountable for particular conversions.

Ultimately, this gives you the data to see what is and isn’t working. It gives you a clear insight of your customer journeys and identifies which touchpoints lead to conversion and which ones may need improvement.

As shown below, there are many different types of attribution models.

They all have different pros and cons, however a lot of advertisers go with last-click attribution models, as this provides data on which touchpoint caused a conversion rather than just nourishing the prospect.

Whilst these are fairly normal terms in digital marketing, they can be complex to learn. The concepts themselves are straightforward, but it’s possible to go deep into data science and advertising psychology to complete effective split tests or build functional attribution models.

A digital marketing apprenticeship is an excellent way to break into one of the fastest growing industries in the world whilst learning a range of very valuable skill-sets. Whether you enjoy graphic design or writing (Content Creation), data and advertising (Campaign Management) or building brands and effective marketing strategies (Strategy) the possibilities are endless. 

Get in touch with us today to learn more about digital marketing apprenticeships and how you can get a role in the field! Click here to contact us

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