Advertising and Paid Media jobs and careers

A career in Advertising and Paid Media is all about strategic internet advertising. A Paid Media Specialist is responsible for planning and optimising the effectiveness of a paid campaigns. The term PPC is often related to Google Ads or Bing Ads, and advertisers will pay a fee each time their advert is clicked. A specialist in PPC uses their marketing expertise in order to maximise results by getting potential consumers to click-through and convert.

You’ll naturally be abreast of the search sector and the opportunities opening up within the market that will enhance the agency’s or your business’ offering. Outside of pure PPC, you may also be getting involved in paid social campaigns, programmatic, display or retargeting. This largely depends on the business’ strategy, or the goals of your clients if you are agency side.

Why consider a career in Paid Media?

If you’re a strategic thinker that loves helping businesses grow and forming technical campaigns (from writing enticing copy for adverts to pushing the campaign live and monitoring the success), a career in paid media / paid search is creative, analytical and systematic. There are a range of paths you can go down, including agency where you could be managing various campaigns for different clients, or you could be based in-house with one focus – growing the business of one brand through effective online paid strategies.

What exactly does a career or job in Paid Media entail?

This career path can take you down a variety of different routes. Your role may blend more with digital marketing or you could specialise in PPC alone.

As a PPC Executive or Paid Search Executive, you’ll manage paid search campaigns on channels such as Google and Bing and social media. Part of your role is to create, optimise, report and to delve into the data and related analytics, to discover what is driving performance.  You could as work as a PPC Executive as part of an agency team, and this is sometimes called a PPC Account Executive.  This role would involve managing various accounts for a wide range of clients. You’ll specialise in paid search, biddable media, programmatic and display. You’ll be instrumental in supporting the success of client accounts, ensuring successful digital marketing strategies for your clients. You’ll be comfortable working across commercial, analytical, communication and hands-on PPC based tasks.

As a PPC Specialist, you’ll provide day-to-day management and optimisation of paid search campaigns – to enhance performance in line with ROI targets. Daily PPC optimisations will include, query reports, budget/bid management, ad copy changes and keyword expansions. Competitor research will be key in staying several steps ahead of the competition. You’ll play part in the wider marketing team, ensuring a unified message is portrayed.

As a Paid Social Specialist, you’ll manage campaigns on platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The principles are similar to PPC, in you will create, manage and optimise campaigns but these will be focussed only on social media channels. Analysis of analytical data will give you insight into customer behaviour and allow you to edit your overarching strategy.

As a Programmatic Account Manager, you’ll oversee the automated process of buying and selling ad inventory. This occurs in real-time and allows you to bid across mobile, display, video and social channels. The process makes use of artificial intelligence technologies and demand site platforms to facilitate the process.

What are typical Paid Media job titles?

  • PPC Specialist
  • PPC Executive
  • PPC Assistant
  • Paid Search Manager
  • PPC Account Executive
  • Head of PPC
  • Head of Paid Search
  • Paid Social Executive
  • Paid Social Manager
  • Programmatic Account Manager

What is the career path in Paid Media?

  • PPC Assistant
  • PPC Executive
  • PPC Manager
  • Head of Paid Search

How much does a Paid Media job pay?

At an entry level, Junior/Graduate PPC Consultants on average will be earning between £20-30k. At mid-level, you’d be looking to earn £30k-50k and seniors would be looking to earn £50k+.

Is it right for me? The skills it takes…

You should be naturally analytical with great organisational skills, along with the ability to communicate your ideas well and explain them technically.

What qualifications do you need for a career in Paid Media?

You may hold a degree or diploma within a relevant subject such as IT, marketing or mathematics. There are other options to get your foot in the door, such as apprenticeships, online courses and on-the-job training.

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