Every industry needs either digital marketing or e-commerce specialist, or both. The opportunity is endless, but it takes effort and time to prove yourself to potential employers. The best to get ahead in the game is to your brand. A personal brand will help you shape your public persona as digital marketing or e-commerce specialist.
Agency roles vs. in-house roles
There are two main paths that you can pursue in digital marketing and e-commerce, agency roles or in-house roles.
In-house roles – work for a single company to market and sell their products. It is a full-time role at the company in which you will work on the marketing or selling the company products. Some of the benefits are:
- Get to know one company and its products
- Deep knowledge and expertise in a specific industry
- Stability and employee benefits
The disadvantage is that you don’t get to work with different projects or products outside the company’s products.
Agency roles – partner with companies that don’t have in-house marketing teams to fill their digital marketing and advertising needs. Instead of working with one company, you will have an opportunity to work on different projects and companies. Some of the benefits are:
- Collaborate on a variety of initiatives in multiple industries
- Develop broad and flexible expertise
- Get to know certain skill sets very well
The disadvantages are long hours, unpredictable demands from clients, and the instability of the projects. There will be fluctuation in terms of workload during the holiday and non-holiday periods.
The best way to find out which one works for you is to try both roles. It takes more than just benefits and disadvantages to pave your career path. It is important to keep in mind the learning mindset because your first job is not your last job. It is about growing and getting where you want to go.
Roles and responsibilities in digital marketing and e-commerce
Below are some examples of responsibilities for associate or entry-level roles in digital marketing. These lists aren’t comprehensive but are intended to showcase a variety of responsibilities in each role.
- Digital marketing coordinator
- Coordinate marketing activities and initiatives
- Identify target audiences through research
- Run campaigns
- Monitor metrics to evaluate trends
- Marketing associate
- Prepare reports on marketing and sales metrics
- Collect and analyze customer behavior metrics, such as web traffic and search rankings
- Coordinate with marketing teams to generate digital advertising materials
- Assist with ongoing marketing campaigns
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist
- Develop optimization strategies to improve search rankings
- Implement keywords for SEO
- Monitor metrics to understand SEO performance
- Update links for optimization of search rankings
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) specialist
- Identify customer personas to enable marketing to identified audiences
- Perform research on keywords for SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) ads
- Monitor metrics to optimize paid search performance
- Identify and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for SEM
- Social media specialist
- Develop, implement, and manage a social media marketing strategy
- Collaborate with sales and marketing teams on social media campaigns
- Create content to build customer connections and increase brand awareness
- Monitor metrics in social media campaigns for customer engagement and content optimization insights
- Email marketing specialist
- Create email marketing campaigns to promote products or services
- Create an archive of emails for lead generation
- Purge non-deliverable and unsubscribed email addresses
- Use metrics to monitor the performance of email campaigns
Assoiciate-level roles in e-commerce
Below are some examples of responsibilities for associate-level roles in e-commerce. These lists aren’t comprehensive but are intended to showcase a variety of responsibilities in each role.
- E-commerce analyst
- Implement e-commerce strategies to support business goals
- Set e-commerce goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for key attributes like audience, acquisition, behavior, and conversions
- Monitor and analyze e-commerce metrics
- Leverage e-commerce data for operational insights
- E-commerce specialist
- Develop and run campaigns to increase digital sales as part of an overall digital marketing strategy
- Optimize paid advertising campaigns using SEO and other tools
- Manage an online marketing presence, including social media platforms
- Monitor metrics for spikes in website traffic or sales
Advance to roles that further your growth
Starting an entry-level role in marketing or e-commerce is exciting, but after you gain practical experience and hands-on work using tools in that role, you might be eager to advance your career.
If you’re ready for a new role, below are a few possibilities and a sampling of responsibilities for each.
- Digital marketing manager
- Plan and execute digital marketing, including SEO/SEM, email, social media, and display advertising campaigns
- Measure and report performance and return on investment (ROI) for digital marketing
- Plan, execute, and evaluate A/B tests and experiments
- Evaluate and improve the end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels and customer touchpoints
- Social media strategist
- Manage and oversee social media content
- Measure the success of social media campaigns
- Monitor and analyze metrics to recommend effective content optimization solutions
- Network with industry professionals and influencers using social media
- Account manager
- Build and maintain client relationships
- Ensure the timely and successful delivery of advertising solutions based on customer needs and objectives
- Clearly communicate the progress of initiatives to internal and external stakeholders
- Forecast and monitor key account metrics
- E-commerce product manager
- Conduct market research
- Develop a product strategy for an e-commerce business based on analytics
- Define website and mobile app functionality, and deliver an optimal user experience for both
- Understand business objectives and coordinate efforts to increase sales.
Key takeaways
Career progression is very individualized. Sometimes it can take less than a year to be ready to advance to the next level; often it can take a few years. Here are three signs that you could be ready to progress to the next level.
- You consistently meet or exceed job-related performance goals.
- You’re assigned tasks associated with a higher-level role.
- You recently asked for more work while performing your job.
Keep in mind that your career can advance at a speed that is right for you. Always be ready and open to new opportunities by demonstrating a positive attitude and a growth mindset in whatever role you’re in!
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