From Theory to Trenches: A Junior Digital Marketer’s First Steps
Digital marketing certifications and courses can give you a great foundation, but as any new marketer quickly learns, the real education begins when you’re in the trenches. This is the story of Mabuda, a junior digital marketer navigating the steep learning curve of her new role, with the guidance of her mentor, Hallgeir, Norway’s only LinkedIn-certified marketing expert.
This week, Mabuda’s journey took her through the technical maze of conversion tracking, the strategic puzzle of campaign selection, and the narrative art of client reporting. Her experience offers a candid look at the real-world challenges and “aha!” moments that define a career in digital marketing.
The Conversion Tracking Conundrum: When Theory Meets Reality
One of the first major hurdles for any new digital marketer is the complex world of tracking. This week, Mabuda was thrown into the deep end when she had to troubleshoot broken conversion links in both Google and Meta. “I wasn’t sure exactly how tracking works at all,” she admits. “I had to figure out how Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, and Google Analytics all tie together, and how the Meta Pixel gets set up.”
Her experience highlights a crucial lesson: the most valuable learning often comes from troubleshooting. With a clear end goal—to get the tracking to work—she was forced to learn by doing. This hands-on approach is far more effective than any theoretical course.
A key discovery for Mabuda was the Google Tag Assistant, a tool that allows you to check if your conversion tracking and consent forms are firing correctly on a website. This is a perfect example of the specialized tools that marketers need to master to ensure they are collecting accurate data.
Key Takeaway: Don’t just learn the theory of tracking; get your hands dirty. Break things, fix them, and use tools like Google Tag Assistant to verify your work. It’s the fastest way to build real-world skills.
The Data Dilemma: Moving Beyond Vanity Metrics
“We need more data!” It’s a common refrain from clients. But as Mabuda discovered while writing reports, not all data is created equal. Her initial instinct was to celebrate high impression numbers. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, the reach is so high, this is doing so well!’” she recalls.
However, she quickly learned that impressions are often just a vanity metric. “Now I’m like, ‘Oh no. Why is the reach so high with the conversion so low?’” This shift in perspective is a critical milestone for a junior marketer. The real value isn’t in how many people see your ad, but in how many people act on it.
Hallgeir, her mentor, emphasizes this point by encouraging marketers to ask clients a simple but powerful question: “Why do you think you need this data?” Often, clients are used to seeing certain metrics from older platforms like the old Google Analytics and don’t have a clear reason for wanting them. It’s the marketer’s job to guide them toward the metrics that truly matter.
Key Takeaway: Focus on efficiency, not just reach. A high number of impressions with a low conversion rate is a sign of an inefficient ad. Your goal is to understand the story behind the numbers and translate that into actionable insights for your clients.
DSA vs. Performance Max: A Battle of Control vs. Comprehensiveness
Another challenge Mabuda faced this week was choosing the right Google Ads campaign type for a client who wanted to target specific Norwegian news websites. She was initially confused about whether to use a standard Display campaign or the more comprehensive Performance Max (P-Max).
“I was very confused for a while,” she says. “Do we want more control or do we want more efficiency?”
The answer, as she learned from a senior marketer, depends entirely on the client’s goals. If you need granular control—like targeting very specific websites—a standard Display campaign is the way to go. P-Max, while powerful, offers very little control over where your ads are shown.
Hallgeir adds an important piece of context: P-Max is the future. He predicts that older campaign types like DSA (Dynamic Search Ads) will eventually be phased out as Google pushes advertisers toward its AI-driven solutions. However, for now, it’s crucial to know which tool to use for which job.
Key Takeaway: Understand the trade-offs between different campaign types. If your client has a very specific targeting request, don’t be afraid to use an older, more controllable campaign type. But keep an eye on the future and be prepared to adapt as AI-driven campaigns like P-Max become the new standard.
The Art of Report Writing: Turning Numbers into Narratives
For Mabuda, one of the most time-consuming tasks of the week was report writing. “What should have taken me like maybe three, four hours max ended up taking me like 18 hours,” she laughs.
The difficulty lies in the fact that a client report is not just a dashboard of numbers. It’s a narrative. You have to go beyond simply presenting the data and explain what it means. If the click-through rate has gone down, you need to dig into the specific campaign and ad that’s causing the drop, form a hypothesis as to why, and propose a solution.
The real challenge is to do all of this in a way that is easily digestible for a non-marketer. “Our clients aren’t marketers themselves,” Mabuda notes. “That’s why they hire us. But they still want to know what’s going on.”
Key Takeaway: Your job as a marketer isn’t just to read the data; it’s to interpret it. A good report tells a story. It should identify a problem, explain the likely cause, and outline the steps you’re taking to fix it—all in a few clear, concise lines.
AI as a Personal Assistant: Working Smarter with ChatGPT and ManusAI
Throughout her challenging week, Mabuda had a powerful ally: artificial intelligence. She uses ChatGPT as a personal assistant for technical problem-solving. “This is the error message they’re showing. Help me read it,” she’ll ask. “This is the script that I’m reading. Please explain.”
She also highlights the power of ManusAI, which her mentor used to create an “insane” presentation and social media plan in just five minutes. This demonstrates the incredible efficiency that AI can bring to a marketing workflow.
But will these tools put marketers out of a job? Mabuda and Hallgeir think not. They argue that AI is a powerful tool that augments, rather than replaces, a marketer’s skills. The key is that you have to provide the right input and context to get good results. As Hallgeir puts it, you won’t lose your job to AI, but you might lose it to someone who is better at using AI than you are.
Key Takeaway: Embrace AI as a tool to make you a more efficient and effective marketer. Use it to solve technical problems, generate ideas, and create content, but remember that your strategic input and contextual understanding are what make it truly powerful.
Conclusion: The Never-Ending Learning Curve
Mabuda’s week is a perfect snapshot of the life of a modern digital marketer. It’s a field defined by a steep and never-ending learning curve, where hands-on experience is paramount and new challenges are always just around the corner.
From the technical details of conversion tracking to the strategic nuances of client communication, the journey from junior to expert is paved with problem-solving, critical thinking, and a willingness to embrace new tools and technologies. As Mabuda’s experience shows, the most valuable lessons aren’t always found in a course or a certification, but in the day-to-day work of getting things done.