How to Become a Digital Planner: A Guide by AdvertaLine
In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, being a digital planner is an exciting and rewarding career choice. As a digital planner, you’ll be responsible for creating effective marketing strategies that help businesses reach their target audience online.
At AdvertaLine, we understand the importance of having skilled digital planners on our team. That’s why we’ve put together this guide on how to become a successful digital planner, complete with valuable insights and tips.
1. Familiarize Yourself with Digital Advertising Metrics
To excel as a digital planner, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of key performance metrics used in the industry. These metrics include click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per acquisition (CPA), and others. Knowing how to interpret these metrics will enable you to make data-driven decisions and optimize ad campaigns effectively.
2. Stay Updated with Industry Trends
Digital advertising is constantly evolving, so staying up-to-date with the latest trends is vital. By keeping an eye on industry news, attending webinars or conferences, and following influential figures on social media, you can ensure that your strategies are always innovative and effective.
3. Gain Hands-On Experience
One of the best ways to become a digital planner is by gaining practical experience in the field. Look for internships or entry-level roles at reputable digital agencies like AdvertaLine to get exposure to real-world campaigns and strategies. This hands-on experience will allow you to develop critical skills and enhance your understanding of digital advertising practices.
4. Sharpen Your Analytical Skills
As a digital planner, you’ll need strong analytical skills to analyze campaign performance effectively. Familiarize yourself with tools like Google Analytics and Facebook ads manager to track campaign metrics and draw actionable insights from data.
5. Master Audience Targeting
Being able to identify and target the right audience is a crucial aspect of digital planning. Learn how to leverage demographics, interests, and behavior data to create segmented audiences for your campaigns. This will enable you to tailor your messaging effectively, increasing the chances of reaching and engaging with the desired audience.
6. Develop Strong Communication Skills
Excellent communication skills are paramount for a digital planner’s success. You’ll need to collaborate with clients, internal teams, and vendors to articulate your strategies and goals effectively. Clear and concise oral and written communication will help you build trust and maintain strong professional relationships.
7. Stay Curious and Continuously Learn
Digital advertising is an ever-evolving field. Embrace curiosity and stay open to learning new concepts, techniques, tools, and platforms. Be proactive in seeking out training opportunities or certifications that can help you expand your skill set as a digital planner.
Today there are so many digital positions that it might even drive you mad about the amount of money it’s possible to earn via the Internet. The digital marketing sphere is always changing, but something rests firm and immovable. In this article, we’re going to describe the position of a digital planner.
So, what does a digital planner do?
A digital media planner is a half analytical and half creative job. The person working at this position must manage every phase of the pre- and post-sale digital campaign process, including creating media plans, gathering campaign assets and optimizing campaigns.
The full list of responsibilities also includes
- responding to requests for proposals and managing proposal development;
- recommending ad placements and content channels based on the client’s campaign objectives;
- researching user data and audience metrics;
- analyzing market trends, and working with the sales team to manage and pursue new business opportunities.
Besides helping with the traditional planning areas, like positioning, brand strategy, and target research, you also have to help to plan the overall user experience on the web and specific websites, and how to interact with your brand online. It goes beyond SEO and how your brand and target live online.
You have to think faster and have a better instinct of the right moves for your brand in the fast-moving digital world. To get the success you need to be your research manager and brand strategist, trusting your instincts.
What skills are required for the digital planner?
It isn’t a simple work, but it is very interesting for people with strong analytical skills. They also must be able to process data correctly, drawing logical conclusions from it and providing recommendations.
As the world of data and information changes fast, the ability to learn new things will be a serious advantage, allowing you to stay ahead and aware of all trends. Good communication skills will also work in your favor, especially if you possess a broad range of clients.
To break into this field you surely need to get a degree in business, advertising or marketing and start the career path at an advertising agency or any company that manages digital media. The next step is to find a company that will let you manage its advertising on social media.
Reach out to a small company or a startup and make an offer it can’t refuse. In other words, you need to understand the balance between the users want and the brands need to communicate. Be closer to management consulting, aligning enterprise resources to merge with marketing strategies.
Digital planners need all the same skills as a regular planner, but you also have to understand and stay abreast of emerging technologies to boot. Also, need to think about things like experience design.
So, what are the main responsibilities of a digital planner?
- respond to any media information requests
- Write and managing press releases, preparing all the needed information for the media;
- Providing clients with proper communication with the public;
- Maintaining the organization’s corporate image and identity;
- Evaluate advertising and promotion programs to determine whether they are compatible with the organization’s public relations efforts;
- Work with clients image via the social media evaluating the public opinion of the client
Education
Usually, a digital planner needs at least a bachelor’s degree in public relations, journalism, communications, English, or business. With such education students produce a great portfolio of work that demonstrates their ability to cooperate with any employer in the future.
If you still want to become a digital planner, the right education is not enough to grow an expert in this sphere. You also need some key skills that will surely lead you to the top of your career. Interpersonal skills are you pass to this cruel world because you’ll have to deal with the public and media frequently.
Skills
Plus, you must have good speaking and writing skills for the same reason. Another important thing is a good problem-solving skill.
As a planner in a digital agency, such a person is not focused on creating advertisements that are meant to persuade the audience to buy it. It’s more about creating compelling content and experiences that influence and shape the behavior of the audience.
To be a great digital planner you have to think a bit further into the process well beyond a brief and understand technology, experience navigation, and new media opportunities. Digital planning is not about what you say, it’s about what you do. Creating ideas that can be advertised, not advertising ideas.
You’ll also have to work with development projects and digital products and interfaces, so partner with interaction designers. Digital planners are more tactical workers.
But all these efforts are well paid, as the average salary of a digital planner is around $70k. Keep working more with media teams as they can have an integral role in the creative process more than traditional media. So don’t hesitate and keep trying. Be focused on digital trends and a good deal of time understanding how consumers use digital in their everyday life.
Final Thoughts
Becoming a successful digital planner requires a combination of technical knowledge, analytical skills, creativity, adaptability, and continuous learning. By following these tips provided by AdvertaLine, you’ll be well on your way to pursuing a rewarding career as a digital planner in the exciting realm of digital advertising.
For more information on how AdvertaLine can help businesses excel in their digital advertising endeavors through our expert digital planners.