Career Advice

How to Start a Career in Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is among the fastest-growing sectors in business and presents a fantastic option for students and juniors keen to develop a career with stability. We'll cover all you need to know about starting a career in digital marketing from scratch.

This guide is aimed at those just getting started on the career ladder, where you may have the scope to make decisions about the topics you study, the types of qualifications you pursue, and any specific niches within the broader digital marketing space you’d like to specialize in.

It’s important to note that there are countless potential career paths, including digital marketing jobs aimed at those new to the field who can study as they gain real-world workplace experience or work as interns under experienced digital marketing colleagues.

As a relatively new subsector of general marketing, digital marketing is still developing, which means there aren’t always predefined eligibility criteria, such as a degree. However, many recruiters will look for applicants with at least a diploma-level qualification.

Therefore, while we’ll look at varied certifications and ways to help improve your prospects of becoming a well-paid professional digital marketer, you might also consider alternative trainee roles or jobs that best suit your skills, interests, and salary expectations.

The Best Qualifications to Become a Digital Marketer

Let’s start by reviewing the types of qualifications, certifications, or accreditations that are likely to make you a more interesting candidate to any prospective employer or agency – with the caveat we’ve mentioned that you don’t necessarily need any formal digital marketing qualifications to become a junior.

Here is a quick snapshot of some of the minimum qualification requirements we see on junior or entry-level digital marketing vacancies:

  • High School Diploma or Equivalent: It is common for businesses to choose applicants with at least a diploma. Some will look for candidates with a college education, although a baseline competency in English and Mathematics is a standard requirement.
  • Bachelor’s Degrees: Recruiters may prefer applicants with a degree, although this can often be in any subject, such as business, advertising, marketing, or communications.
  • Higher-Level Degrees: While a master’s degree isn’t essential, if you’re hoping to reach a higher managerial or leadership role or work as a data analyst or strategist, this more advanced qualification will certainly be beneficial.

Regardless of whether you have existing college or university qualifications, accessing certifications like the Google Ads certificate is often key since recruiters will prioritize candidates who aren’t starting entirely from the beginning and have some familiarity with the tools and platforms they’ll be using.

You’ll find a wide range of free and paid-for online courses that provide a certificate of completion. Google Ads certification is well worth having since it shows that you know how to use the platform. This course is available through Google Skillshop.

Gaining Experience in High-Usage Digital Marketing Platforms and Tools

Trying out SEO software, social media tools, and email marketing apps and being able to discuss how they work with confidence will set you apart from other candidates and demonstrate that you have an initial skill set that the business or agency can build on.

There are literally thousands of platforms, apps, and tools digital marketers use.

Rather than suggest you try to learn how to use them all—which would take significant time and also be potentially very costly since some are paid for on a subscription basis—it’s worth picking a selection or choosing tools relevant to the type of entry-level or internship roles you’d like to apply for.

Some of the key tools used most widely in digital marketing, depending on your location, include:

  • Google Analytics: A tool that provides analytical insights into how websites and campaigns are performing.
  • Google Ads: Google’s PPC advertising platform.
  • Ahrefs: One of the most popular SEO tools with features like link building, competitor analysis, and auditing website performance.
  • Moz: A platform used for rank tracking to help websites rank higher in the search engine results page (SERP).
  • SEMrush: Used to research keywords, analyze competitors, and optimize Google Ads.
  • Mailchimp: A marketing platform used to circulate emails and newsletters or manage and track email marketing communications.
  • Canva: A design tool with various templates and formats for all major social media channels, as well as for posters, logo design, and presentations.
  • Buffer: A social media marketing tool with a content idea library and response-tracking features.
  • Hootsuite: Another social media tool that helps with scheduling, analytics, social listening, and content creation.

If you’re short on time or already have a pretty good understanding of a few digital marketing tools, it’s also really worthwhile getting used to social media tools – those used for advertising and marketing rather than for personal networking or entertainment.

Channels like Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube are hugely influential in social media marketing – you could also dabble in some of the sites that offer free stock images, like Pexels or Unsplash, to ensure you can easily source images if you’re heading for a role in social media.

Start Creating a Portfolio to Showcase Your Digital Marketing Abilities

Once you have a few certificates or qualifications and are fairly familiar with some digital marketing tools, you’ll be in a great position to start putting that knowledge into practice. Most digital marketing juniors build a portfolio, and although this can be time-consuming, it shows your capabilities in a far more engaging way than a list of bullet points on your resume.

Competitive internships are more likely to expect every candidate to have a portfolio, but this is also a positive in your favor for any role – whether the recruiter requires a portfolio or not.

It’s really essential not only to take a few screenshots of a finished campaign idea you’ve come up with but to document all of the steps along the way and the tools you’ve used to research keywords, look at trends, or see what other companies or digital marketers are doing.

This level of detail demonstrates your planning, project management, research, and strategic abilities. It’s also a great idea to include coursework if you’ve studied digital marketing or a similar topic as evidence of your abilities.

While a digital marketing junior isn’t expected to have a portfolio packed with projects, you can include a few pieces of work that highlight your skills, perhaps working on the following:

  • Social media posts
  • Content marketing articles
  • Newsletters
  • Graphic design work

There are a few options, and you might create a fictional campaign using a social media ad creation tool, put together a thought leadership piece to publish through a site like Medium or your own blog, or draft a series of newsletters or PPC ads – whether or not you actually post them.

Even small, theoretical projects can bulk out your portfolio and demonstrate a wider range of skills than you might imagine.

For example, a dummy social media campaign could showcase copywriting abilities, image sourcing, advertising layout design, strategic research, and media buying if you’ve included a mock-up budget or an outline of how you’d target your ad to optimize costs per click, view, or engagement.

Please be conscious that if you’ve created real-world digital marketing campaigns, often on a voluntary basis for a charity or as part of a course, you may need permission to share the details with a third party if your content features a real brand or organization.

Designing an Impactful, Professional Digital Marketing Resume

At this stage, you have qualifications, hands-on experience, and a well-put-together portfolio, so it’s time to start thinking about your resume.

Much depends on the specific role or vacancy, and we always suggest reading and re-reading the specifications and requirements to tailor your resume and cover letter to the exact job – using a generic resume for every post is a massive mistake we see time and again.

There are a few golden rules to keep in mind when preparing or editing your resume:

  • Employers, recruiters, and agencies are busy and normally make up their minds about whether to shortlist a candidate within as little as six seconds. That means a clean layout, concise information, and good organization are vital.
  • Bullet points work best, emphasizing all the skills, experience, and achievements you have to date that are relevant to the job. Exclude anything that wouldn’t matter to the recruiter, and save this for a short paragraph introducing yourself.
  • Include soft skills and business abilities alongside certifications. If, for example, you have transferable skills such as team leadership or presentation skills, these should be included, although they should be kept separate from a list of hard skills.

Proven abilities in problem-solving, software, graphic design, sales, and content writing are all valuable, such as having written for a college newsletter or designed graphics for a family business.

Once your digital marketing resume is ready, you’re all set to start applying for junior, entry-level, and internship roles. You’ll find some great advice about preparing for interviews, positioning yourself as a strong candidate, or filtering out the various digital marketing niches to pick those you will excel at through our knowledge guides and resources.

Starting a Career in Digital Marketing as a Junior or Intern

Digital marketing is in huge demand, and although some entry level jobs and junior roles are fiercely competitive, especially those with well-known global brands or with a trainee program that will help you gain formal qualifications alongside experience, the most important factor is your personality and attitude.

Interns who are passionate and genuinely interested in learning, keen to showcase what they’ve learned, and who have invested real time in preparing for interviews, gaining a few skills, and familiarizing themselves with the tools used in the business’s digital marketing team are often successful.

To start your job hunt, you can search for digital marketing jobs by any job title, keyword, location, or employment type you wish, or you can upload your resume to attract interest from agencies and recruiters hiring now.

Lauren Edwards-Fowle

Lauren is a copywriter and content writer at Digital Marketing Jobs, specializing in digital marketing, business and finance. She simplifies complex topics into accessible and entertaining content. Outside of work, Lauren enjoys the beach, walking her dogs, and spending time with her family.

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