My First Weeks as an Intern at PDM

Hey guys!  My name is Christian McGlade.  I’ve been interning in the Paid Social Media department for about three weeks now, and I have been nothing but impressed. I’ve come to realize that there are certain environments where one can develop skills quickly yet thoroughly. And Power Digital is definitely that environment. But what specifically makes PDM so unique?

• The Culture
• The Teaching Style
• What I’ve Learned So Far

The Culture

The people here at PDM are the friendliest I have ever worked with.  They’re very welcoming, and made me feel like family on my very first day.  The laid back atmosphere encourages everyone to be themselves, and communicate with employees from all ranks.  From the partners to the interns, we all care about one another, and would love nothing more than to see each other succeed.

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What drew me to PDM in the first place?  Entrepreneurship.  I knew a couple people who worked here before I came along, and they both said that PDM is very entrepreneurial.  They were correct. I found that PDM is constantly searching for new ways to innovate and create, whether that be customer facing, or developing new programs within the company itself.  Moreover, the majority of the office is open.  No walls.  No cubicles.  This allows people to bounce ideas off of each other in an informal setting.  This type of communication is the recipe for innovation.

The Teaching Style

One of the greatest things about this internship is the expectations placed on the interns.  We are not expected to file papers, or lick envelopes.  Rather, we’re expected to learn the logistics of digital marketing within a specific department.  Learn by doing…I feel that motto is appropriate for the interns here at PDM.  Typically, my supervisor takes the time to solely focus on teaching me a new skill, whether that be submitting weekly reports or creating an audience build.  This teaching consists of both of us working on that project together.

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Next comes the doing.  After my supervisor teaches me to build an audience, she says, “Go build an audience for client x.”  I can watch people do it all day long, but until I actually do it, have I mastered that skill?  This teaching style gives interns enough independence to create work on their own, but also also gives me the opportunity to make mistakes, which is when the real learning happens.

What I’ve Learned So Far

Key Performance Indicators:  KPI’s are crucial in analyzing a campaign’s successes, or areas where we may need to spend more time.  There are many different KPI’s, and we look at different ones depending on the client’s goal.

Is your goal to get more links clicks? Perfect!  Let me take a look at the click-through-rate (percentage of people that clicked on the ad compared to the number of impressions), or the Cost Per Click (How much you pay for a click on average).  Is your goal to convert customers? That’s great too!  Let’s look at the specific conversion (sale, subscription, etc.) and the Cost Per Action (How much you pay to convert a client).

Weekly Reports:  Let’s start analyzing.  This is where the important KPI’s come together in one document, determining if the numbers are performing at a healthy rate.  If they are, I might throw in a comparison from last week to demonstrate the improvement.  If they could be better, I may discuss how we are working to improve it.  The second part of the weekly report consists of Preview Links.  These are links to ads that were placed on facebook on behalf of the client.  Now it’s ready to send to the client!

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Audience Buildout:  This is where we retarget individuals who visited a specific page on a client’s website.  “Facebook Pixels” are used to determine who these individuals are, and what pages they visited.  For example, if we see that a “warm” customer has been to a webpage, we may retarget them by showing them an ad in hopes to convert.

Furthermore, we can find new people to target by looking at the demographics of those who have already been to the site.  We then use those demographics to target similar people who have not been to the site.

Comment Control:  It’s important to spend time looking at the comments, or feedback, on the ads we place.  This feedback is useful in determining what worked, or what didn’t.  If a Facebook user has a question about ad content, we try our best to give them a solid answer.

Wrapping Up

My time here at PDM immersed me in digital marketing, specifically paid Facebook ads.  This immersion, even in my first few weeks, has given me multiple skillsets that definitely I could definitely use in the future.  I look forward to the learning and progress I will make throughout the duration of this internship.