Right now we’re just finishing up Q2 (April-June). We’re about to go into Quarter 3. That’s the first thing I do in the morning. From there, we optimize. We look at the data we’ve collected. We’ve looked at how many people have clicked on our paid ads, clicked on our paid ads and converted or taken a strong action that implies they’re interested in a sale on our website. From there, we can spend more on specific creatives or spend less or pause specific creatives. There’s a lot of other things in between. But that’s kind of the day to day.

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HK: What kind of software or tools do you use?

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SB: I guess I should explain a little more on what search marketing is. We will take the Google search engine as an example. So we will tell Google, “hey! If someone searches this keyword on Google on your search engine and you show our ad on Google while someone is searching, and that person clicks on our ad, we will pay you a certain amount of money.” So that’s basically what paid search is. In terms of what tools we use, depending on how a specific creative is performing or depending on how many people are searching a specific key word, or how many conversions or clicks we get from a certain keyword, we can raise or lower what we’re willing to pay Google. It just depends on the performance of the keyword – that’s called the search bid. In order to manage that bidding up and bidding down of those key words, we use a software called Marin Software. It helps us look up performance and manage bid and things like that.

 

HK: Why are you in advertising?

 

SB: Advertising is definitely a great place to work. In general, you can use your whole brain – you can be creative but also analytical. So it’s a really fun mix and keeps you busy all day. It’s interesting, there’s cool people and you really get to know and learn about all the cool products that you’re advertising.

 

 

HK: How did you get to your present position?

 

SB: I was previously working at a smaller agency and a good friend of mine there told me about Swirl and said it was a great place to work. I checked out the website and saw they were hiring for my expertise – biddable specialist. So I went ahead and applied and got the job. I’ve been in search marketing now for about 2 years. I started as an intern which I think is a great place to start in paid search. You can get paid. So I started as an intern for a few months, moved to an assistant, and then moved to a manager. Then I switched companies, and now I’m a biddable specialist at Swirl.

 

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HK: What has been your most difficult experience in this industry? How did you overcome it?

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SB: I think it’s learning how to prioritize and manage your time. In advertising, there’s always a million things to do and you really have to know what you have to do first. Every day, every hour. I think that’s a biggest challenge especially when you’re in a new place. Even if you’ve been doing it for a while, you have to learn the needs of each client and you have to know what’s really important to them and you can use that to prioritize.

 

HK: What has been your most gratifying work experience?

 

SB: I think just growing and learning. Sometimes in marketing you start out and you have no idea what’s going on. NO idea what different acronyms mean and no real big picture of what a marketing program is or what your specific marketing channel does. But I think over time very quickly when you’re in an agency you pick things up and you get a bigger picture quicker than you think you will. SO that’s a really gratifying feeling.

 

 

HK: What key piece of advice would you have given yourself back when you first started out?

 

SB: I think my advice to myself would have been don’t be afraid to take an internship. A lot of people say “don’t waste your time on internships,” but especially in San Francisco, it’s really competitive. People want to hire people with experience, so if you’re in a competitive landscape, don’t be afraid to do internships because if you’re good at your job and you’re valued, you’ll move up really quickly. But make sure you’re actually learning in your internship! Make sure you’re not just getting coffee.

 

 

HK: In a few words or a sentence, what does advertising mean to you?

 

SB: Advertising means to me taking a brand message or idea, or almost like the personality of a brand, and portraying it to the greater community or a population in the right way.

 

 

HK: What’s an insider tip you’ve learned over the years?

 

SB: Take really good notes. There’s a lot of moving parts and the more notes that you take and the more prepared you are, the better success you’ll have.