Join Nick Figueiredo, Paid Search and Shopping Director at Vista, to find out what it takes to succeed in Paid Search.
Position/Intro: Director, Paid Search and Shopping
I stumbled upon SEM out of necessity. It was January 2008 and I found myself just 4 months away from graduation without major internship experience on my resume. I applied to a boutique marketing agency in Portland, ME near my school (Bowdoin College) for an internship in Search Engine Marketing (SEM). They hired me. I can’t say I loved it, but it gave me great experience. Fast forward 4 months and I get a call from a recruiter at Vista, where I had just applied for a Product Marketing Associate role. She called to let me know they filled that position, but another opened up and looked relevant to my experience – Search Engine Marketing Associate. I got the job and immediately fell in love with digital marketing and Vista. At Vista, I spent those early days splitting my time between SEO and SEM, for our CA and US markets. Fast forward a few years, and I’m leading Paid Search and Shopping Ads globally for Vista.
Skills that shape a successful search engine marketer
- Find your Why. Figure out what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning, and focus on that. If you aren’t motivated by what you do, you can’t love it and you can’t fully love yourself. I love being part of a successful team, and it’s what guides me in everything I do for Vista, my team, and myself.
- READ: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
- WATCH: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” by Simon Sinek
- Growth Mindset. We love hiring people willing to learn, and we expect them to make an impact over the long-run. A willingness to learn from others and a constant drive to develop and grow oneself is a must-have in our team. It makes you as an individual contributor stronger, but it makes our team stronger as well. If everyone has this mindset, the team is greater than the sum of its parts and capable of anything. SEM is a very teachable form of Digital Marketing, but always changing with both business and consumer behavior evolution; learning and adapting to change is extremely important for any successful marketer.
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- READ: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck.
- Data Literacy. Some of our time is spent on querying, reviewing, and interpreting data, in particular through tools like Looker and Excel. It’s imperative our team members have the ability to look at and interpret data, to be able to effectively troubleshoot and find new opportunities. Storytelling leveraging data is a big part of the value we contribute to our stakeholders and how we consistently improve the paid search program at Vista.
- READ & WATCH: Data Visualization software (There are several on the market)
- READ & WATCH: Excel training
- Story Telling. A significant part of our job is telling stories. In particular of how the channel operates, and mostly about how the channel and its campaigns performs. Good storytellers understand their audience, and can adjust their story according to what is easiest for their audience to understand, balanced with what information is needed for that audience. Remember: storytelling is how we as humans learn.
- READ: “Leaders: Seven Tips for Becoming a Better Storyteller” by Lisa Christen
- High EQ. Everyone knows about IQ, but it’s the lesser known emotional intelligence (Emotional Quotient, for the ‘q’) that is a major enabler of success for marketers. “Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.” [source below] Team members with high EQ have the ability to understand and communicate with stakeholders, peers, and teammates more effectively. This helps create the psychological safety needed to succeed as a team.
Thinking of making a career leap into a data-driven organization? Explore possible career opportunities with Vista DnA.