How to Get Into Digital Marketing: Making a Career Pivot
By Marta Gongos To enter digital marketing, choose a specialization, develop core skills through hands-on projects, and connect with other industry professionals. Invest in long-term learning. In a constantly evolving industry, staying updated will help you stand out from the competition.
Digital marketing is one of the fastest-growing industries today. With 6 billion people online, most businesses rely on it to reach consumers and expand their operations. And that’s exactly what makes digital marketing a lucrative career path.
It’s also a broad and constantly evolving field. With so many skills, tools, and specializations involved, many newcomers may struggle to know where to begin. Let’s break down a clear roadmap that covers everything you should know about how to get into digital marketing.
1. Understand the Digital Marketing Field
The first step is to familiarize yourself with basic digital marketing knowledge. You’ll notice that there are several career paths for you to take, from search engine marketing to Google Analytics. As a beginner, you’ll make great progress by focusing your efforts on studying one discipline at a time.
Source: Pexels
2. Take Online Courses and Certifications
Once you know what you want to specialize in, it’s time to enroll in a relevant digital marketing course. Some entry-level marketing jobs may require certification, but you don’t have to spend thousands right away. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, LinkedIn Learning, and HubSpot offer comprehensive, yet free or affordable, programs that many employers recognize.
3. Build Key Skills
After building the foundational knowledge, you can start studying the hard skills necessary for the roles you’ll be applying for. Let’s say you decided to do social media marketing. Learning how to optimize content on different social media platforms, build effective content calendars, analyze industry trends, and engage with customers will give you a competitive edge.
4. Leverage Your Existing Experience
Career shifters don’t need to start from zero. Instead of abandoning your previous experiences, try to repurpose them. Several hard and soft skills are transferable across different professions.
Let’s say you’re a teacher who wants to do SEO. Lesson planning mirrors content structuring, explaining complex topics aligns with search intent, and tracking student progress parallels keyword research and monitoring. The tools are new, but the underlying way of thinking already fits the role.
5. Create a Personal Brand
Now that you have a basic digital marketing portfolio, it’s time to create a strong online presence across several digital channels. The goal is to showcase your expertise to your target audience. You could write relevant industry blogs, update your LinkedIn profile, or just share your work on various platforms. Just put yourself out there.
6. Network With Other Digital Marketers
To further your professional growth, reach out to other experts in the digital marketing community. Look for mentorship opportunities and potential job leads. You can network online and offline. Although the former is easier, attending in-person events can help you build more sincere and lasting connections.
Source: Pexels
7. Gain Professional Experience
With the right skills and tools in hand, you can start gaining practical experience with other digital marketing specialists. If you have no prior experience, you’ll likely need to begin with internships or volunteer opportunities. However, if you have at least a few certifications and past projects, don’t be afraid to charge for your services.
8. Stay Updated
The industry is constantly evolving. Although digital marketing fundamentals might get you through the front door, you need to stay informed on Google Search’s core updates, analytics performance tracking, and industry trends. Otherwise, the competition will quickly leave you behind.
9. Prepare for Interviews
Always be prepared for an interview. Update your resume, portfolio, and certifications so you’re always ready to showcase your skills when an opportunity arises. Additionally, practice presenting and justifying your digital marketing strategies for a compelling pitch every time.
10. Apply Strategically
Don’t just apply for every opening you see. Filter listings based on your areas of expertise and see if you can actually perform the responsibilities required. Otherwise, you might waste time interviewing for mismatched roles.
Let’s chat
about building
your team!
FAQs About How to Get Into Digital Marketing
Potential employers have different job requirements. However, you’ll have better chances at landing a high-paying job if you can prove your competence in social media management, paid media campaign management, HTML/CSS basics, and data analysis. Also, prepare to back your personal projects with quantifiable results.
The different types of digital marketing include content marketing, conversion rate optimization (CRO), search engine optimization (SEO), paid media, email marketing, and social media marketing. That said, you don’t need to study them all. It’s more effective to master one or two areas first, then expand as your role and experience grow.
Most digital marketing projects would require practical experience with analytics tools, paid advertising platforms, SEO tools, automation software, content management systems, and project management tools.
In Summary
- Digital marketing is a broad but fast-growing field. To progress as an expert, you need to specialize in a handful of disciplines rather than trying to learn everything at once.
- Certifications help open doors, but skills and real-world results matter more than logos on your resume.
- Building hard skills early gives you a competitive edge, especially when you can clearly explain how your work drives results.
- Proactively connecting with other experts will help land high-paying digital marketing projects.
- Practical experience, even from small projects, matters more than waiting for the “perfect” role.
- The industry changes quickly, so staying updated is part of the job, not an optional extra.
Jumpstart Your Digital Marketing Career With the Right Support
Certifications and courses build foundational skills, but they won’t guarantee interviews, much less offers. In today’s hyper-competitive job market, you need a smarter, more efficient approach.
Instead of sending out dozens of applications to random job listings, work with Ad Culture. We’re a specialized recruitment agency that connects quality talent with top digital marketing companies in North America.
Contact our hiring managers today and share your CV with us so we can send you opportunities that align with your career stage.
