A week as an apprentice at Walk-In Media!

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I am currently a Product Assistant at Walk-In Media completing a Level 3 Digital Marketing apprenticeship. This involves an 18-month long process where; while gaining incredible real time work experience, I complete several digital marketing projects and exams to gain my qualification. I decided to choose WIM as I was drawn by the rapid growth of the agency, as well as the thrilling community where it was obvious everyone worked well together. This then gave me the realisation that it’s a great opportunity for me to approach and accept.

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While being in a fast-paced environment in our London office, I have quickly gained a wide variety of knowledge and experience which has developed me and my abilities. Looking back, if I asked my sixth form self a year ago what I have achieved so far, I would’ve laughed but at the same time been very proud! My responsibility within the company consists of a dual role between the Programmatic and Ad Operations teams – additionally, working on one client from a social advertising perspective. At WIM, all teams work together closely and efficiently by using one another’s expertise to allow the steps of campaign creation and monitoring to be successful. (Everyone gets on so well!)

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Here is what an action-packed week as a Walk-in Media apprentice looks like and how each day differs with exciting opportunities…

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Monday

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Monday morning kick starts with an overview of the week ahead! This begins with a team catch up where we discuss the key priorities for the week ahead and recap where we left off or any current live campaigns. Then I get started on my tasks for the day, this will start with performance reviews covering how campaigns have reached their goals over the last week. For example, generating revenue at a specific CPM rate. Continuation of monitoring campaigns will also be something I will pick up, if there aren’t any new campaigns set to be live then I must monitor everything’s on track for those that are live.

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Tuesday

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Tuesday is the day of the week where we invite a media partner into the office, they take the wider team through their offering or a product demo. We call this a lunch and learn. This is a great opportunity to network with other people across the industry and find out if we can work with each other. When you’re new to the industry, it’s a great place to be to gain all round knowledge of the area you work in, taking notes of all the new information (which will sound alien at first) is a life saver! The guest will supply food and present to us about their product and service, take us through updates and introduce themselves to new starters. Often, they come with examples of what they could do for some of our existing clients.

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Wednesday

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Wednesday is about campaign set-up/optimisation, its especially important at the beginning of the month because it’s when many new campaigns go live, so it’s important that they start successfully. When setting up a campaign, there are key steps that we need to follow in order for everything to run smoothly, Firstly the Ad Ops team must build out the campaign request in Campaign Manager 360 (the AdServer).

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This includes building a tag where the creative (actual advertisement being displayed) is combined with the URL and tracking systems, so the ad can be displayed to right user at the right time (while being tracked and pushing data back into the platform). This is then synced into the DSP (DV360), where the programmatic team build the campaign. We need to ensure we are applying the correct budgets, dates, audiences, and creatives which the ad ops team synced onto the system. Finally, the campaign can be pushed live! While being live we can monitor its performance, e.g. see how many impressions (people who have seen the ad) it has delivered, as well as clicks to generate other metrics such as CTR (click through rate).

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Thursday

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Thursdays are usually the most exciting day of the week, there’s always something great lined up such as inter-agency drinks. On the last Thursday of the month the whole of Walk-In gets together and recaps business, as well as any exiting news. An example of this was when the agency participated in an inter-agency football tournament! We did everyone proud while representing Walk-In, making it to the final! As most people are in the office, it allows more collaboration and an overall great atmosphere. Then at the end of the presentation somebody from the agency is nominated to tell everyone five interesting facts about them. Which is cool because you can get to know people from teams that you usually wouldn’t know. (my favourite fun facts are when people show the amazing places they’ve been)

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Friday – Study Day

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Each week apprentices will get one day which is allocated as a study day, which is agreed with my line manager. In my case, I have Friday as a fixed study day as it aligns better with tasks for the week. This day will be just solely work towards my apprenticeship, under the apprenticeship provider (LDN apprenticeships: https://www.ldnapprenticeships.com/). It will consist of me preparing for my upcoming exams and any projects that need completing. Within the projects I go into detail around a campaign of my choice which I have been working on. This is to demonstrate and tie in all the skills and features I’m learning. Getting evidence of this is crucial, I include so many interesting screenshots. Additionally, I will regularly use a platform called Thinkific, which is where e-learning modules are set. The most interesting module I have completed so far is coding! Looking deeper into how all the worlds tech works has been amazing.

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Conclusion

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In summary, as an apprentice at Walk-In Media, my week intel’s new exiting factors every day! Out of the 5 working days in a week, I get 1 allocated to studying where I prepare for any upcoming exams and projects towards my level 3 digital marketing qualifications. With the other 4… I gain incredible work experience learning so many new skills, while meeting so many new people!

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Written by Kai Bamford

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