What New Skills Would I Apply at Past Jobs?

The years are starting to pass faster and faster but this old dog is still learning new tricks. I'm glad to have the opportunity to constantly add new skills (while gaining a better understanding of old skills).

It seems that each time I gain a new skill, I catch myself imagining how great it would have been to have that knowledge in the past. With that in mind, here are the 3 things I know now that would have gone a long way towards helping me perform better in past roles.

UTM PARAMETERS

In the past, I conducted a lot of email campaigns and always used Google Analytics to gauge the traffic produced by the emails to my employer's website. But, that was done a very high level. I now have a better understanding of how tagged URLs (aka UTM parameters) can provide very granular details about the clicks from a button, link, image, etc.

Using a URL builder is pretty self-explanatory but there are a lot of helpful videos on YouTube that explain how these types of URLs work.

PUT THE FINISH LINE ONLINE

Because of technology limitations, the customer journey for many of my past digital campaigns did not extend beyond a visit to a website. The call-to-action in search ads or banner ads was most often something along the lines of "click for more info". I now know the value of having an online "finish line" that will enable shoppers to carry out their purchase online.  Not only does this provide a more satisfying, productive experience, it also makes it possible for marketers to report all the way to the end of the shopping journey and show the impact of the digital campaign. Which leads me to my last point...

TARGETING AND TAGGING

I learned early on about the default targeting options associated with most digital tactics - such as geographic location, gender or age. I've since learned that online targeting capabilities can go much deeper...to scary levels, actually! In more recent roles, I've benefited from more precise targeting as well as tagging digital campaigns that help monitor ad performance from the beginning to the end of campaigns. To me, targeting and tagging go hand-in-hand.

I didn't write this post to knock my former employers or harp about how limited my knowledge used to be. The fact is that I continue to learn each day and I'm thankful to all of the people that have helped me along the way.