Back to basics

"As paid marketing evolves to span the funnel and bridge touchpoints, the pressure is on marketers to build the capabilities to drive, measure and repeat positive results. It’s a tall order and can feel daunting if you’re just starting your career. Beyond the job itself, you’ll feel the need to grow your knowledge to both improve your abilities while also becoming savvy enough to dodge silver-bullet solutions that promise to end all your user acquisition woes.

As you’ll find, there’s no such thing — and no replacement for the effort you need to invest in order to become a professional marketer. But don’t be overwhelmed by the mountain of knowledge you have to master. Instead, break this mammoth task down into manageable pieces, and you’ll be at the summit in no time. We built the Back to Basics guide to cut through the hype and provide newbie marketers with the essentials they need to get started.

Let’s start with the facts: mobile is the king of digital and online, eclipsing desktops, TVs and every other device available. In 2018, mobile subscriptions outnumbered the global population, with 7.9 billion connections vs. 7.7 billion people. If your company wants to engage customers, mobile is the only game in town. People depend on their mobile devices to manage their lives, interact with brands, conduct commerce, transfer money and even pray.

It’s the main channel — but it can also be a big headache. Engaging with people through advertising demands marketers to master a laundry list of skills and capabilities to segment, target and retarget audiences. To make matters worse, you will never do this in a vacuum. Marketing requires you to understand (and collaborate with) a wildly complex ecosystem. From agencies to app publishers, analytics to attribution, SSPs, DSPs and ad networks, it’s up to you to know who does what, and why.

To help you make smart (and some tough) decisions about your marketing strategy, we cover the basics you need to make your mark. From critical campaign setup information to unmissable criteria to choose and manage vendors, and a how-to on tracking — it’s all here. So, get ready to get up to speed and read on."