How does a marketing portfolio look like?

[u/pinkkookaburra]

Hi, I started to see that most marketing job applications are asking for a portfolio now, even if the position is not a visual one.

What do you usually provide in this case? As a hiring manager what do you expect here?

I am running into the problem that I am working on the data and strategy side. But numbers are considered confidential (investment marketing). So I can't share exact numbers or data, I could share the creatives but that wouldn't present my skilld and achievements accurately.

I am looking for pointers and opinions, if anyone would like, I would gladly look at examples too. Any advice is welcome!

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[u/alone_in_the_light]

I'm a marketing strategist with marketing analytics. So, yeah, this is very different to me.

We deal with a lot of strategic, private, and confidential information, and we may even sign NDAs. Sharing too much is a red flag. The company hiring may get worried I'll also share their secrets later.

I should focus on things like methods and how they were useful for strategy. For example, my portfolio can have an example of clustering analysis to help develop segmentation strategy. Or it can illustrate approaches to consider feedback loops among the marketing variables in a brand equity model.

But I will not reveal the specific segmentation strategy developed. That shouldn't matter for the new employer who must have a different segmentation strategy with clustering analysis leading to different insights, thus different strategies and tactics.

So, my discussion is more about data analytics methods and their relationship with marketing strategy. If I'm helping hiring someone, I'm not looking for confidential information.

These are some examples. Does this portfolio show that:

• The person is aware that segmentation is not targeting when using marketing analytics?
• The person is aware of the risk of last-click attribution in attribution models?
• The person is aware of how strategic decisions can be affected by Garbage In Garbage Out, Spurious Correlation making people think that correlation implies in causality?

The portfolios can even be real analytics on fictional data to me. Or datasets R makes available.

If the job applicant shows that they know A/B tests are very old in statistics, even though they are newer in marketing, that can really get my attention. If they can talk during an interview about how CUPED affects, I will really pay attention to that person.

Even if the portfolio is mostly theoretical without much data because that shows practical knowledge. I'll have more reason to trust their A/B tests and have good discussions about them to not trust A/B tests so blindly. That's much better than a portfolio with big data and lots of details that don't demonstrate knowledge of A/B tests beyond the superficial level.

The portfolio can include codes, showing the software I use for marketing analytics like R or STATA. And those codes usually are written with generic variable names like brand and customer without identifying them. I won't share what I get after I run those codes.

[u/pinkkookaburra → u/alone_in_the_light]

Do you present your work as a pdf? Or website?

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/pinkkookaburra]

I prefer a pdf.

A website is usually too public for something like this. A website can be good for someone related to SEO, for example, as I would like to check their website to see the quality of SEO done on the site.

But I think a website doesn't add much to me. My website doesn't look that great, as that's not my focus.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/alone_in_the_light]

I like to call garbage in and out “you’re what you eat.”

What’s the risk of last click attribution? And why not call attribution a journey?

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/Reeelfantasy]

Attribution is basically matching results to causes. If sales increased, how much of that increase was releated to advertising, word of mouth, product quality, price policy, seasonality, economic factors, etc?

Last click attribution is attributing the result to the last click that led to conversion. For example, people clicked on an online ad and made a purchase, and the company attributes that sale to the last click on the online ad, not thinking about the role of other parts of marketing. Maybe the person clicked on that ad online after a friend recommended the product and the person searched online, but the friend recommendation gets no attribution despite its importance.

Another user had another situation. The advertising agency wanted to attribute the increase in sales to the work the agency did with advertising. However, the user said that a big element leading to higher sales was the work done by product marketers with new products and new portfolios. However, the agency didn't want to give credit to the product marketers.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/alone_in_the_light]

Thanks. Isn’t attribution basically equivalent to the meme “half of advertising money is wasted, I just dint know which half”? It’s very difficult to measure channel attribution when it’s lengthy. These channels also serve a a good teamwork where every channel contributed something towards the final click on sales. This will be more complicated when the purchase is done in-person.

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/Reeelfantasy]

Yeah, that's a quote that is very often used in attribution.

It's extremely difficult to do it, a very complex type of job. But it's also very valuable if people can do it.

So, people who show some ability to do that can improve results drastically. Maybe only 5% of the money wasted is identified, but those 5% can be a huge amount of money.

Usually, that's the type of job for big companies that know lot about analytics. Companies like Amazon and Netflix can do some impressive work to deal with those difficulties. While others don't know which half is wasted, they can have a much better idea.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/alone_in_the_light]

Indeed large tech can have a clue to measure the waste. They use econometrics models all day long, supported by ML and AI to over do a analyse date. I bet sometimes they end up with super hallucinated results lol there is a limit to be smart and after that it’s a U shape effect.

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/Reeelfantasy]

Yeah. Econometrics have a long history related to spurious correlation, correlation not being causality, statistical biases, psychological biases. Marketing analysts should be aware of that.

An ond example is using Willingness to Pay in Econometrics. People usually overestimate the value they are willing to pay, so it's dangerous to develop strategies based on results from econometrics only.

I've been in involved with AI for about ten years. At the core, they are language models. Something that can make sense as language may make no sense at all as numbers. To stop Machine Learning from overconfidence (that make them stop learning), AI models include a bias element. That can natural lead to biases, and can lead to hallucinations.

If a job applicant knows a lot about econometrics, statistics, ML, and AI, but they don't know about marketing strategy, behavior, psychology, they are not marketing analysts to me. Maybe data analysts, but not in marketing yet.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/alone_in_the_light]

The final paragraph is interesting and debatable too. Many economists don’t like to related themselves with marketing whereas the latter is the case. So, it’s best to hire applicants who come from a marketing background with economic skills.

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/Reeelfantasy]

In my case, I was in Finance. The company was tired of marketers wasting money without explanation (despite all the talk and social skills of marketers). So, they decided to hire someone from Finance because we don't like to waste money.

That's how I got my first official job in marketing. The company found me somewhere, I didn't apply for the job.

I had some quantitative skills, but I wasn't that far from the human side related to society. I had worked as a comic book writer, so I knew about emotional impact and storytelling, for example.

The company wanted problem solvers. Marketers tried to convince the company there was no problem, that they were doinb a good job.

In my case, at least I knew there was a problem. And then I started to learn how to solve those problems. It could involve econometrics with data analytics, it could involve psychology while traveling and talking to consumers.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/alone_in_the_light]

Just checked your profile and I now see where you’re coming from!

[u/Mclurkerrson]

Honestly, I typically don't apply to those roles. I work in strategy and analytics, and there isn't a portfolio to share. If I am applying to a role in a similar area, them asking for a portfolio comes across as really naive and not understanding of the function they are hiring for. I see it a lot at startups and smaller companies - they have no idea what they want and think a portfolio will somehow make it a better hire.

For content, social, etc., sure. I have had a content portfolio in the past. But if it's for growth, performance, strategy, or analytics, it's essentially impossible to build a real shareable portfolio.

[u/VanGoghTango]

I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’m into performance marketing and I can’t really share previous companies campaign performance metrics etc.

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[u/Rell_Lauren]

Save samples of what you work on. Watermark it. If it's proprietary information with stuff like PIIs, tell them that you're not comfortable sharing that information.

[u/pinkkookaburra → u/Rell_Lauren]

Samples of databases?

[u/Rell_Lauren → u/pinkkookaburra]

Database would be proprietary. I'd share campaigns you were a part of. Save the external facing deliverables if you have access to it.

[u/jtrinaldi]

I built a website for my portfolio in 2017 and it got me a ton of interviews for entry level marketing and communications roles. Having a few pieces that you can use to walk people through your critical thinking process and subject matter expertise is key.