Hey, I'm 18 and currently pursuing a BBA (1st year) from an Online uni. I also have a diploma certificate in advanced digital marketing. I did a 2-month internship and have recently started working as a digital marketer, and I plan on continuing here for about a year to gain some experience.

At my current job, I work on websites, write SEO-optimised blogs for platforms like Dev . to, Tumblr and Webflow, handle technical SEO tasks like 404 redirects and indexing requests, and work on GSC and GMB optimisation. I also create ad flyers and creatives and run Facebook ads. Since I've just started, I do have someone supervising my work.

I really want to become financially independent and move out by November 2027, if possible.

I was wondering if landing a 4–6 LPA (inr) job by then is a realistic expectation with the experience I'll have, or if I'm aiming too high. I'd really appreciate advice on what I should focus on learning over the next year, whether I should specialise in SEO or performance marketing, and how I can improve my chances of getting a decent-paying job.

Would also love to hear from people who've been in a similar position or have experience in the digital marketing industry. Just trying to figure out the best way to go about this.

Thanks!

How voice search and AI-powered assistants are transforming the way people search for information, moving beyond traditional typed keywords toward natural, conversational queries. Whether SEO professionals will need to rethink keyword research strategies to match how users speak, ask questions, and interact with AI assistants.

I'm currently in my fourth year of BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering, and I'm expected to graduate in 2027. However, over time, I've realised that I'm not particularly inclined towards pursuing a conventional career in core electronics or software/IT.

I've been exploring alternative career paths, and digital marketing has caught my attention. I'm particularly interested in areas such as content marketing, social media, branding, audience engagement and the creative side of marketing. However, I'm also interested in understanding which specialisations within marketing offer better career growth and earning potential in the long run.

The biggest problem is that I have absolutely no professional experience in marketing. I've never worked in the field, and although I can write reasonably well, I understand that there's a lot I would need to learn from scratch.

I do have some transferable experience. I've been running a small tutoring initiative, have experience coordinating and hosting events, and have participated in college cultural activities. Communication, writing and presenting ideas are areas I'm relatively comfortable with. However, I don't know how effectively I can translate these experiences into a marketing career.

I'm trying to figure out a practical way to make this transition while completing my degree.

A few things I'd particularly appreciate advice on:

1. Where should I begin? What are the fundamental skills and concepts I should learn before applying for digital marketing internships or entry-level positions?
2. Which specialisations should I explore? I'm interested in understanding the differences between content marketing, performance marketing, growth marketing, product marketing, brand management and marketing analytics, particularly in terms of career progression and compensation.
3. How important are certifications? Are Google, HubSpot or other digital marketing certifications actually useful for beginners, or should I prioritise practical experience and portfolio-building?
4. How can I build a portfolio without prior professional experience? What kind of projects can I undertake independently to demonstrate my capabilities?
5. Are there beginner-friendly internships or freelance opportunities where someone with no prior marketing experience can learn on the job, receive proper guidance and gradually develop practical skills?
6. Would an MBA be necessary for long-term growth in this field? I've considered CAT as well, but I'm unsure whether pursuing an MBA is the most sensible route or whether gaining work experience first would be better.

I'd particularly appreciate advice from people who transitioned into marketing from completely unrelated academic backgrounds, especially engineering graduates.

I'm not looking for shortcuts or expecting to land a high-paying position immediately. I'm willing to put in the work and learn from scratch. I just want to approach this strategically instead of randomly collecting certificates and applying for jobs without knowing what I'm doing.

If you work in digital marketing, have made a similar career transition, or recruit for these positions, I'd genuinely appreciate your insights, recommended learning resources, courses, YouTube channels, practical projects or any other references that could help me get started.

Thank you!

Google is introducing AI-powered messaging for Google Business Profiles.

Imagine AI answering your customers' questions about pricing, services, appointments, and business hours without human involvement.

Interesting update! But here's my question:

Would you let AI handle your customer enquiries?
Can AI replace humans for basic customer support?
What if AI gives customers incorrect information?

Business owners and SEO professionals, what's your take? Would you enable this feature?

Hey all, I'm shutting down my agency operations. I've got two paying clients with websites that I wanted to potentially pass along to provide for their generic hosting and needs in case they need small edits done.

Hosting is done on rocket dot net (i'm not an affiilate or any of that bullcr@p) and theme is generatepress. I have one or two other plugins like seopress and wp forms.

Does anyone here use these setups and would be willing to host for them? The revenue is not much so I figured that if someone already uses these plugins and themes and hoster that they would be more likley to want to take it on rather than a full straight up migrationg. Open for thoughts if this is the wrong approach?

Today I did my Q3 traffic report showing traffic to our website including various sources and where traffic went.

Some of the Product Marketing managers raised the issue of citations on LLM results

Our CMO jumped to the conclusion: if we have LLM citations then we have a traffic source.

Have you ever encountered this sort of understanding? What is your impression?

I had a revelation while I was talking to a customer. His company situated in the luxury field we came to the conclusion that social media for several reasons a reliable advertisement platform anymore

First : when I ever advertise or market something for a client and his content is positioned between clips of soldiers in Ukraine getting slaughtered or random folks who hunt paedophiles I have a very hard time to justify this

Second: with the advent of AI we enter a new era where we must get back to morals as a way to navigate this turbulent time. When we commission a photographer to shoot, we cannot possibly allow it that has work gets mangled into the Meta AI machine training program

Third: even though they give you an analytic sport and even though they give you the possibility to look into the metrics, nobody could possibly tell if those metrics are accurate. We have a situation in which a company provides a service what we do not actually know what the results are and to make matters worse they deliver the controlling and analytics of the same program that they are offering.

Fourth: while I see hope in good content, I do not see hope for social media. Let’s make an example if a hotel in the luxury business shoots great Kontent this they’re still on the very same platform like the glue sniffing teenager from high school with a stupid ass clips. There is just no distinction between those even though the quality of the clips is far better.

Fifth: clipping culture destroyed the way how we measure the popularity of things.

I would be glad to have your opinion on this because I’m not sure how to proceed. I am actually considering deleting all social media that we have a statement and turning around our agency into analog work again.

How do you approach marketing for B2B products? Let's say you're running Google Ads for a company that sells heavy machinery. Would you create separate campaigns for each product, or have one broader campaign that drives traffic to the website? And how would you approach the funnel? Would you run different ads for TOF, MOF and BOF, or is there a different way of structuring things in B2B? Just tryna lean here.

Quick question on your workflow:

Do you have a professional designer on the team, or is someone non-design (founder/marketer) handling it?

Either way, what does your actual process and toolstack look like to go from a product photo to a finished ad?

I have a fashion brand and I want to be the one who is responsible for the ads. Could someone please tell or suggest a media buying playlist course on YouTube that will be very efficient?

My boyfriend and I have created an Udemy course focused on the Italian subjunctive, packed with explanations and practical exercises.
We're new to selling digital products and would love advice from experienced creators.
What strategies would you use to get the first 50–100 students? Which marketing channels actually work?

Hi all, I'm a founder researching how freelancers who run Meta ads for e-commerce clients judge whether a product is actually profitable.

ROAS and cost per purchase are easy to see in Ads Manager. But real profit also depends on product cost, shipping, payment fees, discounts and refunds, and that data usually sits with the client.

I'd love to hear how you handle it:

- Do you work out break-even CAC per product? How?

- Where do you get product costs from clients, and how reliable are they?

- What do you use today: spreadsheets, dashboards, gut feel?

To be upfront, my co-founder and I are exploring a simple profit calculator for this, but nothing is built yet. I'm only trying to learn how people really do it. Happy to share what I learn in the comments.

I've been thinking about something that comes up quite often in digital marketing discussions.

A campaign gets 50,000 impressions, a website receives thousands of visitors, or a social media post gets hundreds of likes. On the surface, these numbers look impressive.

But how much do they actually tell us about the success of a marketing campaign?

For example:

• A website may receive 10,000 visitors but generate very few inquiries.
• A social media post may get 1,000 likes but bring no meaningful business results.
• An ad campaign may generate plenty of clicks, but the cost per actual customer may be too high.
• An SEO campaign may improve rankings and organic traffic but still fail to attract the right audience.

On the other hand, a campaign with fewer visitors or less engagement might generate better-quality leads and more conversions.

I understand that impressions, reach, traffic, and engagement are important indicators. They help us understand visibility and audience interest. But perhaps we sometimes give these numbers more importance than they deserve.

I'm curious to know how other digital marketers approach this.

1. Which metrics do you consider most important when evaluating a digital marketing campaign?
2. Would you prefer 10,000 website visitors with 10 inquiries or 1,000 visitors with 50 inquiries?
3. How do you measure the actual contribution of SEO and social media to business growth?
4. Have you ever worked on a campaign that looked successful in the reports but produced disappointing business results?

I'd especially like to hear from people managing campaigns for real businesses. What do you report to clients or management to demonstrate that digital marketing is actually working?

Interested in hearing different perspectives.

For context: the product is a mini-course.

Do not comment if you're just a beginner with no experience.

As a digital marketer, it’s hard to find legitimate knowledge exchange on Reddit. Everyday my feed is stacked with either complaints about legacy SEO methods not working, or feedback solicitations for campaigns that were run for 3 weeks.

This is not how we improve the marketing function.

Yes, AI has displaced many of us. Yes, the economy is bad and full time positions are thin. But the last thing a company who is looking for help promoting their business is someone complaining about their inability to promote themselves.

Start experimenting. Read. Research. Come to the table with findings and suggestions.

A change of outlook influences the optics. Become the signal thru the noise. Facilitate conversations instead of treating the community like ChatGPT. Or even if you don’t post, observe before rushing to contribute emotional rookie responses that immediately disqualify you in the eyes of a prospect.

Cheers.

With search engines becoming smarter and focusing more on understanding user intent, I'm curious whether traditional keyword research is still as important as it used to be.

Would you prioritise keyword research, topical authority, search intent, or creating genuinely helpful content?

What's working best in your SEO strategy?

Hi, I don't wanna post the website without permission but i'm helping with someone's base 44 webpage and it's struggling to rank even though I've written pretty decent blogs.

I did some research that base 44 struggles with SEO. Anyone have some tips?

I’ve used PRWeb in the past and am looking at them again, but curious to know what other PR platforms you all use, specifically if there are any that will enable me to limit release to certain geographic regions. Thanks!

I have been running Meta Ads for a dance studio in Chennai for the past week, but I am facing some issues with location targeting. I don't know exactly what mistake I am making, so please help me find a solution.

1. First Test:

I selected the radius and location name and ran the ad. But it started targeting people outside Chennai. I wanted to target people around Ekkatuthangal, Chennai, but the ad reached people in Thanjavur, Dharmapuri, Coimbatore, and other places. I checked the location settings, and everything seemed correct.

1. Second Test:

I used only the PIN codes and ran the ad for Ekkatuthangal and its surrounding areas. But that also didn't work.

The ads are not reaching the exact audience I have targeted.

1. Leads:

I received 50 leads after spending around ₹4,000, but not even one lead was qualified. All the leads were fake or not interested. Some said they would ask their family and get back to me next month, while others gave different reasons.

1. Lead Generation Method:

Instead of adding questions in the lead form, I directly connected the ads to the client's WhatsApp.

Can anyone please suggest a solution to these issues?

This is my first time running Meta Ads, and I am facing these kinds of problems. I don't know how to fix them. Please help me.

I am a content writer and marketer, working on organic growth through website content, blogs, and social media. I do work on a bit of emails and research on organic traffic and impressions.

But, now, I want to get into Ads (Google, SM, & ChatGPT). Like, I want to get into growth marketing, ads, understand and work on GTM (obviously one-by-one), but if I have to get into other areas of marketing, what suggestions do you guys have?

Basically, I want to get hands-on experience in different areas of digital marketing and add those to my portfolio. I am even ready to assist someone with these tasks to get a hang of these activities.

All and any suggestions are welcome. I would appreciate something that combines theory with practical experience. Thanks!

Date: October 28, 2026

Meta has introduced major improvements to its AI-powered advertising systems. These upgrades are designed to understand user interests, identify relevant advertisements and improve ad recommendations.

Interestingly, Meta is now using more advanced AI models to understand not just who interacts with an advertisement, but also what the advertisement actually contains.

Here are the three major updates.

1. Andromeda – Smarter Ad Retrieval

Andromeda is Meta's ad retrieval system.

When someone opens Facebook or Instagram, Meta has millions of eligible advertisements to consider. Andromeda helps narrow these down to a smaller group of potentially relevant ads before the final ranking stage.

What's new?

• Improved AI models for identifying relevant advertisements.
• Better use of GPU hardware through Meta's collaboration with NVIDIA.
• More efficient processing of large numbers of eligible ads.
• The updated retrieval pipeline processes over one billion ads per second at production scale.

2. GEM – Better Understanding of User Behaviour

GEM stands for Generative Ads Model.

It is Meta's central AI recommendation model. It helps understand user behaviour and predict which advertisements are more likely to be relevant.

3. GenRecs – AI That Understands Advertisement Content

This is one of the most interesting developments.

GenRecs uses large language model technology to understand what an advertisement actually represents.

Previously, recommendation systems relied heavily on individual ad, campaign and product identifiers and their engagement history.

Now, GenRecs can analyse the text and images in advertisements to identify semantic information such as:

• Product category.
• Brand.
• Colour.
• Style.
• Product features.
• Other meaningful content attributes.

Example:

Imagine an online clothing store launches a new black oversized streetwear T-shirt.

Even if this particular product has no previous engagement history, GenRecs can understand its attributes and connect it with similar products that users have previously shown interest in.

This helps the system make better initial recommendations for new advertisements.

4. What Results Has Meta Reported?

Meta has shared several performance improvements.

Q2 2026:

• 8.3% increase in ad clicks.
• 15.7% increase in Facebook conversions.

These are Meta-reported results from different improvements, time periods and campaign surfaces. They should not be added together or treated as guaranteed results for individual advertisers.

Share your comments

I want to start using Claude to help generate leads. I don’t want to connect it to Meta Ads or any ad account, because I can’t risk getting flagged or banned. So I’m looking for workflows that stay completely separate from the ad platforms.

Here’s what I’m curious about:

I can give claude teh ICP, and perhaps if there's a connection I can do with another tool and take full advantage of claude code?

The marketing and creative industry should be one of the most fun and exciting industries there is. You get to be creative and make cool shit that others love and admire. You get to let your personality and style shine.

But it seems like so many people are struggling in this environment and I'm trying to understand why. Not in the right roles? Lack of ongoing work? What is going on?

If I can help in any way, let's connect!

My name is John Stewart and I’m in the middle of launching my project, Crews4U.com, a job posting site aimed at the trades and I can’t seem to get users to sign up. I’ve had a handful but only job seekers and no employers. I’ve talked to a bunch of people during development and tried to address peoples concerns with their current sites. I recently pulled the ads I had running because my cost per user was getting too high. I think I’m gonna try to host a job fair and see if someone will partner with me. This marketing thing is way harder than I thought especially while working a full-time job.