As one of the main points of contact for clients, I also have regular calls across accounts to keep the relevant people up to date and well-informed. Similarly, I have to be in close contact with our partners including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and TikTok.

Tom Pickard, BA Business, 2014

Like many students, Tom Pickard came to university without a clear idea of what he wanted to do. He liked business, though, and chose to study a BA in Business at the University of Hull because of our highly rated business degrees. Now, Tom is a Performance Marketing Manager at Modo25, a digital marketing agency based in Leeds.

Tom has over six years of experience across multiple digital marketing verticals from luxury furniture to the UK’s largest retailer at Argos. Specialising in marketing technology such as feed management, marketing optimisation, machine learning and paid marketing strategies. Tom has a great record of using technology to improve performance of day to day activity and providing human experience to go alongside it, allowing major transformations of performance and marketing.

In this article he talks about how his choices have brought him to a job he loves, how learning to be a better public speaker at university has impacted on his work, and what a day in the life of a Performance Marketing Manager looks like.

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I chose to study at Hull because the university has highly rated business degrees. This was important to me and was something I used to pick the universities I went to visit. When I came to visit Hull for an open day, I immediately loved the campus and could see myself studying there.

Before studying at Hull, I wasn’t a very confident public speaker. Thankfully, the staff and resources at the university helped me to build my confidence. Eventually, I become comfortable when speaking to groups of people as part of presentations on the course. I had some great lecturers too. In particular, Peter Andrews, who initially got me interested in a potential career in marketing post-graduation. 

Currently, I’m a Performance Marketing Manager for Leeds-based digital marketing and technology provider, Modo25. My usual day will have a lot of client communications whether that be by email or phone. This is where my public speaking skills I learnt at Hull University help. 

I usually start my day by working through my emails. This gives me a chance to catch up with anything I may have missed from the day before and prioritise tasks for the day ahead. I essentially manage paid media and ads for our clients. So, I do regular health checks across all the accounts that I manage. I’m looking for any problems with spend drops or revenue drops that could indicate a tracking problem or an account issue.

From there, I work on creating reports to send over to respective clients so they can see how they are performing. As one of the main points of contact for clients, I also have regular calls across accounts to keep the relevant people up to date and well-informed. Similarly, I have to be in close contact with our partners including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and TikTok.

I love working in Performance Marketing – especially at Modo25. For me, the best part of the job is that it’s very varied. I work with different people and different challenges every day. I rarely get two of the same days back to back. 

I also love working for Modo25. They are a forward-thinking company who are incredibly flexible, something I’ve not found in other positions I’ve had. We all work a four-day week on a five-day week salary. This massively boosts team morale and gives me a better work-life balance. We’re all a lot more productive this way which not only benefits us but more importantly, our clients too. 

I chose to study business mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life after finishing school. I knew I enjoyed business so thought this would be a good starting point. Studying at Hull University set me up with great foundations and transferable skills for lots of different areas. 

A lot of students think that their area of study pigeonholes them into a certain career – which isn’t true. Focus on choosing a course that will give you plenty of exposure to different industries and take it from there. The great thing about Hull University is that they are incredibly supportive and there are lots of resources and services on offer to help guide you to your perfect career.

If you’re looking to get into marketing, you don’t necessarily need to have a marketing degree. Although I did end up picking marketing modules in my final year, other areas on the course such as law, maths and economics are still useful in my day to day life now. 

The one thing I’d always recommend is to take on work experience throughout your studies. Whether that be one day a week in an agency or in-house, or, two weeks full-time in a company. Either way, work experience is crucial for a career in marketing – especially if you aren’t studying a marketing-related degree. Having hands-on, industry experience massively helps to propel your CV when applying for jobs.