The AdAction team is rapidly growing as we expand our current offerings and take on new business ventures. In 2020 alone, we hired 31 new employees. One of these new hires includes Director of SEO Nick Welch, who joined the Growth team and immediately made his mark on the company. We sat down with Nick to discuss all things digital marketing and his experience in joining a green team.
Tell me about your background and how you got started in SEO.
I started in digital marketing as an analyst doing paid search for a small startup in Chicago. I soon took a role in the Premium Services department as an SEO Manager who worked with larger companies and larger budgets. When the Premium Services department dissolved, I took a role at a boutique digital marketing agency, and that’s where everything started to gel in terms of my digital marketing experience. I combined my skills in paid search and organic search to head the SEO department. There, I continued to build my skillset from paid search and SEO to conversion rate optimization, analytics, email marketing, and social media marketing. SEO is at my core, but I feel well-rounded in digital marketing and bringing all these different channels together.
What drew you to apply to AdAction?
I found AdAction through LinkedIn. When I saw what the company was looking for along with the opportunity to grow something from the ground up, it jumped out at me. You can always go to a company and get into lockstep with their processes. This was an opportunity to join a brand new department with the ability and influence to make something starting with the foundation. Over the past year, I’ve been able to make an impact on our team’s infrastructure using my digital marketing experience. I helped implement our project management system and establish new processes for better collaboration.
What does an average day look like for you?
My day-to-day usually consists of monitoring our website performance across our main properties. I regularly check analytics to see how our websites, landing pages, and keywords are performing and see where traffic is coming from. I work cross-departmentally with the Content team and Product team on any initiatives they’re looking to push forward. On my own, I check for acquisition opportunities, research new ways of acquiring links, look for content opportunities, conduct competitive intelligence, and keep an eye on the technical side of things. Also, staying current is very important, so reading articles, blogs, and forums helps me stay up to date with changes and developments in SEO.
How are we using data to guide us?
Data drives decision-making. We use data to influence our strategy, like tracking if we’re trending up for a certain topic and using that momentum for content creation, on-page optimization, or offsite link building. Our paid and SEO teams are coming together and gelling in terms of strategy and understanding that one hand washes the other. I report what’s performing from an SEO perspective and they report on what’s performing from a paid search perspective. We utilize that performance data from paid search to influence SEO and vice versa. It’s been extremely collaborative, which is exciting. These are two channels that work extremely well together.
What tools do you use on a daily basis?
My go-to tools are Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, BuzzSumo, Competitors.app, G Suite, and BuzzStream.
Is there a problem you’re currently solving?
I’m working on solving some issues with Google Analytics. We’re trying to get our Google Analytics set up properly with a strategic plan from day one. That means that all of the key stakeholders have identified what they want to track and we’re setting up a proper tag plan before doing a technical implementation. Data is key to our strategy, so getting our Analytics issue ironed out is my main focus at the moment.
What’s your favorite thing about working at AdAction?
Digital marketing is a fascinating industry to be in because it changes constantly. Things can change on a dime, like with Google algorithm updates. It’s an ever-evolving industry and I really enjoy that aspect of my job; it’s something where you come in every day, read industry news, and find new strategies and ideas. On a more fun note, I enjoy our company culture. Everyone up to the C-suite execs is friendly and approachable, which is pretty rare to find at a company. AdAction is all about celebrating its employees, from buying a home or getting married to covering a teammate on PTO or creating more efficient processes; it goes a long way and adds a personal aspect to the workplace.
Are you a marketing maven looking to join a growing team where you can make an impact right off the bat? Check out our open growth and digital marketing jobs and apply today!
Anna is a writer for the HighSpeedOptions team focusing on streaming. She started her career as a content writer in 2017, working one year in the fintech industry before joining the mobile ad tech space with HighSpeedOptions’ parent company, AdAction.
