Meet The Team – Dominic Corr, Paid Media Manager

Dom joined iThinkMedia back in 2011 and has since worked his way up to being head of the PPC team. We had a chat with Dom who reveals his experiences, challenges and achievements since joining iTM.

iTM: You’re one of the longest-serving members of the iTM team – how has your role evolved?

DC: Yes I’m one of the iThinkMedia ‘veterans’ at the tender age of 27! I joined iThinkMedia back in May 2011 when the whole business was a team of just six people. My role then was very junior, learning on the job (often directly from Chris, our CEO) as I had very little marketing experience, let alone digital experience. I did, however, have a keen eye for detail and was pretty good with figures so quickly found myself naturally migrating over to PPC. I’m a bit of a mental arithmetic boffin but that’s ok as it helps me on a daily basis.

The early days for me were all about following instruction, client delivery and account optimisations, ensuring that client budgets were respected and looked after as if they were our own. Fast forward six years and I’m now responsible for the overall performance of the PPC department from both client and iThinkMedia perspectives, managing hundreds of thousands of pounds a month across multiple territories – Sterling, Euros, Dollars, you name it!

I work on invoicing, new business pitches, strategy, relationship management, board meetings and I play the odd round of golf with our clients. I do still like to be very much involved in the optimisation process, often holding onto accounts because I still get a kick from hitting revenue and ROI targets.

iTM: Why has paid media become so popular?

DC: I think the speed and agility of PPC, as well as the ability to directly attribute every penny you spend to every pound you make has been the reason for the popularity of paid media. Part of the beauty of PPC is that you don’t have to have big budgets to see success – some of the smallest budget campaigns that we’ve managed have seen the biggest results.

I’ve definitely noticed that since hosting our first Digital Day, a lot of local businesses have been in touch as they were unaware what they can achieve with PPC. We’ve met some great business owners who are now starting to adopt simple PPC tactics like solely targeting mobile devices or only having your ads on for office hours and they are already seeing great results.

iTM: What is your greatest iTM success story?

DC: I’m torn between two stories. The first is a personal achievement, which involved solely managing a Wrestlemania campaign for the WWE. It was the biggest campaign that iThinkMedia had been awarded at that point. It was a global campaign targeting multiple languages – talk about being thrown in at the deep end! I worked on weeks of planning, budget phasing, presentations of ideas to board members, translations and plenty of late nights and early mornings but was definitely worth it. The results were huge and the campaign was regarded as their most successful ever, so I guess you can say I’m pretty proud of that.

My second success story is my department’s development. Our current pitch to win rate is well over 80% at the moment and I really hope this continues. Our recent client partnerships have really pushed and tested us as a department but equally, has opened lots of doors for us as an agency so it’s a really exciting time to work in PPC at iThinkMedia.

iTM: What’s the next big thing for paid media?

DC: At the moment, the whole world seems to be heading towards automation and pre-empting a person’s intent – and the world of PPC is definitely following that trend. We work in a digital world so ensuring that repetitive tasks are automated and efficiencies are maximised are going to be key factors in the near future. Convenience is now very much at the forefront of consideration in a user journey.

iTM: What do you do when you’re not at work?

DC: I have quite a large family (blame my Irish background) so when I’m not at work, chances are I’ll be at a family social event somewhere. Outside of that, I play competitive football on Saturdays, I really like going to see concerts at the O2 or festivals in the summer. When the weather is not so great you’ll find me enjoying a good series on Netflix – Power and Ozark are my current fixes!

iTM: If you didn’t work in search what would you like to be doing?

DC: I always wanted to be a racing car driver as I’m a bit of a petrol head, but that dream soon crashed when I had to get a 9-5 job to pay the mortgage! If I wasn’t in search, I’m fairly organised and really enjoy project management so I’d like to have pursued event planning. When I was at school, I was extremely fortunate enough to do work experience at the BBC as part of the live events team, setting up festivals like the Big Weekend and Live Lounges. This then extended into running and organising parties and club nights during my college years so I reckon I’d try to get back into that industry.

iTM: You seem to be the office DJ – if you could only play five songs in the office ever again, what would they be?

DC: Haha this is a good question. I’m a pretty big RnB fan and love attending concerts by Drake, Jay Z, J Cole etc, but not sure they are the most office friendly at times… My office playlist is very broad as you’ll probably tell from my top five:

1. Ocean Drive – Duke Dumont

2. White Iverson – Post Malone

3. Sky’s The Limit – Notorious B.I.G

4. Mr Wendal – Arrested Development

5. Madiba Riddim – Drake