Michelle Ta - JDM Impressions

Working remotely, like we do at JDM, doesn’t mean being disconnected from colleagues. As part of our culture-building initiative, and to introduce the digital marketing world to our awesome team members, we regularly peel back the curtain on the lives of JDMers. This week, we’ll get to know Performance Marketing Manager, Michelle Ta!

Name: Michelle Ta
Position: Performance Marketing Manager
Location: San Diego, CA

When did you begin working at JDM?
March 2021

How did you know JDM was the right fit for you?
The importance placed on transparency and autonomy was refreshing and in line with what I was looking for in my next job.

What’s your favorite part of the workday?
Wrapping up at the end of the day - it’s very satisfying checking off all my tasks at the end of the day and planning for the next.

What’s the most gratifying part of working with your clients
Getting to provide them insights they may have never thought about or placed much importance on before. Coming from a strong, social background, I especially love providing feedback on what creative and copy angles are resonating most with their audience, especially when it inspires them to continue riffing off those in future creative iterations or initiatives. 

In a remote company, how do you stay connected with your team?
Making sure I talk about non-work stuff! When I have 1:1s or one-off meetings with other team members, I try to remember to start off by asking them about their weekend or what they’ve been up to lately. When we get busy with client work, it becomes easy to just jump into discussing work stuff and forget to connect with each other on a personal level.

What three words would you use to describe the JDM culture?
Flexible
Supportive
Motivated

What's something you love about JDM?
I like that I can be genuine and honest with everyone I work with, especially my managers/directors. I feel comfortable communicating about negative things as well as positive things without it being an ordeal, which is so important for building a good support system at work.

Can you recall a time when JDM challenged you, and how we supported you through that time?
I came to JDM with the intention of expanding my paid media knowledge beyond social, and JDM took that to heart by making sure I had the opportunity to be involved with search as much as possible. I had imposter syndrome when I first started managing bigger search clients, but my managers were fantastic at supporting me and coaching me until I felt confident.

What’s the best thing you’ve done with your unlimited PTO?
Travel, travel, travel!

What's something you love about the marketing industry?
I love that ads have become so much more fun over the last few years as more and more advertisers lean into what’s popular on social. Some of the best performing creatives I’ve tested over the last year have incorporated trending TikTok audio, dances, and memes.

What do you think has been the most interesting change in the marketing industry or in your channel this year?
The incorporation of search into social media. This is still very much in beta for TikTok and Instagram, but I think it’s fascinating to see how younger generations are using social media more and more for searches, and I’ve started to find myself doing the same.

What digital marketing platform, technology, or skill do you see gaining the most traction in the next 1-2 years, and why?
Knowing how to write prompts that maximizes the ability of AI is going to become a very important skill. AI is already becoming an increasingly integral part of marketing research and strategy, and as we all continue testing this tool I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before some best practices for prompt-writing will be established.

What are the names and ages of your kids (or furbabies)?
Ziggy (3 years)
Chacha (6 years)

What's something you've implemented or tested, and what was the outcome?
LinkedIn lead gen forms are always one of my first recommendations for clients running on LinkedIn! They are a much lower barrier to entry compared to driving to a landing page since the user never has to leave the platform and most of their information autopopulates. It always ends up generating more lead volume at better efficiency.

What’s a project that you’ve worked on that you’ve really enjoyed?
Overhauling naming conventions! It’s always a tedious project, but once it’s done, it makes reporting a hundred times easier because you can just work off the same template over and over if naming is consistent. It’s also allowed me to respond to one-off questions from clients a lot faster since all I have to do is re-pull the raw data and drop it into an existing template.