Digital Marketing Specialist CV Examples & Writing Guide

This is a mid-level CV for a specialist who runs paid search, paid social, SEO and email for a direct-to-consumer retailer. The name and the companies are made up. Notice that every job lists the budget, the channels and at least one metric that changed. That is what a marketing manager reads for.

Most digital marketing CVs list channels ("SEO, PPC, social media, email") with no proof. The manager has seen that list a hundred times. Four things decide whether yours gets a call.

• Budget and scale. "Managed paid campaigns" could mean £500 a month or £500,000. Write the monthly spend, the number of accounts or the list size. It tells the manager whether you can step into their account on day one.
• A result per channel, with a before and after. ROAS from 3.1x to 4.4x. Cost per lead down 19%. Organic sessions up 62% in 18 months. One honest number per job beats ten verbs.
• Depth in one or two channels, not a claim to all of them. A specialist who is strong in paid search and analytics is easier to place than a "full-stack digital marketer". Say which channels you have owned versus supported.
• Tools they use, spelt the way they spell them. GA4, Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Semrush. If the advert says Salesforce Marketing Cloud and you have only used Mailchimp, say Mailchimp; do not stretch it.

“The first thing checked is whether the candidate has spent real money and can explain what happened to it. A specialist who says 'ran a £30K a month Google Ads account and here is what ROAS did' gets a phone screen. A specialist who lists twelve channels and no numbers usually does not.”

Write a personal statement once you have run campaigns for pay. Use a career objective only if you are moving into marketing from another field or applying for your first executive or coordinator role. In both cases, the first line names your channels, your years and one number.

Copying the job description into your CV ("responsible for managing social media accounts") is the most common mistake in this field. The manager knows what a specialist does. Show the budget, the channel, what you changed and what moved.

Group your skills by channel, then tools, then the working skills a manager expects. Keep it to 12 to 16 items. "Creative thinker" and "team player" take up space that GA4 and Klaviyo should have.

• Paid media: Google Ads (Search, Shopping, Performance Max, YouTube), Meta Ads Manager, Microsoft Advertising, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, TikTok Ads Manager, budget pacing, bid strategies, audience building, retargeting.
• Analytics and tracking: Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, Looker Studio, UTM conventions, conversion tracking, cookie consent set-up (UK GDPR and PECR), offline conversion import, attribution models, Excel or Google Sheets (pivot tables, XLOOKUP), basic HTML for tracking scripts and landing page fixes.
• SEO and content: Semrush or Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, keyword research, on-page optimisation, content briefs, WordPress or Shopify CMS.
• Email and marketing automation: Klaviyo, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Braze (whichever you have used), list segmentation, flow building, consent and opt-in rules (UK GDPR, PECR), deliverability basics, A/B testing subject lines.
• Conversion and creative: landing page builders (Unbounce, Instapage, Webflow), A/B testing, ad copywriting within the CAP Code, Canva or Figma for quick mock-ups, briefing designers.
• Working skills the field values: presenting results to non-marketers, pacing a budget to the penny, prioritising tests, writing a clear brief, staying calm when a campaign breaks on a Friday.

Mirror the advert's exact names. If it says "Google Analytics 4" write that, not "GA". If it says "paid social" and you wrote "Meta Ads", use both once.

No qualification is legally required to work in digital marketing in the UK. Managers still look for a few because they prove you know the platforms. List the certification name, the issuer and the year. Most Google and Meta certifications expire after 12 months, so keep them current or say "renewal in progress".

• Most valued for paid roles: Google Ads certifications from Google Skillshop (Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Apps, Measurement) and Meta Certified Media Buying Professional or Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate.
• Most valued for analytics: Google Analytics Certification (GA4) from Skillshop. The old Universal Analytics IQ is retired; remove it.
• Useful for B2B and inbound roles: HubSpot Academy certifications (Inbound Marketing, Marketing Software, Email Marketing, Content Marketing), free and recognised. For a longer UK marketing career, CIM qualifications (Level 4 Certificate, Level 6 Diploma, Level 7 Postgraduate Diploma) and IDM digital marketing awards carry weight with employers.
• Useful for SEO-heavy roles: Semrush Academy certifications and Ahrefs Academy course certificates (these are completion certificates, not invigilated exams; say so if asked).
• Career changers: the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate (Coursera) or the Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate show a structured base. They do not replace a real account, so pair them with a volunteer or freelance campaign.
• Skip: expired certifications, one-hour LinkedIn Learning badges and anything you cannot discuss in an interview.

Junior and executive adverts ask for one to two years of experience, and most applicants have a placement, a student society account or a side project. That is enough if you present it like a job: budget (even small), channel, tool, result. A Level 3 Digital Marketer apprenticeship is another recognised way in.

1. 1Header with a link to a one-page portfolio or a Google Drive folder of case studies. Even one project with real numbers counts.
2. 2Career objective or short personal statement that names the channels you have touched, the certifications you hold and the number you are proudest of.
3. 3Experience section that includes placements, freelance work, part-time jobs and volunteer campaigns. A £1,000 Meta campaign for a charity with a 2.3x return on ticket sales is real experience.
4. 4Projects section for coursework or self-started work: a Shopify test store, a blog you grew to 5,000 monthly sessions, a Google Ads account you ran with your own £150.
5. 5Certifications: Google Ads Search, GA4 and one HubSpot certification are free and can be finished in a few weeks. Managers notice them on entry-level CVs.
6. 6Education last, with relevant modules only if they name tools (analytics, digital marketing, consumer behaviour). Add your degree classification if it is a 2:1 or above.

Searches for executive, specialist and manager CVs overlap because the titles are used loosely. Pick the title that matches what you did, then adjust the emphasis.

• Assistant, coordinator or junior executive (0 to 2 years): carries out tasks set by someone else. Emphasise accuracy, volume and tools: campaigns built, posts scheduled, reports produced, small tests you ran.
• Executive or specialist (2 to 6 years): owns one or more channels and their numbers. Emphasise budget, results per channel and the decisions you made (restructured, reallocated, tested).
• Manager (5+ years or leading people): owns strategy, budget allocation across channels and often a team or agency. Emphasise total budget, team size, agency management and business outcomes (revenue, pipeline, customer acquisition cost).
• UK titles: many UK employers call the specialist level "Digital Marketing Executive" and use "Specialist" for a single channel (PPC specialist, SEO specialist). The content is the same; use the advert's title in your header if it fits what you did, leave off the photo and keep it to two pages.

Almost every marketing advert goes through an applicant tracking system (Workday, Greenhouse, Lever and iCIMS are common). It parses your CV into fields before the manager sees it. This is a field where people are tempted to design their CV; keep the design for your portfolio.

• Length: one page is fine for graduates and junior roles; two pages is the UK norm once you have a few years or agency work across many accounts. Never three.
• Order: header with portfolio link, personal statement, skills grouped by channel and tool, experience, certifications, education.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. Standard in the UK. One column, standard fonts, no icons for skills; parsers drop them.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert: the channels as they name them (PPC, paid social, SEO, email marketing, marketing automation), the platforms (Google Ads, Meta, HubSpot, Klaviyo, GA4), the metrics they care about (ROAS, CAC, CPL, MQL, conversion rate) and the industry (e-commerce, B2B SaaS, healthcare).
• Spell out and abbreviate once each: "return on ad spend (ROAS)", "search engine optimisation (SEO)". Some systems match only one form.
• Save as PDF unless the portal asks for Word: Marcus-Delgado-Digital-Marketing-CV.pdf.

Paste the advert into the cvplex ATS checker with your finished file. It flags a platform the advert names that you left out, a metric they use that you never mention, and any layout the parser could not read.