Lauren Beerling Of Collective Measures: 6 Ways To Leverage Instagram To Dramatically Improve Your Business
As a part of our series about How To Leverage Instagram To Grow Your Business, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Beerling.
Lauren Beerling, director of performance media, leads Collective Measures’ paid search, paid social, and retail media practice and is an expert in performance-driven media across channels such as Google, Amazon, Meta, and many more. Each day, she reaches beyond simply optimizing campaigns to consider the bigger picture and its effects. The end result? She drives exceptional outcomes that positively impact her clients’ businesses and ensure they win in search. Prior to Collective Measures, Beerling built and led the search practice at ICF Next, formerly known as Olson, and worked extensively with client Commerce Bank. Prior to ICF Next, she worked at Periscope, planning campaigns from paid search to YouTube for Thrivent Financial and TCF Bank.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
When I first graduated over 12 years ago, I thought I wanted to work in copywriting. I knew I wanted to work at an ad agency because of the fun and fast-paced environment, but the job market was rough at that time. I applied to all the agencies I knew of, but then I started Googling “Minneapolis ad agencies” in an attempt to find some smaller companies where it may be easier to get my foot in the door. In doing so, I accidentally stumbled upon an SEO company that was optimizing for ad agency keywords. I had never even heard of SEO at the time, but I got an interview and learned all about it. SEO was my gateway into media.
After a couple years of working in SEO, I started to expand my horizons into the world of paid search. I bought some physical books to teach myself paid search and took the Google Ads certification exams (it used to cost $100 to take the exams!), and I brought that service to the small startup I was working for. After about three years, my resume became much more desirable to those bigger agencies I was originally applying for. I was then hired to help build out the paid search teams at companies like Periscope and Olson, which were more traditional agencies at the time. Those companies are where I learned all about paid social and display media.
My passion for data analysis, which was initially sparked by my SEO work, found a new outlet in paid media. I’ve always had a love of data, but data alone can be so boring. Paid media is a perfect bridge between data analysis and storytelling. I always say digital media is like modern day anthropology. We can analyze the differences between what people say they want and ultimately what actions they take online.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
One of the most interesting things that has happened to me was getting into the world of SEO and SEM really early on. I was a part of some early Google Partners programs back when individuals were Google Partners, not companies. I had really close-knit relationships with paid search experts around the globe and leaders at Google. Once, I was even a Google Premier Partner of the Week and they sent me Google-branded cupcakes! Now that platforms keep everything under lock and key, it’s crazy to look back and reflect upon all the information that data platforms were sharing with us early on, cultivating close relationships with individual experts.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Coming up in digital media while it was still relatively new, I pretty much made every mistake in the book. The one I learned the most from though was chronically underspending. At the age of 23, spending other people’s money was a really scary thing, especially at a company that was a startup without a lot of processes. I always assumed it was better to err on the side of underspending and giving clients their money back. I remember a few members of leadership at my company and at my clients’ companies reading me the riot act for not spending their entire budgets. I had no idea that clients have a budget, and if they have a surplus, they often lose that unspent marketing budget. I learned a lot about how underspending was leaving leads and revenue on the table, and there are plenty of clients who will find more budget if it means more revenue. It was at this point in my career that I learned how critical communication was. Budgets aren’t always strict, and many clients can find money in the budget if they need it — but they were relying on me to tell them that!
Ok. Let’s now move to the main focus of our discussion. For the benefit of our readers, can you explain why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?
At Collective Measures, I’m the director of our performance media team, which executes paid search, retail media, and paid social. I manage a team of over 30 people and more than $75 million dollars in media across these channels. While I started in the world of search, I’ve worked in social media marketing for roughly the last ten years. I think managing media across so many different types of platforms gives me a really great perspective on a channel like social media. Social can act as an awareness platform, a direct response platform, or anywhere in between, and I understand all the different ways that social media strategies can move the needle across any of these business objectives.
