Immy Ewbank is senior digital strategist at ecommerce agency Visualsoft.
Visualsoft was recently named as one of Prolific North’s Top Digital Agencies for 2024 and has offices across Stockton-on-Tees, Newcastle and Manchester.
Joining the agency in 2022 initially as digital strategist before being promoted to her current role, Ewbank has over six years of experience in digital marketing and is a strategic partner for brands to support with holistic multi-channel strategies and campaigns.
From the biggest challenges about the job to entering the industry, she shares her career journey and words of advice.
How did you first get into your industry?
Looking back, marketing really hooked me in early with the sheer creativity of it. Before uni, I helped my parents business navigate the evolving world of social media to connect with their B2B customers. It sparked a passion for the hidden connections between online and offline marketing.
My Master’s in Business and Marketing fuelled that passion which shifted me into the drinks industry, doing marketing and events. Post uni, I landed in the affiliate marketing world working at the network Partnerize. Working here was a revelation! I realised I’d been unknowingly interacting with this powerful channel for years (think about each time you hunt for a voucher, that’s affiliate!). It opened my eyes to the technical side, understanding how tracking works and pinpointing the right partners for brand success.
At Partnerize, building strategic partnerships became a personal mission. As the UK senior partnerships manager, I thrived on connecting brands and partners, creating relationships that drove mutual growth.
My interest in the bigger marketing picture never faded. Affiliate marketing bridges so many channels! So, transitioning to digital strategist at Visualsoft was ideal. Now, I craft creative campaigns with a holistic view, ensuring messaging resonates across all their channels.
What do you love about your job?
I love the sheer breadth of my job role. As a digital strategist I get to work on building creative campaigns and continuously learning what works and resonates with my clients audience. Working directly with a team of channel specialists, I rely on their in depth channel knowledge to create bespoke tactics to execute the overall strategic campaign. Being right in the heart of the marketing channels allows me to keep on the ball with digital!
The people I get to work with make the difference! I’ve made some great friends in the industry and am fortunate to have worked in some great places in Newcastle!
Who – or what – has inspired you in your career?
I have a few big drivers, the main one is my parents and how they’ve built a strong business which has been trading for over 30 years. The second one is my girlfriend, who is very successful in her marketing career. Both continuously remind me to keep going after your passion, whilst also enjoying life!
What are the biggest challenges about your job?
Digital is always evolving, so adapting continuously is a challenge however, it means that I can always be learning! Being on the ball with new trends that are coming up and making them into applicable insights for my clients is a great opportunity. I really enjoy finding new ideas to leverage the trends we see coming up!
What skills have been the most crucial to you succeeding in your career so far?
There’s definitely a few that come to mind:
Confidence – believing in myself has pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to build my career.
Leadership – No matter where I’ve been within a team, I always aim to show leadership qualities and bring others up with me. There’s so many experts around me to learn from, and they are the people who make my teams so great to work in!
Tenacity – there’s a favourite Geordie saying my Grandpa says: “shy bairns get nowt”. You’ve always got to push forward and ask the right questions to get to where you need to be. I work on the assumption there is a solution to most problems I encounter, and maybe changing my perspective is where the answer lies!
What was your first salary and what could someone getting into the industry expect to earn nowadays?
That’s a tricky one to answer, however I would say now a lot more companies are transparent with their salaries and progression paths with salary bands. This is certainly a better way to see the jobs that are available to you, whether you’re first starting out or looking for your next challenge.
What education or training would be most useful for someone looking to follow your career path?
There’s definitely no “one size fits all” to this!
If you’re still in college or sixth form, see what courses are available to get into marketing and get hands on with it. I did my Masters in Business and Marketing to help me start to pursue the career, and worked in events.
If you’re able to find entry level jobs at a marketing agency this can be a perfect place to start and find your niche in marketing. At Visualsoft we have all the digital channels under one roof, so people are able to also learn about what others do and possibly find a channel that they’d like to transfer across to!
If you can get technical with how GA4 works and tracks, that will help understand the “how” and the “why” things happen in marketing between channels.
What advice would you have for someone looking to follow your path?
Be brave and put yourself out there! Apply for that job you’ve been eyeing up and give it a go, as you will eventually find where you’re meant to be. If you end up doing a few different types of jobs, that’s still great experience. Learn from any mistake (we all make them!), so you upskill what you’re good at and build on what you’d like to improve.
See what marketing events you can attend, whether that’s in person or online to help build your knowledge of the industry too. I subscribe to these to help keep my knowledge up to date and get ideas: – Girls In Marketing – TLDR by Glass Digital – Think with Google – VOGUE Business.
