offline with Andrew King (Edition 4)

In our 4th “offline” edition, we catch-up with N Brown Group’s Head of Performance Media Andrew King, and find out how he overcame his biggest fear; the book that has transformed his thinking and much much more!

Why did you move into a career in digital marketing?

It wasn’t really planned! When I graduated from university I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career. I moved to London and took an apprenticeship with an ecommerce startup called WorldStores, initially running their Amazon marketplace store. I’ve always had a strong head for numbers and after a year or so was offered a place on the PPC team. Back then it was all manual bidding and I spent a lot of time crunching numbers in huge spreadsheets as we sought to find the optimal bid for every possible keyword!

It was a great feeling to find something that I really enjoyed doing and that I was good at. I feel very lucky to have fallen into a sector that has offered me great opportunities to grow as my career has progressed and develop a skill set that is highly desired across nearly all forms of business today.

How do you switch off?

I love to read (more on that below!) and I love being a dad to my two young children. I am lucky to work for a business that supports working parents at all levels throughout the organisation, so I can be present when I’m with them and enjoy watching them grow up.

What’s your favourite book?

I’m not sure I can pick just one! Two books that have had a huge impact on who I am today (both personally and professionally) are Mindset by Carol Dweck and Atomic Habits by James Clear. I always recommend them both if people ask!

As I mentioned above, I love to read and find I can always find a book on whatever topic happens to be on my mind at the time. One of the key concepts in Atomic Habits is that of marginal gains, so I’m always seeking a new learning opportunity to see if I can gain some small improvement in an aspect of my life.

I really enjoy autobiographies too and often take a lot of inspiration from hearing the stories of others.

What’s on your watchlist (streaming services)?

I don’t watch a huge amount of TV outside of live sport. I’m a big Star Wars fan and really enjoyed watching The Mandalorian, so I hope there isn’t too long a wait for a new season of that!

What’s your favourite inspirational quote?

“Change is an opportunity to grow.”

Change can be uncomfortable to go through and nearly always arrives at the what feels like an inconvenient time. Whenever I am going through a difficult moment either at home or at work I try to remind myself that it is only temporary and that when I get through the other side, I’ll be better for the experience.

What’s your proudest professional achievement to-date?

Probably taking the stage at our colleague conference earlier this year and speaking in front of hundreds of people for the first time. I’m naturally quite introverted and about 20-months before I had turned down the opportunity to speak at a trading huddle on Black Friday as I was overcome with anxiety at the thought of talking in front of a large audience.

I wasn’t happy with the situation afterwards and decided it was something worth working on, taking baby steps at first before gradually over time standing up and talking to larger and larger groups (including at a friend’s wedding).

Eventually the opportunity came up to take part in the conference and I said yes. I was very nervous on the morning of (barely eating any breakfast which is not like me!) but I was well prepared and very proud when the moment came that I was able to do it!

What 1 thing would you tell your younger self?

Don’t be afraid to fail. When I was young I was often afraid to take risks and if I thought something would be hard or that I might not succeed, I’d find an excuse not to do it. As I’ve grown older I’ve thankfully been able to replace some of those unhelpful beliefs and embrace failure as a part of life and learning.

What’s your favourite holiday destination that you’ve travelled to?

It has to be somewhere warm, either by a beach or with a swimming pool. I loved Thailand but that was a long time ago now when I’d just finished university.

This year we went to France for our family holiday which was great (especially the wine and cheese!).

Japan is the next place I’d like to visit but I think we’ll wait a few years as I don’t fancy a 12-hour flight with a two-year old!

What’s the biggest challenge facing digital marketers right now?

It’s becoming harder and harder to accurately measure the impact of what we do. Ad platforms such as Google and Meta are excellent at putting ads in front of customers who are about to convert and then claim the credit for the conversion.

Building a measurement framework that tells you which of your marketing activities are driving the most incremental value is vitally important, but is highly complex and requires constant investment to keep up with the pace of change we see across the industry.

About Andrew…

Andrew has over 12-years’ experience working at client-side e-commerce businesses. He started out in a trading role before quickly moving into PPC as part of the fast-growing start up businesses, WorldStores and The Protein Works.

He is currently Head of Performance Media at N Brown Group in Manchester, where he oversees all biddable media across the group’s portfolio of brands. Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn.

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