When I began this job under the title of “Marketing Intelligence Intern,” I had no idea what to expect. My digital analytics knowledge was nominal and I was an entry level Excel user. Before I started here, I believed an average work day for a digital analyst consisted mostly of staring at spreadsheets. After working on the Marketing Intelligence team I can now definitively say that this view of the job was absolutely correct. But I also got the chance to learn that there is so much more that goes into the spreadsheets as well as what you can get out of them.

Two months ago, the idea of working in Excel and staring at numbers all day would have sounded like something that would bore me to death. Now that I have gained somewhat of an understanding of the numbers I’m staring at, the concept of analyzing this data seems much less tedious and much more enjoyable. Over the past weeks, the experience I’ve gained from manipulating data and writing insightful analysis could have never been duplicated in a classroom.

Okay, so staring at spreadsheets is not the only thing a digital marketing analyst does. As I have learned, one of the most important duties of an analyst is to not only interpret the data for your own knowledge but to also have the ability to digest it and translate it for those who are not going to sort through the data. Turning the raw data into a coherent story anyone can understand and comprehend is a challenging but essential task.

In order to produce that story, I’ve learned that it takes a combination of all three of the core Organic values. First, you must use empathy in order to fully understand the client’s business and find information in the analysis that is relevant to achieving their goals. Empathy is also important because although an analyst may have found great data that is beneficial to the client, unless he can put the data into a story the client can understand and fully describe the metrics value, the findings will be lost and never acted upon.

The second key Organic value is innovation which is also vitally important when working with Marketing Intelligence. Many times, finding valuable insight is not an easy task and innovative techniques must be used to look at the problem in many different ways in order to find a practical solution.

Finally, collaboration is the third value needed between members of the Marketing Intelligence team members in order to produce a quality product. As is true with most teams, each team member has a different knowledge specialty and it is important to be transparent and share that knowledge, but also not be timid about asking your coworkers for help and advice when needed.

Along with experience in working with Marketing Intelligence, this internship has also given me an overview of the marketing agency as a whole and how each individual facet works together to produce an amazing product for the client. Although I have gained a large amount of knowledge in these past weeks, the most important lesson I have learned about the digital world in general and the analyst role specifically is that to be successful in this industry, you must constantly be learning. The realm of marketing analytics is growing but it is currently very small and rarely, if ever, mentioned to college students. I believe that one of the reasons universities lack a marketing analytics class is because of the fact that things are changing so quickly. A textbook is out of date because new developments are being made by the time the book is printed and sent to a college bookstore. In my opinion, reading the newest blogs from experts in the industry and learning from experience is the best way to stay ahead of the curve in the constantly changing marketing analytics world.

Overall, I have found my time as a member of the Organic Marketing Intelligence team to be both intellectually stimulating and incredibly rewarding. In only eight weeks with the company, I have learned more than I ever could in a classroom or from a textbook. Working for Organic has been a genuine privilege and I feel very fortunate to have been a part of such an innovative and empathetic organization.

Anthony Dostal is a Marketing Intelligence Intern at Organic