The beginning of expanding your digital marketing horizon

Launched in July last year, Kentico’s Certified Marketer exam and training course help our partners gain Kentico expert recognition. It enables them to verify their practical experience and familiarity with the platform’s out-of-the-box features as well as custom marketing features, and to prove their digital marketing knowledge and skills.

Konrad Matuk has worked for Infinity Group, a Kentico Gold Partner, for the last five years. As their Data Analyst and Marketing Automation Specialist, he recently passed the Kentico Certified Marketer exam. Today, he shares with us his journey to getting the certification and how he’s implementing his valuable learnings in his daily work in order to boost the success of Infinity Groups’ colleagues and customers.

What motivated you to take the course?

Before working at Infinity Group, I worked as a translator—mostly of books about electronics, electrical engineering, software development, and data science. This really enhanced my practical interest in data analysis and statistics, which, later on, inspired me to get a postgraduate university education in Data Science. I’ve often applied this knowledge in my current role when dealing with real statistics and data problems. 

However, I’m currently mostly involved in satisfying the marketing needs of our business partners. I lead workshops on the best practices of using marketing tools and mechanisms and I train web content developers and marketers. 

Of course, I’ve worked with various digital experience platforms (DXPs) in my career and I have often implemented functionalities, configured tools, and defined requirements for custom development to help bridge gaps between out-of-the box features offered by other platforms. 

After years of working as a digital marketing specialist across various digital experience platforms and projects, I really wanted to become a certified marketer. So, back in 2019, when I was just starting to work on my first Kentico project, that’s what I did—I took the Kentico 10 Certified Marketer Exam.

How did you prepare for the exam?

I spent about 4 to 6 hours browsing through Kentico 10 Online Marketing Essentials. I understood the ideas behind each marketing mechanism but knew there was more to learn about the details of each function and setting, as these are very important.

I read Kentico online documentation thoroughly, hammering out quite complicated solutions and experimenting with Kentico demos. I really love the fact that it is very easy to install the demo version locally. And the possibility of using hosted trials truly amazed me. I gained a lot of experience and I was happy to become a Kentico 10 Certified marketer.

Two years later I did it all again preparing for the Kentico 12 Certified Marketer Exam. I browsed through Kentico’s online documentation which turned out to be very helpful, easy to read, precise and meticulous. 

And just recently, I went through the whole process again for my Kentico Xperience 13 Certification, learning about all the new details and functions in this latest version of the DXP. This time, I noticed the questions were more practical and less confusing as now only one answer can be correct and there are no multiple-choice questions. From the perspective of a former teacher and examiner, I find these changes very pragmatic and beneficial.

The Certified Marketer Exam requires a lot of practical and theoretical knowledge. Of course, reading the documentation and familiarizing yourself with all bits and pieces require time. However, my everyday work could also be considered part of the preparation because I create the demand of prospecting clients, describe custom-developed features, configure marketing, personalization and e-mail mechanisms, and train Kentico editors and marketers working on the client side. 

Lucky for me, my company employs a lot of qualified backend developers, whom I could consult in order to clarify some of the more intriguing problems and gain insight into how some mechanisms work internally.

What immediate benefits did you see?

The Online Marketing Essentials course covers a wide range of topics and as someone working deep in digital marketing, I found them a little bit general. This course would be great for new users of Kentico or for editors who are starting their adventure in digital marketing. So, for me, rather than teaching me things I knew nothing about, it helped me dive deeper into things I was familiar with. 

Having said that, the process of preparing for the exam allowed me to familiarize myself with functions of all low-level switches and options offered by Kentico marketing tools. It enabled me to see the new possibilities, as well as some limitations that can be easily overcome with custom code. 

I also loved the possibility of creating my own custom K# macros without needing to contact my developers. Thanks to the detailed documentation and my experience with coding, I was able to create custom macros despite not being a professional developer. I was able to create custom segmentation logic like addressing A/B tests to very specific audiences and connecting marketing automation scenarios with external services.

Additionally, as I consider learning about what other marketers are doing good practice, I found a lot of inspiration in reading about projects developed by other companies.

How does the training impact your daily work?

I most often use my learnings in implementing website personalization based on personas and contact groups and creating specific segments for e-mail communication. 

Most notably, I implemented marketing automation for our client, Domino’s Pizza. I created an advanced scenario of post-sales communication with their customers that would react in real time to customer actions and use personalized e-mail and SMS communication. We implemented a custom functionality utilizing this channel of communication that is fully GDPR compatible.

An unexpected benefit of taking the Certified Marketer course was that I learned some interesting ways of presenting Kentico features to my clients and colleagues during workshops.

I get to pass my knowledge on to our backend developers on a daily basis, while working on our projects. And Infinity Group organizes special workshops for all project managers, during which I share my knowledge about Kentico’s marketing tools as they relate to our various projects. I also train our internal content editing team, equipping them with practical knowledge of using the tools. 

What would you say to someone considering getting certified?

Just go for it! 

Typically, only backend developers can get certified on digital experience platforms, so the opportunity to prove one’s marketing competences truly makes Kentico stand out.

Preparing for the certification exam will not only organize your knowledge, but will certainly teach you a lot about the possibilities of Kentico’s online marketing tools. 

I love the fact that Kentico offers certification for digital marketers. You will see that this is just the beginning of expanding your marketing horizon.

Expand your digital marketing horizon with Kentico!

Eager to boost your business efforts and explore all the digital marketing and content management perks within our flexible, low-code/no-code DXP to maximize your ROI and outpace your competition? Talk to one of our experts to learn more, get a free hosted trial and get hands-on experience, or get certified as well to demonstrate your excellent Kentico Xperience 13 digital marketing skills!