WordStream has some impressive employees in our ranks: from industry influencers to marathon runners, from analysts to authors. The Employee Spotlight series aims to highlight the talented individuals who work here. Each month, we’ll be featuring an interview here on the blog and on our social accounts.
For this month’s Employee Spotlight, we’re featuring Chelsea Guida. From Syracuse, New York, Chelsea moved to Boston to work in digital marketing. At WordStream, she works with a portfolio of clients on the Managed Services team here at WordStream. We talked about her experience studying PPC in school, her love for Starbucks, her compulsive sticky-note habit, and more!
How did you hear about WordStream? Why did you want to work here?
I studied integrated marketing in college, and for one class we had to register for the Google online marketing challenge. I had to go and find a company, and Google would then give that company $250 to use for online advertising. I had to create a PPC campaign for the company, and then I saw the affect the campaign had and started to understand the top of the funnel and how to work with leads. After that project, I became really interested in online advertising.
I had always wanted to live in Boston, so I only applied to jobs in Boston. When I found a job opening at WordStream, I was excited because I had found PPC so interesting. Once I started the interview process, I thought WordStream seemed like such a cool company to work for—and not just the free swag and perks.The fact that co-workers were also friends and everyone here was willing to help you learn was really appealing to me. Now that I’m here, I think that’s totally true, I could go up to anyone in my department and ask for help, and they’d sit with me happily to figure it out.
What’s the best thing you’ve learned on the job?
Honestly, the best thing I’ve learned is how to send emails. I call my boss here the email queen—she blushes, but I say it anyway because she’s so amazing sending emails. It sounds like a weird skill, but I send literally hundreds of emails a day. When you’re fully managing someone’s account, they want to have a constant pulse on everything that’s going on—which means my emails have to be on point.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on here at WordStream?
Targeting reports are my favorite. Like the rest of my team, I create these pretty regularly for different clients. I pull data on demographics—like age, gender, household income, device usage—to make recommendations on adjustments for PPC campaigns. Sometimes, this information can help change strategy, too.
Every time I’ve showed it to a client they’ve been absolutely obsessed with this report. I have had clients come back to me weeks later and say they showed it to their board members or their marketing team and they couldn’t believe the value WordStream was bringing their company. Once, I shared a targeting report with a client and later he told me that the marketing team had a joke about “finding a WordStream for it.” When something needed a fix or a boost, they would talk about “finding a WordStream,” which makes me feel like I’m actually making an impact.
What’s the most challenging project you’ve worked on during your time here so far?
Google Analytics. I’m still a little traumatized from a college class on using GA that had a 100-page final paper. But there’s also so much data that sometimes you can find yourself in a wormhole, sifting through tons of information to determine what’s relevant and necessary and helpful at that moment. It can be overwhelming.
You need to put your head down and get some work done asap. Do you have a go-to song?
Normally, I don’t listen to music, but I really like rap music. I love Lil Wayne. When I was in high school and college, I used to write all of my essays to “Tha Carter IV” and only “Tha Carter IV” because I listen to it so many times that it became the only music that would help me focus. And, yes, I know that “Tha Carter IV” is supposedly his worst album, but I liked it. I still like it.
What’s the first thing you do when you get to work each morning?
I open slack and my email to see if there’s anything that’s super urgent. If there isn’t anything I have to work on right away, I eat breakfast or go get coffee downstairs. I always go to Starbucks. On kick off calls with my clients, I tell them that I love Starbucks. If you look at my desk right now, there are probably at least three empty cups.
What’s your go-to lunch?
If I’m buying lunch, it’s probably Sweetgreen. Although, my usual roasted corn salad is off the menu as of this week, so maybe not anymore. I try to bring lunch most days, though. The only thing I ever make is rice with vegetables, or maybe leftover tacos to make it a burrito bowl.
What’s your workspace aesthetic like? Minimalist? Homey? Neat?
Trash. You already know I leave my empty Starbucks cups there. I also write down everything from my client calls on sticky notes, and then I transfer them to a document on my computer. When I’m on the call, I don’t like the sound of the keyboard clacking, because when I hear that I feel like people aren’t listening to me. But after I put my notes in the document, I don’t usually get rid of my notes right away. Instead, I end up doing a monthly purge.
I also have some quirky items that aren’t trash on my desk, like my World’s Greatest Dad plaque. My dad had a “Cortland Dad” sticker on his car, which became my first car. That’s where my sister did her first year of college. On his next car, he had “Oswego Dad” and “Morrisville Dad” sticker on his cars—again, both for my sister— and I got that car, too. My friends started calling me dad as a joke, and when I saw this World’s Greatest Dad plaque at TJ Maxx, I needed it for my desk.
If WordStream announced a last-minute day off for tomorrow, what would you do with your suddenly free day?
I would walk around Back Bay, near the WordStream office. It doesn’t sound adventurous, but for some reason, whenever I’m getting lunch, I see these people just walking. Maybe they’re on their lunch break too. I see people walking down Newbury Street or Boylston Street, and I always wonder what they’re doing. It’s a workday, shouldn’t they be somewhere else? I’m always super jealous of that, so I would weirdly love to just walk around this area on a weekday and not have to go to work to see how it feels.
If you didn’t work in digital marketing, what would you want to do?
It would be so fun to have my own talk show, like Chelsea Handler but Chelsea Guida and during the day. Probably on public television. Actually, I think I’d be more like Ellen, except I’m not as funny as Ellen.
What is your best way to relax when you get home from work or the first thing to do when you get home to decompress?
I have a long train ride home, so I usually watch Netflix and decompress on the train. Once I’m home, the first thing I do is make popcorn while cooking dinner. I highly recommend Kernel Season’s Sour Cream and Onion seasoning. Popcorn has always been one of my favorite foods, and I think now it’s become my weird post-work routine.
If I take my laptop home, I also try not to sign on once I get off the train. Once you do that, it just becomes a never-ending spiral. PPC never sleeps.
What’s one product or service you wish you had an unlimited supply of at your desk?
I wish I had clothes at work, a full closet. So many times, by the middle of my day, I’m over what I’m wearing. I wore jeans today, and I’m fully regretting that. I wish I could change.
If you were a brand, what brand would you be?
I’m so prepared for this question. I was just talking about how I think it should be a standard job interview question. I would be Lush Cosmetics.
The fact that the company is so committed to its values and its mission that it would rather have a product that doesn’t smell as great as, say, Dove soap, but is all-natural and sustainable is amazing. I love that unwavering commitment. I also love the quirky designs and the people who work in Lush stores—you can tell they hire people based on their personalities and their interest in the products rather than their looks or something superficial like that.