The Lessons Nobody Puts in a Job Description

What 10 Years in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce Taught Me More than Any Course Ever Could. Here are The Five Lessons I Carry with Me

Nobody warned me that the most important skills in digital marketing wouldn’t be in any course syllabus. They wouldn’t be on any certification. They’d come from the unglamorous middle — the campaigns that bombed, the complaints that stung, the Sunday afternoons spent on e-learning while everyone else was resting.

My career didn't start in digital marketing. My first job was in HR recruitment — a mystery even to me, given my degree in marketing had nothing to do with HR. Marketing was always where I was headed; e-commerce is where things got interesting. I arrived at exactly the moment when companies were rushing to set up online stores with no real idea how to run them. Most thought e-commerce was just uploading product listings to Lazada, Shopee, or Lelong. I learned quickly that it was far more than that — and that I had a lot of catching up to do.

What followed was a decade of learning on the fly. Here are the lessons that actually stayed with me.

“After 10 years in digital marketing and e-commerce, the most lasting lessons aren't about tools or platforms — they're about mindset. Continuous learning, a willingness to experiment, critical thinking, genuine relationships, and finding joy in the work are what sustain a long career in a field that changes constantly. These principles apply beyond digital marketing to any knowledge-based career.”

Lesson 1: Continuous Learning is Non-Negotiable

When I was first handed e-commerce responsibilities, I barely knew what I was doing. So I did the only sensible thing — I learned. I attended every conference, workshop, and talk I could find.

The turning point was a digital marketing certification I decided to take myself. The talks and conferences I attended, I went on my own time and made up the hours; the certification, I paid for out of my own pocket. Before it, terms like CTR, CVR, and impressions felt like a foreign language. After — they became the way I thought about work. But here’s what nobody tells you about certification: the certificate is just the beginning. Example, Google Ads certification gives you the framework. It doesn’t give you the judgment. That only comes from practice — and from never stopping.

With AI now reshaping SEO into something called AEO, the learning never ends. For years, my weekend routine has included courses / learning while most people rest. It’s not glamorous. But knowledge doesn’t expire the way strategies do.

“The lesson: In a field that reinvents itself every few years, continuous learning isn’t a competitive edge. It’s the entry fee.”

Lesson 2: Experiment. Then Experiment Again.

Learning without testing is just collecting information. The real work starts when you try something.

I don’t fear failure. I fear stagnation — running the same campaign twelve months in a row because nobody wanted to rock the boat. In digital marketing and e-commerce, today’s winning strategy is quietly becoming tomorrow’s blind spot. The algorithm shifts, the platform changes its rules, and suddenly what worked brilliantly last quarter is flat.

One of my clearest example: at a company where the online store was underperforming, I made two small changes — linking the corporate website’s product pages to the online store and adding a WhatsApp marketing plugin. Sales picked up. I didn’t have a full digital marketing framework at the time. I was just experimenting.

At another company, products were listed individually when they could have been grouped as variations — comics by volume, plush toys by series, laptops by colour and capacity. After consolidating the listings, average order value (AOV) increased. Customers were buying more in a single purchase. A small tweak, a real result.

Here’s another one. Marketplaces are full of sellers offering the same product, and for high-value items, customers are cautious — they worry about fakes. A simple fix: add the word “Original” to the product title. For well-known brands where authenticity matters, that single word gave buyers enough confidence to purchase. Not a campaign. Not a discount. Just the right word in the right place.

None of this required a grand plan. It required a willingness to try, observe, and adjust.

“The lesson: The experiment that fails quietly teaches you more than the success you can’t explain.”

Lesson 3: Think for Yourself (Critical Thinking)

The internet is generous with advice. Influencers, gurus, YouTube channels, AI tools — everyone has a framework, a strategy, a proven system. I follow many of them. I also don’t take any of them at face value.

What works brilliantly for a D2C brand may not translate to a Malaysian SME wholesaler. Even AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude — as useful as they are — can confidently give you the wrong answer. Critical thinking isn’t cynicism. It’s the filter that turns information into something you can actually use.

One example that stuck with me: every marketplace recommends a standard product title formula — Brand + Model + Specification + Size. Follow the rules, list your product, done. But an e-commerce practitioner would immediately flag that this formula isn’t keyword-rich or SEO-optimised. It doesn’t speak to what the buyer is actually searching for. So I started doing it slightly differently — weaving in the USP, a key feature, or a customer benefit alongside the standard fields. Same product. Better visibility. That small deviation from the recommended template came entirely from questioning whether the standard advice was actually the best advice for my context.

I’ve trained myself to ask: does this apply to my context? If not, can it be adapted? If not that either, what’s the underlying principle I can borrow? It loops straight back to Lesson 2 — test it before you trust it.

“The lesson: Consume widely. Apply selectively. Trust yourself enough to know the difference.”

Lesson 4: Relationships Are Your Longest-Running Investment

Some people think paying a supplier — or outranking a colleague — earns them the right to act superior. I've never understood that logic. The supplier you treat well is the one who picks up the phone on a Friday afternoon when you have an emergency. The colleague you respect regardless of rank is the one who goes the extra mile when you actually need it. That goodwill is real, and it compounds.

In e-commerce, it's easy to think of everything transactionally — suppliers you pay, colleagues you work with, customers you sell to. But every one of those interactions is also a relationship. And relationships have memory.

Customers, though, are the collaboration I value most. A complaint — especially a long, detailed one — is one of the most useful things a customer can offer. They didn’t have to write it. They could have just left and complained to their friends. When someone takes the time to articulate what went wrong, they’re handing you a product brief.

The most memorable example: a customer once enquired about a product we didn’t carry. The easy answer was “we don’t have it.” Instead, I looked into the feasibility, considered the demand, and decided to bring it in. It sold. Some of the products I sourced from customer enquiries became consistent top performers.

“The lesson: The people around you — above, below, and across the table — are one of the best data sources you’ll ever have.”

Lesson 5: If You’re Not Enjoying It, You’ll Run Out of Fuel

This one took me the longest to articulate, but it might be the most important.

Work should be fun. Not forced fun, not “make the best of it” fun — genuinely, look-forward-to-Monday fun. For me, that comes from three things: no two months ever look the same, there is always something new to try, and when something works, I can trace exactly why. That’s what digital marketing and e-commerce gave me. I genuinely cannot do routine. The moment a job becomes a fixed script, I start losing the plot.

And when you want to understand why something worked — or didn’t — the data is there to tell you. That’s what I value about measurability. Not the numbers for their own sake, but the clarity they give you. A drop in sales isn’t a failure. It’s a question. An increase isn’t luck. It’s something you can trace back, learn from, and build on.

That curiosity is what connects all five lessons. You can’t keep learning without it. You can’t keep experimenting without it. You can’t collaborate well without it.

“The lesson: When you genuinely enjoy the work, everything else in this list takes care of itself.”

Ten years sounds like a long time. In practice, it's felt like a series of steep learning curves, each one leading to another. I'm still learning — and honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.

If I could hand my younger self one page before her first day in e-commerce or digital marketing, this would be it. Not the tools. Not the platforms. Not the jargon. Just this: stay curious, stay humble, and never stop testing.

The rest, you figure out along the way.