General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

Certified Marketer
Level 1 Study Guide

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 Getting Started

What is this assessment?

Certified Marketer Level 1 (CM1) is a 60-minute, 45-question assessment to evaluate
essential marketing skills. It was created by General Assembly and the Marketing
Standards Board, a group of leaders from top global companies working to establish
clear pathways to success in marketing careers. Test-takers will see how they
compare to an industry benchmark and identify learning opportunities.

This guide contains a brief overview and relevant vocabulary for each assessment
topic. Note: Reading the guide does not guarantee performance on CM1 or cover all
topics/skills required to master the test.

What will I need?

To complete CM1, you’ll need the following:
• A computer or laptop: Don’t attempt this on a tablet or smartphone.
• A fast and reliable internet connection: Once you begin,
the timer can’t be stopped.
• A Google Chrome internet browser: Make sure you use the latest
version; CM1 is not optimized for other browsers.
• Any spreadsheet application (e.g., Excel): Have a blank spreadsheet
open and ready. You’ll need to do calculations for some questions.
• Peace and quiet: Find a quiet area where you’ll be able to focus.

What are the rules?

• This assessment is open book — you can use reference materials and
search the web.
• Complete the assessment alone.
• Do not share assessment questions or materials with anyone.
• You have 60 continuous minutes to complete the assessment, with
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

no pauses or breaks.
• All numbers in the assessment are displayed using standard U.S.-English
number notation. (e.g., One thousand dollars
and 20 cents would be represented as $1,000.20.)
• Correct answers that are formatted in either U.S. or European notation
will be accepted (e.g., 50.10% or 50,10% are both acceptable).

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 What skills are assessed?
CM1 will test your knowledge in the following categories and
problem-solving methods.

Skills Problem Type

• Consumer/Customer Insights • Conceptualize: Understand

• Creative Development and apply marketing concepts.
• Channels and Execution • Calculate: Use data to report
• Measurement and Analytics on marketing campaigns.
• Marketing Technology • Interpret: Translate results to
make strategic decisions.

Dive deeper: digital marketing at GA.

Discover the skills you need to thrive as a marketer through in-person and online
courses and workshops at General Assembly:
• Digital Marketing: Build a strong foundation in marketing channels, SEO,
search, and analytics to power successful campaigns in our 10-week, part-time
or 1-week, accelerated course.
• Digital Marketing Circuit (online): Learn digital marketing fundamentals at your
own pace, guided by a mentor, in our 5-week, online course.
• Short-form classes: Discover valuable marketing skills spanning analytics, social
media, and more, and connect with others in the field at expert-led evening and
weekend workshops.
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

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 Consumer/Customer Insights

Overview
Customers and consumers are at the heart of marketing. To be an effective marketer,
you must know how to segment and target them, while also understanding how they
interact with your brand. For some marketers, a “customer” is the retailer purchasing
your products to sell them, while a “consumer” is the individual buying your product
to use it. Below, we use “customer” to simplify the materials.

Key Concepts

Conversion • A framework that helps marketers understand the

Funnel customer’s journey or experience with their brand,
starting with how they learn about it and ending with
retention and referrals.
• Knowing this information helps marketers target their
communications.
• The six stages of a conversion funnel are:
• Awareness: A potential customer is just
learning about your brand/company and you
need to actively engage them.
• Consideration: The potential customer is
willing to consider your product/service.
• Comparison: The potential customer is
evaluating your brand/company against
competitors.
• Conversion: The potential customer makes a
purchase and becomes an actual customer.
• Retention: Your customer has repurchased
your product/service.
• Referral/Advocacy: Your customer becomes
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

an advocate for your brand.

Lead • A prospective customer.

• A qualified lead is a prospective customer who has
shown intent to purchase or has requested additional
information. Different organizations may have slightly
different ways of determining whether or not a lead
is qualified.

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 Persona • A written description of a brand’s ideal customer,
informed by quantitative and qualitative data.
• A persona typically includes details like demographic
information, behavioral information, and
motivations/goals.
• Creating a persona can help marketers better
understand and target customers.

Audience • The process of dividing groups according to

Segmentation shared characteristics. Some examples of audience
segmentation include:
• Behavioral: purchasing behavior, habits
• Attitudinal: values, lifestyle, interests
• Geographic: physical location or region
• Demographic: age, gender, race, ethnicity etc.

Positioning • A way to distinguish a product or organization in

the minds of their ideal customers.
• David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather and known
as the “Father of Advertising,” defined positioning as
“what a product does, and who it is for.”

Unique Selling • A type of positioning that focuses on a specific

Proposition factor or consideration that differentiates a product
or organization.

Market • Valuable information that marketers collect and analyze

Research to better understand their customers and how their
product or organization fits their needs.
• Market research can include:
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

• Primary research data: Information that can

be gathered firsthand and is “owned” by your
organization.
• Secondary research data: Information that
can be gathered from outside sources. This
information may already exist (e.g., public
records) and be accessible to people outside
your organization.
• Marketers look at both quantitative and qualitative
data. Different tools used in market research may
include surveys, focus groups, observations, and
government reports/data.

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 Creative

Overview
Bringing compelling messages to life requires many steps. From writing a brief to
adapting content to different channels, marketers need to find ways to create content
that aligns with organizational goals and appeals to customers.

Key Concepts

Brand • The process of creating a defining name, symbol,

Definition feature, or quality that distinguishes an organization or
product from competitors.
• Brand definition should be consistent and reinforced
in all messaging from an organization.

Creative Brief • A document that defines expectations between

a marketer and an agency.
• As the name implies, a brief is concise but contains
essential information.
• It defines objectives and requirements for a
marketing campaign.

Gated Content • Any resource that requires users to provide some

information (such as name and email address) before
they are able to access the materials.

Campaign • A statement that establishes the intended outcome

Objective of a campaign.
• It should be focused, clear, and measurable.

Differentiator • A quality or trait that distinguishes a brand or product

General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

from its competitors.

• It’s also known as competitive advantage.

Storyboard • An early-stage visual representation of video content.

• It includes a design of what each scene will look like.

Adapting • Ways to effectively adjust creative materials to suit

Messaging different channels and customers.

Benchmarking • A practice of establishing foundations to make creative

decisions based on past performance.

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 Channels and Execution

Overview
Marketers should have an understanding of different traditional and digital channels
(e.g., print ads or social media) in order to achieve their objectives.

Key Concepts

Awareness • Whether or not people know about your

brand/product.
• Improving awareness means increasing the size
or improving the quality of the audience.
• Examples of awareness metrics include
fans/followers and reach (the number of people
who see your content).

Engagement • The interaction between users and brands.

• Some ways to measure engagement in digital
media are:
• Clicks (click-through rate)
• Conversions (conversion rate)
• Opens (open rate)
• Unsubscribes (unsubscribe rate)
• Shares (share rate)
• Some ways to measure engagement on
social media include:
• Twitter: Replies, retweets, favorites
• Facebook: Page likes, post likes, shares,
comments
• Pinterest: Repins, likes, comments
• LinkedIn: Interactions, likes, comments
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

• Instagram: Likes, comments, shares

• Snapchat: Total unique views, story
completions, completion rate, screenshots
• WeChat: Follows, messages, open rates,
purchases

Social Media • The process of gaining traffic or awareness by using

Marketing social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WeChat,
Google+, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

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 Direct • A form of direct outreach to individual consumers or
Marketing customers.
• Examples of direct marketing tactics include emails,
physical mail, catalogues, and text messages.

Display • Advertisements placed on different websites, apps, or

Marketing platforms. The practice tends to use images, graphics,
and sometimes audio and video to communicate a
message. audio and video to communicate a message.
• Types of display marketing ads include:
• Static: An ad that does not change
in appearance.
• Rich media: An ad featuring video, audio, or
other elements that encourage viewers to
interact with the content.

Digital Video • Online video content designed to attract and appeal

Marketing to customers.
• Examples include testimonials, how-tos, training
videos, and viral videos.

TV Marketing • Advertisements and content that can be run as

television commercials.
• It requires the consideration of the audience most likely
to watch television when the advertisement runs.

Content • Targeted, valuable materials shared with

Marketing relevant audiences to generate interest from
potential customers.
• Content marketing generally requires wait time
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

before seeing results and works best over time.

• Examples include blog posts, white papers,
infographics, and more.

Paid Search • Advertising done through paying for sponsored listings

Marketing/ in order to affect rank/placement in search results.
Search Engine • Paid search platforms include Google AdWords and
Marketing (SEM) Bing Ads.

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 Organic • The algorithmically generated results that come from
Search someone entering terms into a search engine. It does
not include paid placements.
• Placement on a search engine results page is
determined by factors such as relevance to the search
query, links, domain authority, and other factors.

Search Engine • The process of strategically refining online content to

Optimization improve ranking placement in organic search.
(SEO)

Influencers • Individuals with a large following through a

major audience channel, e.g., radio, television, or
social media.
• They don’t have to be celebrities; oftentimes they’re
known only within specific communities.
• Influencers with high recognition and reach (e.g.,
celebrities) are called macro-influencers.
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 Measurement & Analytics

Overview
Using data to measure performance and impact helps marketers identify
opportunities for improvement. Marketers need to understand how to collect and
analyze relevant data in order to make informed decisions. Typical metrics measure
a customer’s overall value, progression through the marketing funnel, and satisfaction.

Key Concepts

Key Performance • A measurable value that indicates progress toward

Indicator (KPI) meeting key objectives.
• A KPI should be “SMART:”
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Attribution • A tactic that determines which interactions a customer

Modeling has had with different channels, or touchpoints, that
have influenced a consumer conversion.
• Marketers decide which type of attribution model
(e.g., single- or multi-touch) is aligned with their data
capabilities and will best help evaluate progress on
campaign goals.

Single-Touch • A practice that assigns 100% of conversion credit to

Attribution one touchpoint.
• Some examples include:
• First-touch attribution: Credit is assigned to
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

the first touchpoint in the customer journey.

• Last-touch attribution: Credit is assigned to the
last touchpoint in the customer journey.
• Last non-direct click attribution: Ignores direct
traffic and gives full credit to the last channel
before conversion.

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 Multi-Touch • Assigning values to several touchpoints that occur
Attribution before a potential customer converts, i.e., becomes an
actual customer.
• Some examples include:
• Linear attribution: Distributes the credit of the
sale evenly to all of the touchpoints along the
conversion funnel.
• Time-decay attribution: Gives more value to
the touchpoints that happen closer to the sale.
• Position-based attribution: Credits more to the
first and last touchpoints.
• Algorithmic attribution: Uses statistics and
machine learning to determine the weight of
the different touchpoints.

Customer • A prediction of how profitable a customer’s long-term

Lifetime Value relationship with the company will be.
(LTV or CLTV) • CLV = (Customer Value) x (Average Customer Lifespan)

Customer • The cost of converting a potential client to a customer.

Acquisition Cost • CAC = (Total Marketing Costs) / (Acquisitions)
(CAC)

Cost Per • The cost of acquiring a potential customer.

Acquisition • CPA differs from customer acquisition cost because
(CPA) an acquisition may not necessarily be a customer. For
example, an acquisition could be confirmed interest
from a potential customer (e.g., a subscriber to your
newsletter), or a user who signed up for a free trial.
• CPA = (Campaign Costs) / (Number of Conversions)
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

Click-Through • The percentage of users who clicked on a specific link

Rate (CTR) in your marketing materials.
• CTR = (Clicks) / (Number of Impressions)

Cost Per • The cost to have 1,000 impressions (i.e., views of your
Thousand/Cost ad) on a webpage.
Per Mille (CPM) • CPM = 1,000 x [(Total Cost) / (Total Impressions)]

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 Return on • The profit made from an investment.
Investment • ROI = (Investment Gains - Investment Cost) /
(ROI) (Investment Cost)

Return on Ad • Helps measure the performance of a paid marketing

Spend (ROAS) campaign.
• ROAS = (Gross Revenue) / (Total Costs)

Data-Driven • Marketers collect data from different sources and must

Decision Making be able to apply this information toward reaching their
goals. They’ll want to consider:
• The accuracy of the data.
• The size of the sample represented in the data.
• Whether or not the sample is representative of
the target population.
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 Marketing Technology

Overview
Knowing how to use the right digital tools can make it easier for marketers to launch
effective campaigns. The wealth of technology currently available can help marketers
with a variety of tasks, such as data collection and customer experience improvement.

Key Concepts

Marketing • Software that helps reduce the amount of human labor

Automation required, e.g., sending automated emails based on
where a customer is in the customer journey.
• While marketing automation tools are intended to save
time and streamline processes, marketers need to think
critically about how to properly integrate them.

Customer • Software that helps marketers effectively manage

Relationship customer relationships.
Management • Different systems will vary in features, but all are
(CRM) Software designed
to help store customer data at different points in the
customer journey.
• CRM software is a key tool that facilitates collaboration
between marketing and sales teams by keeping
information organized and accessible.

Web Analytics • Statistics that help marketers understand and quantify

performance. Marketers often measure factors like
traffic (visitors), leads (potential customers), and sales
(purchasers) on their website.
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

• Examples of common web analytics platforms include

Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, and Looker.

Programmatic • The use of software to streamline and automate

Advertising elements of digital advertising purchasing.
• Programmatic advertising software helps with search
engine marketing (SEM).

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 Machine • A branch of data science that gives computers the
Learning (ML) ability to analyze massive data sets and predict
increasingly accurate outcomes.
• Machine learning can help marketers analyze results
faster, automate certain processes, and optimize
campaigns in real time.

Personally • Information that can be used to identify a specific

Identifiable individual, e.g., home address, email address, full
Information (PII) name, or national identification number.
• There are certain restrictions on how marketers can
collect and use personally identifiable information.

A/B Testing • The practice of showing two versions of something

(an “A” and a “B”) to different sets of users to see which
one is more effective at driving behaviors, like opening
an email or clicking on a call-to-action button.
• Also known as split testing, this is one of the most
common and effective ways to get the right message
to the right consumer.
• Multivariate testing uses the same mechanism as
A/B testing but compares more variables (e.g.,
versions “A”, “B”, and “C”).
General Assembly Certified Marketer Level 1: Study Guide

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