ProFeed #1 – The Role of an Account Manager

Let’s begin our overview of the different roles at Feed Manager!

Today, we are opening our doors and taking you behind the scenes of the Feed Manager adventure! For this first episode, we introduce you to Baptiste, Account Manager. He tells us about his day-to-day life at the agency and what his job is really like in practice.

What Is an Account Manager?

The Account Manager is responsible for the product feeds of their client portfolio: they must ensure that they are up to date, of good quality, and adapted to the different distribution channels. Within the agency, these may include acquisition channels (Google Shopping, comparison shopping engines, etc.), marketplaces (Amazon, Cdiscount, ManoMano, etc.), or more specific feeds (custom feeds for particular needs).

They suggest optimizations to help their clients achieve their objectives and support them with their various needs.

They are proactive and suggest the latest developments to their clients. Their role is really to be the client’s main point of support for everything related to feeds and product performance across the different platforms.

1. Who Are You?

Baptiste, 25 years old, passionate about video games and digital technology since I was very young (we used to call it “IT,” I swear). I’ve been in Bordeaux for 5 years, and this is my 2nd year at Feed Manager.

2. Can You Describe Your Background in a Few Sentences?

My background is fairly conventional: it all started in first grade… No, more seriously, I followed an educational path that quite a lot of people take today. I obtained my BAC ES (Economics and Social Sciences, for the younger readers). I actually learned not long ago that BAC S, ES, and L no longer exist. So now I feel old, but I’m happy to be part of history. After that, I spent some time studying for a DUT in Marketing Techniques, then attended a business school specializing in the digital economy, ESCEN in Bordeaux. That’s when I joined Feed Manager, during the first year of my master’s degree, as an Assistant Traffic Manager for 1 year, before leaving to try new things (professionally, of course)! Eventually, I returned to Feed Manager in January 2020, so I’ve now been back for about 1 year.

3. What Does a Typical Day Look Like for You?

There isn’t really a typical day! That’s a good thing for me because I don’t like being confined to the same tasks all day long. Obviously, some tasks need to be carried out every day, such as checking the status of feeds and their updates, but generally speaking, no two days are alike! For example, you might spend part of the day optimizing the quality of a feed, then work on improving a marketplace product catalog, and then think about the business strategy to adopt with a client. It really depends on the clients and the time of year. Sales periods or Black Friday, for example, can be… intense!

4. What Are the 3 Qualities You Think Are Important for This Job?

If I had to choose 3 important qualities, I would say you need to be organized, thorough, and curious.

• Organized, because on busy days there can be a lot of topics to deal with, and a lack of organization can quickly become a problem amid the flow of information. This is actually something I personally had to work on, and I managed to use the right tools to improve in this area.
• Thorough, too, because we work with data, with data flows (or feeds). A small mistake can have major consequences, so you need to know how to check your own work and be precise in what you implement.
• And finally, curious: taking an interest in what you do and digging deeper to understand it. I would even say that curiosity is one of the most valuable qualities you can have when managing feeds and working on catalogs you don’t know. But being curious also means taking an interest in clients and working with them on what could improve their performance. Ultimately, being curious and involved already means doing a large part of the job.

5. What Do You Like Most?

It’s quite personal; every Account Manager has their own preferences. Personally, there are two aspects of my job that I particularly enjoy today:

• The client relationship: understanding their needs, discussing the issues they encounter with them, but also our own, understanding their strategy and becoming part of it, and sharing our knowledge of feed management with them so that they can also become involved in the feed optimization process. Building a healthy relationship based on trust.
• The satisfaction of seeing everything work: optimizing a feed or a process so that everything works together automatically is satisfying. It may sound silly when put like that, but just like a developer who manages to solve a problem or create a working script, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing all the feeds work together.

Oh yes, and at Feed, we have a foosball table.

6. What Surprised You?

I would say the flexibility: you need to know how to adapt to every situation and every platform. You also need to be flexible and switch from one client to another, which means adapting to different types of products, different markets, and sometimes even different countries. That’s why being thorough and organized can greatly help when managing all your clients and all your feeds.

7. What Is the Difference Between Being an Account Manager at Feed Manager and Elsewhere?

Feed Manager is now part of a larger group: Labelium. This allows us to retain the “start-up” spirit that I have always known and loved at Feed Manager, while benefiting from the opportunities a large group offers in terms of mobility, tools, and expertise. It was very important to me to be able to grow within a human-sized company with ambition.

We also have a “family” side to our relationships. The values passed on by Maxime (editor’s note: Doreau, founder of the agency) when the agency was created 10 years ago are still the same, and you can feel it both in our relationships and in our work. People are trusted and given responsibilities, while everyone remains available and supportive to help them progress, learn, and become experts in a field where there isn’t really any formal “school” training.

A large number of Account Managers and Team Leaders started out as Assistants or Account Managers before progressing. We look for people rather than qualifications, and that can make a big difference in the end.

Being at Feed Manager also means having the opportunity to develop in the areas that motivate us: everyone has their own interests and aspects of the job that they prefer. Some people will be more comfortable working with marketplaces, while others will prefer comparison shopping/acquisition feeds, for example. The goal isn’t to steer people toward the company’s needs, even though that may sometimes be necessary, but to give everyone the opportunity to express themselves through the channels they enjoy working on and to train people in that direction. I’d say everyone charts their own course, if I wanted to be cheesy, but I won’t do that (laughs).

A Final Word? What Could We Wish You for the Future?

I would say that being at Feed Manager is above all an opportunity to work in a human-sized agency while being part of a larger group. As for the future, I hope to diversify my skills, for example by mastering more aggregators and/or tools, and to continue contributing to the agency’s development after what has fortunately been a rather intense year for us. I’m also looking forward to returning to the office as soon as possible so I can finally get out of my cave!

By the way, did I mention that we have a foosball table?

By the way, if you want to join us, don’t hesitate to contact us at: contact@feed-manager.com or via Welcome to the Jungle. We’re always looking for new talent!