Digital Marketing: Succeed in Your Internship or Apprenticeship and Build a Portfolio

One sector, several different jobs

Under the label “digital marketing” you find activities that call for very different skills. Search engine optimisation requires method, writing and a technical reading of websites. Paid advertising on search engines and social networks calls for numerical analysis. Community management rests on creating content and listening. Email marketing and automation involve managing contact databases. Web analytics, finally, means measuring what really happens on a site or an app.

One internship advert can mix several of these tasks, especially in a small organisation. That is a chance to explore, but also a risk of spreading yourself too thin. Before accepting, ask which channel will be your priority and which actions you will run from start to finish.

The companies that recruit are just as varied: advertisers of all sizes, communications and online advertising agencies, consulting firms, software publishers, online shops, charities and local authorities. Each setting gives a different pace, a different level of independence and different budgets.

Internship or work-study: the practical difference

In France, an internship forms part of a course and lasts at most six months in the same company. It is governed by an agreement between the student, the school or university and the host organisation. It is paid (gratification) beyond two months of attendance; under the rules applying in 2026, the legal minimum is 4.50 euros per hour, and many agencies and advertisers offer more.

Work-study rests on an employment contract, either an apprenticeship or a professionalisation contract. You are an employee, you alternate periods in the company with periods of classes, and your pay depends on your age, your year of study and the type of contract; it is set by regulations and changes, which is why you should check it with the training centre or the employer. The length is that of the course, often one to two years.

For a career in digital marketing, work-study lets you follow campaigns over several months and see the effect of adjustments. An internship is useful for trying out a job, testing a sector or building up short experiences.

Choosing your channel and setting an objective

A successful internship starts with a simple sentence: “in six months, this channel must produce this action for this audience.” For example: increase the number of quote requests coming from the website, make a new range known to young adults, or reduce the cost of acquiring a subscription. Without a stated objective, content gets produced and nobody knows how to judge whether it works.

To frame the assignment with your tutor, three questions are enough:

1. Who is the target audience, and at what point in their journey?
2. Which channel will be used, with what budget or workload?
3. What action is expected: visit, sign up, buy, recommend?

Write the answers down in your first week. You will use them later to structure your portfolio and to explain your choices in interviews.

Common assignments by specialism

Here are typical assignments, to be adapted to the size of the organisation:

• Search optimisation: page audits, keyword research, writing or rewriting content, tracking rankings and traffic.
• Online advertising: preparing ads, testing visuals and messages, monitoring spend, analysing performance by campaign.
• Social media: editorial calendar, creating posts, moderation, first feedback on interactions.
• Email: segmenting a list, writing a message, testing the subject line, reading open and click rates.
• Analytics: setting up tracking, building dashboards, a weekly commented summary.

An apprentice often takes on a wider and longer-lasting remit: running an account, managing a modest budget, following a content programme across the year. An intern is more often given an operation that is limited in time.

Reading the numbers without making them say anything you like

The trickiest part of the job is not getting numbers but interpreting them. A single indicator says almost nothing. You need to tell three levels apart: visibility (impressions, reach), interaction (clicks, reactions, time spent) and conversion (sign-up, enquiry, purchase). A post that is widely seen but followed by no action does not have the same effect as a little-seen piece of content that triggers enquiries.

Here is a fictional example, with round figures. A small online shop runs an ad for two weeks. It gets 10,000 impressions, 200 clicks and 10 purchases. The click-through rate is 2%, and the visitor conversion rate is 5%. These ratios only mean something when compared with a previous period, with another ad or with an objective set at the start.

Be careful about causation too. If sales rise during the campaign, that may also reflect a season, a promotion or an event. Describe what the data allow you to conclude and what they leave open.

Building a portfolio you can defend

A convincing digital marketing portfolio shows few projects, but well documented ones. For each, give the context, the objective, the target, what you personally did, the adjustments made after observation and what you take from it. A screenshot with no explanation proves very little.

A few simple rules:

• ask the company for permission before publishing a figure, an image or a client name;
• distinguish what was your work from what the team did;
• check the usage rights of the images, fonts and music you used;
• do not inflate results: an experienced recruiter quickly spots a spectacular rise with no explanation;
• include a personal project, such as a small website or a newsletter, to show your independence.

Sign-off before publication is part of the job. Showing that you know your company’s review procedure is more reassuring than claiming total freedom.

Training and proving your skills

Several routes lead to these jobs: the BUT in marketing techniques (techniques de commercialisation), professional bachelor’s degrees devoted to web analytics, master’s degrees in marketing, business schools and specialised courses in digital communication. Many are run as work-study. At a comparable level of qualification, employers value those who can show concrete achievements.

Publishers’ platforms offer free certification paths on their advertising and analytics tools. They do not replace a degree, but they prove you took the time to understand how the tools work. Complement them with practice: running a small campaign on a modest budget for a charity or a personal project is a formative exercise.

As for qualities, recruiters look at curiosity, writing, rigour with numbers and the ability to adapt, because platforms and distribution rules change regularly.

Applying and avoiding common mistakes

When you apply, tailor each application. A letter that briefly comments on one of the company’s recent campaigns, suggesting a cautious line of improvement, stands out from many generic messages. Put a link to your portfolio in the CV rather than in the body of the message, and check that it works on a phone.

The recurring mistakes are these:

• applying everywhere without having chosen a specialism;
• presenting results with no objective and no point of comparison;
• underestimating the relationship with other departments: sales, customer service, management;
• publishing without sign-off or without checking the rights to an image;
• accepting an internship where the job is limited to posting content, with no analysis and no supervision.

Timing: work-study offers are published fairly early in the year before the new academic year starts, whereas internships are usually recruited a few months before they begin. Start your search in advance and keep a record of your exchanges with each company.