Top 12 Assistant Media Planner Skills to Put on Your Resume
Media planning moves fast. Resumes that stick don’t just list tools—they show fluency, judgment, and the habit of turning messy data into sharp decisions. Pack in the skills below, make them tangible with outcomes, and you’ll read like someone who can thread campaigns through shifting budgets and audiences without blinking.
Assistant Media Planner Skills
- Google Analytics (GA4)
- Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
- Excel
- Tableau
- Semrush
- Photoshop
- SQL
- PowerPoint
- Hootsuite
- Salesforce
- Nielsen Ratings
- Google Marketing Platform (formerly DoubleClick)
1. Google Analytics (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 tracks user behavior across sites and apps through event-based measurement, surfacing insights that steer targeting, creative, and budget allocation.
Why It's Important
GA4 reveals what channels and moments actually move people to convert. Cleaner attribution. Cohort views. Custom explorations. It turns campaigns from guesswork to grounded adjustments.
How to Improve Google Analytics Skills
Lock in measurement: Define primary conversions, standardize event names and parameters, and use consistent UTM tagging.
Explorations that matter: Build funnels, pathing, and segment comparisons that mirror your media objectives, not vanity metrics.
Audience precision: Create remarketing and predictive audiences; test inclusion/exclusion logic tied to campaign stages.
Connect the stack: Link to Google Ads and BigQuery; monitor data freshness, cost import accuracy, and attribution settings.
Data hygiene: Filter internal traffic, deduplicate events, and audit cross-domain tracking.
Report lean: Build concise dashboards for CPA, ROAS, assisted conversions, and time-to-convert—then automate delivery.
How to Display Google Analytics Skills on Your Resume
2. Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
Meta Ads Manager powers targeted campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network, with robust targeting, creative testing, and conversion tracking.
Why It's Important
Scale and specificity. Strong optimization. Fast signal loops. It’s a cornerstone for reach, retargeting, and cost-efficient acquisition.
How to Improve Facebook Ads Skills
Sharper audiences: Build core, custom, and lookalike audiences grounded in clean first-party data.
Test in slices: A/B test hooks, formats, and CTAs; isolate variables and cap tests at one major change at a time.
Creative that scroll-stops: Mobile-first framing, clear value in three seconds, subtitles on, safe margins.
Measurement backbone: Implement Meta Pixel plus Conversions API; reconcile server and browser events to reduce signal loss.
Automation wisely: Leverage Advantage+ placements and campaigns; constrain with budget caps and guardrail audiences.
Landing page fit: Speed, relevance, and frictionless forms; monitor drop-off and align creative-to-page promise.
Budget pacing: Shift spend toward ad sets with stable CPA and healthy frequency; throttle when fatigue creeps in.
How to Display Facebook Ads Skills on Your Resume
3. Excel
Excel is the planner’s daily workbench—budgets, pacing, forecasting, QA, and post-buys—built on formulas, pivots, and clean structure.
Why It's Important
When data sprawls, Excel brings order. It speeds checks, exposes anomalies, and turns raw logs into lucid, client-ready views.
How to Improve Excel Skills
Modern functions: Master XLOOKUP, FILTER, UNIQUE, SUMIFS, INDEX/MATCH, and dynamic arrays for flexible models.
Pivot mastery: Build nested pivots with calculated fields; group dates for weekly pacing and YoY comparisons.
Power Query + Power Pivot: Automate imports, reshape messy files, relate tables, and refresh with a click.
Charts that persuade: Use clean axis scales, minimal ink, and annotations that tell the “so what.”
Macros/VBA: Automate repetitive QA, naming, and formatting tasks; standardize templates.
Scenario planning: Data Tables and Goal Seek for bid/budget sensitivities; keep assumptions centralized.
How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume
4. Tableau
Tableau turns fragmented performance data into interactive dashboards, sharpening decisions with drill-downs, filters, and stories that clients actually understand.
Why It's Important
Visuals accelerate alignment. Tableau compresses complex, multi-channel performance into patterns you can act on quickly.
How to Improve Tableau Skills
Data modeling first: Clean joins, correct data types, sensible grain—then build visuals.
Design with intent: Use color sparingly, highlight outliers, and build views that mirror KPI hierarchies.
Parameters + actions: Add interactivity for budget scenarios, geography toggles, and funnel stage drilling.
Performance tuning: Extracts over live when needed, index fields, and limit quick filters to keep dashboards snappy.
Version control: Document data sources, calculations, and refresh cadence; publish with clear ownership.
How to Display Tableau Skills on Your Resume
5. Semrush
Semrush surfaces keyword demand, competitor moves, and SERP dynamics, helping you plan smarter search and content strategies that feed paid and organic performance.
Why It's Important
It reveals the battlefield—who ranks, who pays, where gaps exist—so budgets chase real opportunity, not assumptions.
How to Improve SEMrush Skills
Keyword expansion: Build clustered themes around intent; map to funnel stages and landing pages.
Competitor sweeps: Track share of voice, ad copy angles, and landing page patterns; borrow what works, outflank the rest.
PPC hygiene: Curate negatives, sculpt match types, and mine search terms for winners and wastes.
Position tracking: Monitor target terms by device and location; tie movement back to media and content changes.
Market sizing: Use trend and volume estimates to guide budget allocations across channels.
How to Display SEMrush Skills on Your Resume
6. Photoshop
Photoshop shapes the visuals—cropping, retouching, resizing, and adapting creative to spec without slowing the media machine.
Why It's Important
Creative fit affects results. Fast tweaks to aspect ratios, file sizes, and brand tweaks can lift CTR and protect pace.
How to Improve Photoshop Skills
Ad-spec fluency: Build presets for platform sizes, safe zones, and compression settings.
Non-destructive workflow: Smart Objects, adjustment layers, and masks to iterate without starting over.
Text and contrast: Legible fonts, strong hierarchy, and accessible color contrast for small screens.
Batching: Automate resizing and exports; organize with layer comps for variants.
Export discipline: WebP/PNG/JPG decisions, color profiles, and file naming conventions that sync with trafficking.
How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume
7. SQL
SQL queries the truth from big, messy datasets—spend, impressions, conversions, audiences—so planning isn’t blindfolded.
Why It's Important
Direct access to data means faster answers. Cleaner joins. Fewer errors. Better strategy, sooner.
How to Improve SQL Skills
Core fluency: SELECT, JOINs, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, window functions; write readable queries.
Index sense: Understand how indexes and query plans affect performance; filter early, project only what you need.
Data modeling: Know your grain, keys, and slowly changing dimensions; prevent double-counting.
QA rigor: Reconcile sums to source, test edge cases, and log assumptions in comments.
Real projects: Build audience overlaps, dedupe user IDs, and stitch campaign logs into clean fact tables.
How to Display SQL Skills on Your Resume
8. PowerPoint
PowerPoint packages the story—insights, plans, and results—into decks that win trust and budget.
Why It's Important
Great work needs great delivery. Clear visuals and tight flow turn analysis into buy-in.
How to Improve PowerPoint Skills
Template discipline: Consistent styles, grids, and iconography; slide masters that keep decks tidy.
Data-first slides: Charts that highlight trends and decisions; minimal text, strong labels.
Story arc: Problem, insight, plan, forecast, proof—one idea per slide, purposeful transitions.
Motion with restraint: Use Morph and simple builds to reveal logic, not distract.
Speaker practice: Rehearse timing and tone; use Speaker Coach feedback where available.
How to Display PowerPoint Skills on Your Resume
9. Hootsuite
Hootsuite centralizes social scheduling, monitoring, and analytics, keeping calendars organized and conversations in view.
Why It's Important
It saves time and prevents scatter. One dashboard to plan, publish, listen, and report across platforms.
How to Improve Hootsuite Skills
Streams that matter: Build keyword, mention, and competitor streams; prioritize by response urgency.
Calendar hygiene: Establish posting cadences, approvals, and asset libraries; tag content by campaign.
UTM discipline: Auto-apply standardized UTMs for accurate downstream analytics.
Analytics drills: Track reach, engagement rate, CTR, and assisted conversions; pivot by format and channel.
Team workflows: Roles, permissions, and Inbox assignments; codify response SLAs and escalation paths.
Test and learn: Systematically trial copy angles, posting times, and formats; roll winners into playbooks.
How to Display Hootsuite Skills on Your Resume
10. Salesforce
Salesforce is the CRM backbone for tracking prospects, clients, and campaign touchpoints—connecting media activity to pipeline and revenue.
Why It's Important
It stitches together marketing and sales. Cleaner attribution, clearer ROI narratives, and fewer handoff gaps.
How to Improve Salesforce Skills
Customize for media: Create fields and objects for campaigns, flighting, budgets, and outcomes; standardize picklists.
Dashboards that drive: Build role-based views for KPIs—leads, opp influence, cost per stage, revenue velocity.
Integrations: Connect ad platforms and analytics; ensure IDs line up for end-to-end tracking.
Automate with Flow: Replace legacy Workflow/Process Builder; streamline approvals, alerts, and data sync tasks.
Data governance: Validation rules, dedupe processes, permission sets, and routine hygiene audits.
How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume
11. Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen Ratings—now expanded through Nielsen ONE—measure audience size and composition across TV and digital, guiding smarter video investments.
Why It's Important
You place ads where the audience actually is. Better reach curves, smarter dayparting, and cross-platform clarity.
How to Improve Nielsen Ratings Skills
Define the bullseye: Lock primary demos and secondaries; plan for reach, frequency, and effective CPM, not just spots.
Schedule with intent: Use daypart and program affinity; avoid frequency bloat with balanced rotations.
Cross-platform view: Include streaming/CTV; dedupe reach where possible for a truer footprint.
Quality over tonnage: Favor contexts with higher attention and fit; monitor creative wear-out.
Post-buys that teach: Compare planned vs. delivered, adjust placements, and reforecast mid-flight.
How to Display Nielsen Ratings Skills on Your Resume
12. Google Marketing Platform (formerly DoubleClick)
DoubleClick has evolved into Google Marketing Platform—primarily Campaign Manager 360 (ad serving/trafficking) and Display & Video 360 (programmatic buying).
Why It's Important
Unified trafficking, verification, and reporting. Cleaner floodlight measurement. Programmatic control with brand safety built in.
How to Improve DoubleClick Skills
Get certified: Complete CM360 and DV360 coursework; learn policy, QA, and trafficking standards.
Trafficking rigor: Naming conventions, placement structures, and version control to keep campaigns tidy.
Floodlight architecture: Map activities and custom variables to your funnel; verify deduplication logic.
Brand safety: Apply inventory controls, suitability tiers, and allow/block lists; audit reports regularly.
Optimization loops: Use frequency caps, audience layering, and creative rotation rules; shift bids to inventory that proves lift.
Reporting depth: Build dashboards for reach, viewability, CPA/ROAS, and pathing; reconcile with platform-of-truth analytics.
How to Display DoubleClick Skills on Your Resume
