Interview with Steph Wan, Paid Media Manager at Snaptech

If you’ve been following along with our Interviews with the Experts series, you may have noticed one glaring similarity thus far: all of our interviews have been with men. It’s time for a fresh perspective, not only from a woman, but from a team member who has risen through the ranks from intern to manager, often defining her role and creating processes for others to follow. 

I don’t know how to not heap praise on Steph at this point. Working with her for the past 5+ years has been so amazing; I have so much gratitude for it. Being able to share clients with her and coordinate on strategies has made us a dream team, and I am just so happy for our relationship both in and outside of Snaptech.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce her to whoever is reading this.

What is your role, and what typically, are your responsibilities?

Yes, so I am a Paid Media Manager, and I’ve been in this role long enough that I can say my title without messing it up, which I’m very proud of. But I guess to put it as simply as possible, I have two parts to my role. The first is client-related; I work on and develop digital marketing strategies on the paid side of things: Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, those kinds of platforms for clients to make sure that what we’re doing is aligned with their overall business and marketing goals.

On the other side of my job is a lot of internal team-related things. I manage onboarding for new paid team members, train interns (like the BCIT intern week and other interns we get every year), mentor junior team members, and ensure collaboration across departments. There’s also corporate, which I guess falls under team.

You started at Snaptech as an intern and are now a manager. What has that journey been like, and what have you learned along the way?

It’s been a relatively long journey, but very speedy as well, especially at the beginning. It’s very–I want to say it’s still a bit–strange going from the person doing all the daily tasks, asking the questions because they came into a job with the only background I had when I first started was just the certifications that I took online and some light reading about digital marketing and terminology, all that, to then being the one to guide strategies and help team members develop strategies for clients. It’s a very, very big shift. A lot of learning on the way, a lot of feeling imposter syndrome as well, but very rewarding.

To me, I’ve always been the type of person who wants to progress, grow, learn more, do better, and adapt. It made sense that my path forward was moving up in the company. Apart from that, I want to say that a good chunk of it is really believing in yourself and making sure you have set boundaries and goals so that you don’t get lost along the way. One thing I’ve learned, especially early on, is learning from everybody else on the team. The great thing about digital marketing is that there is a lot to do. There are a lot of things that change all the time; our industry is ever-evolving. It’s easy to silo yourself and pick a route and stick with it, but what will help you grow and improve and be better at the job is really taking opinions from everywhere, seeing how everybody does it, and then finding your own path. Because things can go from A to Z, every which way. It might not be the most efficient. Maybe it is efficient, but you won’t know that unless you really take in opinions from other people. And that’s really something that I did along my journey, learning from everybody on the team above and below.

Is there anything you would do differently?

I’ve been at this company for seven years now, so I feel like there have always been moments where I’m like, oh, I could have done this better, could have done more, could have…there’s always a could have, should have, would have. But I want to say, if anything, I wish I trusted my own instinct a lot sooner, which is funny because I feel like that could apply to life too, in general.

When you start with the mindset of “I’m a student, I’m just starting out, I don’t have that knowledge,” unlike people who’ve studied in the field, you come from a place of wanting to prove yourself. And then, having kept that mindset for so long, you kind of forget to reevaluate and remind yourself of what it is you’re already contributing. So I learned a while ago now that my 80% might be someone else’s 100%. So that’s maybe one thing I would have liked to remind myself along the way is to not forget about how much you bring to the table and to make sure to use that as a basis for your own boundaries and your own kind of direction and goals for where you want to be headed, as well as it’s helpful for discussions.

What made you want to intern at Snaptech, especially as you weren’t coming through BCIT’s internship program?

I was coming out of university in a Science program, knowing that if I were to continue my studies in that field, it would be more years of school. Mentally, I was drained and, of course, financially very poor. I had a few friends who were already in the field, who told me that they could see me finding a lot of success in this field because of my science background and especially since they knew I did quite enjoy the data analysis portion of my studies. They thought the transition would be pretty seamless and encouraged me to just test it out by finding an internship, because why not? It gets your foot in the door, and you get hands-on experience for at least, I guess, three-ish months. I didn’t intern through the BCIT program, so mine was the length of the probationary period. I gave it a go, and I stayed.

Knowing that you’ve helped shape a lot of what our current internship program looks like, what was your internship experience like in terms of tasks and learning?

I feel like there’s a reason that I took it upon myself to help improve our internship program at Snaptech. When I joined, I actually am not sure how many or if there were very many, interns that came before me at the company, but there wasn’t much of a structure at all. The one thing I am thankful for, and I know I mentioned this earlier, was that opportunity to learn from multiple people. So I was trained by almost every senior person on the team at the time.

I did learn a lot through hands-on teaching and learning, but I still remember when I would receive a task that only had a title with terminology I did not understand. Sorry to throw you under the bus, Jeremy, but this one sticks in my mind. I remember he gave me a task that went along the lines of just “display placement exclusions”. That’s it. That was the description I got. And I don’t know how long I was at the company at the time or how many weeks I was into my internship, but I remember reading that and being like, okay, I know what display ads are. I know that placements are where ads show up. But what do I do with this?

It was a lot of proactive learning on my part to understand things, filling in the gaps where I could before approaching and asking those questions. So I want to say back then, a lot of it fell on me to make sure I had everything I needed. I asked a lot of questions. Through that, I think the company was all the better for it because I helped identify gaps. And then when I moved up in the company, I was like, you know what? Now I get to decide for everybody else.

How do you think your Sciences background helped when it came to learning marketing?

Paid Media is really an example of the scientific method with a budget. We as strategists, and I know the SEO side is pretty similar, too- form a hypothesis, backed up by experience, of “okay, this is what I think would work based on the information I have”. You run the test by running the campaigns, creating the campaigns, doing the research. You look at the variables, at the data, and from there, you see if it works or it didn’t work, and tweak and redo the whole thing all over again. To me, that is science. That lens helps me a lot in the industry. And, of course, looking at spreadsheets and data and numbers is something I was used to, so that’s also very similar.

Did you always want to do Paid Media when you got into marketing? And, if so, what do you have against SEO?

No jazz here. Actually, I was put into it. Unlike our internships nowadays, I wasn’t actually offered to do both SEO and Paid Media. So I didn’t gain that experience of figuring out which I preferred or if there was one I preferred. They saw me working great with numbers, and I mean, compared to SEO, Paid is all about numbers and budgets. So I didn’t really have the choice of figuring out what it is that I preferred. Nothing against SEO, I actually am so thankful that I got the opportunity to learn SEO later on because there are aspects of it that I enjoy. I want to say maybe even a little bit more than Paid, but there are definitely things that are not what I am good or strong at that I know you are, for example, content and doing things like this is not something that I am the best at. If I were to do it, it would take me 10 times as long to get anywhere near the same kind of results and level of quality.

This question feels a bit odd now because of recent changes in the team, but I think it’s still true.

As the most senior woman on the team, and often the only woman in the leadership meetings, do you feel that you have an equal seat at the table as everyone else? And do you feel that your voice is heard?

Sophie, I have feelings. I have feelings about this, and honestly, I know my view on it has evolved from the start to now, but also it’s not necessarily because things have changed as a whole, more that I have adapted. I feel I need to start by saying that, being the only woman in, I mean, up until a few weeks ago, being the only woman in that kind of leadership position, being part of those leadership meetings, contributing to those conversations, I feel like it changes the dynamic a whole lot. If I were to honestly answer it in a very concise way, I would say, no, it doesn’t always feel like an equal seat at the table. I know that I’ve earned that seat, and I know that our leadership team and the rest of the team know I’ve earned the seat, so that’s not a question. But, regardless of the facts, I feel like there will always be certain biases and even just inherent things that have been prevalent in society when it comes to how women and men are viewed that will play a role in it. And being a woman who has navigated a lot of life ups and downs with different groups of people, from school to personal, you’re more hyper-aware of those differences.

I feel like, unfortunately, from a very young age, women do tend to learn to–whether they know it or not–constantly adjust how we speak, how we deliver, you know, normally softening delivery and adapting to fit into spaces so that we are not perceived, for example, and this is probably a classic, but the idea of like if I were to say something quite direct and open and very fair and honest, even written in fact, there’s a high chance that I’ll be viewed as pushy when the exact same behaviour in a male peer would just be perceived as standard, a decisive person in leadership. So, going into leadership with a group of men, you have all of that at the back of your mind. Whether it’s true or not really depends on who you’re with. But again, regardless of whether it’s very upfront and blatantly apparent, those biases live under the surface. So yeah, it’s hard.

I also feel like, compared to other people, I’m wired a little bit differently than the rest of the leadership, putting gender aside; from a human perspective, I am wired quite differently. I often see things quite differently than the rest of the group. So then if I’m always the only one bringing in a new opinion or a new perspective, it does sometimes feel like everyone else is ganging up on me because they don’t see it. That’s something that I had a hard time navigating at the start, continuously bringing things up regardless of being the only one, not, you know, expressing that one opinion. Again, it just so happens that I’m also the only woman. So it’s hard to kind of draw the line of “okay, is it just because I’m thinking differently or is it really because there are some biases here playing a role in how people are taking my opinion.”

On that note, do you feel your voice is heard?

I want to say with this team, yes. Again, at the start, I think maybe I was a little bit more reserved with how I approached and brought up my opinion. But nowadays, I’m just unapologetically going to say what I have to say if I need to say it. I still feel like I pick and choose my battles just because there are times when I feel like it’s not worth putting in the effort, knowing there is a high chance that it probably won’t go anywhere, if you know what I mean. So if I feel strongly enough about something or if there is something that I feel like would benefit the team more than the struggle of getting through, I’ll choose that battle. I also want to say that the best part about being in leadership is having an ally. I feel like of all the people in leadership, Jeremy is the one who’s the most open to hearing alternative opinions and actually appreciates hearing a different side of things. So in that sense, yes, I do feel heard.

(You can read Jeremy’s interview here)

What would you change if you could?

Ideally, for any company, there would be more of a mix. I would not be alone. That’s number one. If I could rearrange everything and puppeteer every aspect of the workforce, that would be something I would ensure. But unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that. People come with different experiences and circumstances; the number of roles available, especially in a small company, all play into that. So a more realistic approach would probably be to make sure there is some form of training for leadership to better recognize communication biases, gaps, and even just a little bit of introspection into how you approach situations and how you present yourself in the workplace, knowing our composition. That goes beyond the typical how to be a leader.

I feel like there are a lot of training programs that are like “these are the traits of the leader. This is how to be a leader”, but it’s not conducive to making it a safe and equal space and all of the good stuff that is needed. I feel like there are tweaks that are needed. This is out of the blue, but it just popped into my head–one thing I have noticed, and this is not exclusive to the workforce, but a lot of men are way more emotional than women. They just don’t know it. And I feel like if there could be a mix of training on how to be in tune with oneself and your own emotions, it would be helpful in general for everybody. I feel like maybe because in society women are viewed as the emotional ones, we do a lot more reflecting on ourselves and how we approach things and how we do things and come about. And we put a lot of thought into that, especially when it comes to a professional setting. But in general, I feel like everybody could benefit from knowing themselves a little better. The added benefit of it you know yourself better; you’ll know if you’re maybe transitioning into burnout, and no one wants that because once you’re there, it’s hard to come back. But if you stop it along the way, it’s better for you. So I feel like that would help in every aspect of work and personal. I wish that could change. Ultimately, I feel like women shouldn’t be the ones bending to fit the room. The room needs to change.

I guess if you think about it, the qualities that people would attribute to a great leader always look good on a man. But if you put it on a woman, you’ll be like “she’s bossy, she’s asking for too much, she’s unyielding.” And no, because if you give those qualities to a man, he’s a go-getter. He’s getting that raise. He’s providing for his family. Women are providing for their family just as much. And we are providing much more of the mental work and taking on more of the mental load, too, to be checking our emotions, to be checking the emotions of the room, to make sure that we are delivering the work we need to do in a professional way, getting things done without offending anybody. Men can come in, offend anybody they want, and go about their day. Meanwhile, we are carrying that mental load, and it’s not fair.

Yep. I feel like men need to be taught how to see that there is a mental load, first off. And then how to take it off. From my end, I feel like we need to be more unapologetically open; we know the reaction we’re going to get is what it is, but we should do it anyway, is what I mean. I think something I learned to do is I stopped putting so much weight on that. I need to get my point across. This is how I should kind of manoeuvre it so that no one takes offence, or it’s not going to come back on me where someone’s thinking a certain way. That’s their problem; that’s my mentality about it. And I know it’s not something you can do in every situation, especially if you’re new or you don’t know the people you’re around. But at least where I am in leadership, I know everybody quite well. So I don’t feel like I need to hold back. If they start creating that negative perception of me after all these years, it’s clearly a them problem. Because there should be enough evidence that that’s not who I am. There’s a comfortability aspect to it that I’ve grown into, but again, it shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t take two or three years for you to then be able to more openly speak your opinion. It’s not that I couldn’t; it’s all of that in the background.

It took a long time to get there. As a lot of people in the company know, I went through a period of burnout. I didn’t take that long of a break; personally, I didn’t want to. I think one of the things that helps me a lot is mental compartmentalization. You know, work is work. When my email is closed, it is closed. So I started doing little things to make sure that I’m not constantly on; like, my brain is not constantly about work. For example, I close my email around an hour to an hour and a half before the end of my day. It gives me a buffer where I am not even worried about emails. If they come in, it can be a morning or afternoon thing the next day. That way, my brain has a cutoff point. I’ve made that part of my routine.

I also stopped centralizing work as the most important thing that takes up the most in my life. We spend a lot of hours at work, but I don’t make that my life. I know people talk about work-life balance all the time, but I don’t even think it’s necessarily about balance; it’s how you approach things. I know some people out there really do see a job as a way to make money so that they can fund their life. I think there’s a middle ground where you should at least find aspects of your job that you enjoy or the company you have at work. For me, I really enjoy working with you and collaborating on clients with you. The SEO team is really great. Even within my own team, again, I love getting the different opinions. I love hearing other people’s point of view. It’s such a collaborative kind of job. Why not lean into that? But if that’s all that is on your mind, it will lead to burnout. So even between my days, I make sure to have stuff that’s not work-related that keeps me happy. Snacks are a huge one. If I am stuck or if I feel like I’m in a rut or feeling unproductive, I take a break. I go, I grab myself a snack, and I’m happy again, and I start a new task or continue the task I’m on.

Do you have any tips for setting boundaries?

First off, you have to be very clear about what those boundaries are and for what reason. Write it down. It’s easy to say you have a boundary, but then flip-flop between what it is and how flexible you are with it. When you make a boundary, it’s a boundary. You shouldn’t have to be flexible. And if that ultimately leads to difficult conversations, have those conversations. In order to protect your own time, if it’s for work, treat it like a client meeting. If you realize that you’re not actually having time for lunch, put it in your calendar, block it off and actually leave your desk. There are little things you can do like that because we respect our calendar at Snaptech, even little things like answering an email within 24 hours. So why not do the same for things like your snack break, your lunch break, you know, 2 minutes where you’re not staring at a screen so that your eyes aren’t super dry.

Do you have any tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

It’s everyone’s journey to figure out what kind of balance you want. It’s easy enough to say balance, but what does that look like to you? I have friends who truly view their job as their passion. So for them, it’s not necessarily ensuring you have an end time. It’s just part of their life. But if you do need to make that separation, especially when we work from home, sometimes, you know, your desk is in the same place you eat and watch TV. Figuring out what it is that can mentally help you separate things is what I personally needed when I transitioned. Also, again, not to tie everything into work, but if I’m having a bad day at work, it tends to transition into my personal life or vice versa. Life gets hard, you know; you’re getting less sleep, you’re a little bit more stressed. Every little task that comes your way is an extra little thing added to your life. But being able to notice those patterns and then talk about them is very helpful because, especially in our team, we have very helpful seniors on our team and sometimes it’s literally just about talking about what it is that is keeping that heavy load and how to reshuffle things in order to make sure that mentally, everything kind of has its place and you can move on.

What do you think you’ve done to anger the technology spirits?

This is a question submitted by Jeremy.

No comment. Sorry, no comment.

Okay, I feel like everyone in the company knows, but I mean, for outside people, I have the tech touch of death for some reason. Technology does not like me, and I’m the one who encounters every issue you can imagine when it comes to things that can happen with a computer. What did I do? I don’t know. I thought long and hard about it. I feel like maybe this is the thing people talk about when they talk about life challenges that is supposed to bring some karmic rebalancing. Where my technology fails, it brings me a good story to talk about in the future.

I don’t know how to answer that. I actually don’t know what I did. I was just born like this. This is my luck. At this point, it’s like “what’s another life challenge you can face to help develop some character?” “You’re doing this task way too quickly. Let’s throw in the fact that your Chrome will just crash three times a day. Oh, what? You have a very, very important meeting where you’re trying to explain the next steps to clients. Let’s just have your mic die so you have to interpret what you want to say using gestures.”

I don’t know if Jeremy has any ideas. I’m taking ideas here. I can open up an anonymous Google form or something where people can drop comments as to why technology hates me. And if they think there’s a ritual or something out there, something I can do to reverse this, let me know because I feel like Snaptech would be very appreciative if I didn’t have so many tech issues. I’m sorry, Tech Lords, Google Gods, whoever is in charge of this. Let me know if you can hit me up with a sign of what it is you need me to do. I’m all ears. I’m up to trying almost anything. But I can’t really do my job without technology, so…