Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant: What They Do and Why Businesses Hire Them

A digital marketing virtual assistant is responsible for dealing with repetitive and execution-focused components of marketing, removing strategy from the founder’s plate without the need for hiring a permanent employee. Below is an explanation of the role and its performance criteria.

Table of Contents

What a Digital Marketing VA Actually Does

This job is different from general VA, it deals only with the following marketing tasks:

Planning and posting social media content
Simple graphic design based on pre-made templates (Canva and no custom design)
Email marketing: creating email campaigns, managing contacts and implementing basic automation
Blogging: formatting and publishing blogs (not always writing from scratch though sometimes both are required)
Conducting and tracking simple paid advertising campaigns
Reporting performance statistics
Light SEO work: keyword research assistance, on-page optimization audit and internal link building

The position is in between administration support and full-fledged marketing strategist, since they just implement a plan, but don’t create one.

Why Businesses Hire One

While most entrepreneurs understand the importance of marketing, not all have the luxury of time or skills necessary to do so effectively on an ongoing basis. Having a virtual assistant for digital marketing means that there will always be someone available who is focused solely on the process of creating content and sending out emails.

Core Tools to Know

Social media scheduling: Buffer, Later, Hootsuite
Email marketing tools: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Klaviyo
Graphic design: Canva (most popular), basic Adobe Express
Analytics: Google Analytics, built-in platform analytics (Meta, LinkedIn)
Basic SEO: Google Search Console, keyword research tools

How to Evaluate a Digital Marketing VA (If You’re Hiring)

1. Review Their Previous Work

Ask for examples of actual content, calendar or campaign that they’ve launched rather than a laundry list of tools.

2. Assess Their Understanding of Marketing Metrics

Ask for examples of actual content, calendar or campaign that they’ve launched rather than a laundry list of tools.

3. Define Your Expectations Clearly

Make sure that you discuss your requirements clearly at the beginning if you need execution or some strategy advice because the prices will be very different.

4. Begin With a Trial Project

Try working on a small test project first (like one month of social media content).

How to Break Into This Niche (If You’re a VA)

Build a mini portfolio managing your own or a testing account’s content calendar
Be really familiar with Canva and at least one scheduler before calling yourself an expert
Learn how to analyze basic numbers so that you can talk about your outcomes, not just deliverables
Focus on a specific platform or industry (e.g., “Instagram VA for coaches”) and not marketing in general

Realistic Pay Expectations

Digital marketing VAs tend to earn more than administrative VAs, ranging between $15 and $30 per hour depending on their experience and particular expertise such as paid ads and email automation.

Final Thoughts

Here’s where the digital marketing VA makes sense for the small business owner who needs to bridge the gap that kills many marketing attempts in small businesses, not a shortage of ideas but a shortage of consistent implementation. For the small business owner, there’s no point in waiting for things to go wrong before the value of the job shows up.