UK

United Kingdom · Marketing · Mid-Level (2-5 years)

Global Marketing Planning Assistant

Here is the whole job, in plain words. What it is, what you decide, how you're judged, how people get here and where they go next. Then the part no course gives you: twelve AI tutors who learn your work.

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As a Global Marketing Planning Assistant, a good place to start on Prompt Engineering for Marketing Analysis is Using and Checking AI Tools in Daily Work, a free Future Fluency module at Level 3. You'd practise using everyday AI tools on real tasks from your own week, and checking what they produce before you use it.

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One email: what AI is changing in this job, the new skills it asks for, where it leads, and where to start free. With a link back here. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.

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  • Experience bandMid-Level (2-5 years)
  • Direct reportsNo direct reports
  • Reports toSenior Global Marketing Planner
  • UK framework levelUsually a coordinator, or early in a professional job

Also advertised as Marketing Planning Analyst · Marketing Operations Coordinator · Planning & Performance Specialist

Built on 43,079 real UK job descriptions we analysed · grounded in what real qualifications cover

Two short quizzes about you

1From this job to a course

The qualifications matched to this job

OCNLR Level 4 Diploma in Digital Marketing OCN London · Level 4 · covers 3 of 16 standards
OCNLR Level 4 Certificate in Digital Marketing OCN London · Level 4 · covers 2 of 16 standards
OCNLR Level 4 Award in Digital Marketing Planning OCN London · Level 4 · covers 1 of 16 standards
OCNLR Level 4 Award in Digital Analytics OCN London · Level 4 · covers 1 of 16 standards
ATHE Level 4 Extended Diploma in Digital Marketing ATHE Ltd · Level 4 · covers 1 of 16 standards
City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma in Digital Marketing City and Guilds of London Institute · Level 3 · covers 1 of 16 standards

Matched from the standards this job is measured against: a suggestion, not an official ruling.

The units you would start with

Digital Analytics OCNLR Level 4 Diploma in Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing Planning OCNLR Level 4 Award in Digital Marketing Planning
Digital Business, Marketing Metrics and Analytics ATHE Level 4 Extended Diploma in Digital Marketing
Digital marketing metrics and analytics City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma in Digital Marketing

The future skills this job leans on

AI Fluency working with AI as a thinking partner
Data Fluency turning numbers into a decision
Your Plan Illustration

Built for Global Marketing Planning Assistant

4 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.

  1. Digital Analytics OCN London · covers 3 of 16 standards Level 4
  2. Digital Marketing Planning OCN London · covers 1 of 16 standards Level 4
  3. Digital Business, Marketing Metrics and Analytics ATHE Ltd · covers 1 of 16 standards Level 4
  4. Digital marketing metrics and analytics City and Guilds of London Institute · covers 1 of 16 standards Level 3
These are the real units behind this job, in the order they rank for it. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

2AI and this work

Will AI change your work as a Global Marketing Planning Assistant?

Nobody can say exactly how. Here is what this job is being asked for next, and where to start.

The new skills this role is being asked for

  • Prompt Engineering for Marketing Analysis
  • Data Storytelling & Visualisation
Why each one is rising

The future skills this job leans on

We'll only ever tell you what we can actually back up. No hype, no scare tactics.

What happens when you start

Next, a free account. We build your Global Marketing Planning Assistant plan as you set up, starting with the free AI Fluency module. No card.

Your first Future Fluency module is free. After that, your AI tutor is £70 a month.

Ready to pay? Subscribe for £70 a month

Keep this read. One email with what AI is changing in this job, the new skills it asks for and where to start free. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.

3What this role really is

This job involves supporting global marketing plans with accurate budgets, clear dashboards and well drafted planning documents. You keep budget trackers correct, build dashboards that make sense, and help draft the documents that guide campaigns. The work keeps marketing plans connected and running smoothly.

4What you'd actually use

The tools this job runs on, and how well you'd need to know each one.

Microsoft Excel Intermediate

Building and maintaining complex budget trackers, performing data reconciliation, using VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, pivot tables, and basic formulas for analysis. You'll live in Excel, frankly.

Anaplan / Pigment Basic

Entering data into pre-built modules, running standard reports, and validating budget submissions against the templates. You'll be a user, not a builder, at this stage.

Asana / Monday.com Intermediate

Updating tasks, tracking project deadlines, creating simple project boards, and building automated workflows for routine tasks like report submissions. You'll help keep projects on track.

Tableau / Power BI Basic

Navigating existing dashboards, applying filters to find specific data, and exporting visuals or data for presentations. You'll be consuming and sharing insights, not building from scratch yet.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Basic

Pulling standard reports on website traffic, user engagement, and conversion metrics. You'll use this data to understand campaign impact on our digital properties.

Notion / Confluence Intermediate

Creating and updating planning pages from templates, managing status tables, and organising meeting notes and documentation for the team. You'll help keep our knowledge base tidy.

Miro / FigJam Basic

Adding sticky notes to existing boards during brainstorming sessions and participating in visual planning workshops. You'll be a contributor, helping to visualise ideas.

5What you get to decide, and how that grows

Power in a job isn't your title. It's what you're allowed to decide. Here's how it grows as you move up.

The choiceComing in Where you are nowThe step above
Data Organisation & Reporting Format Follows existing templates and instructions. Any deviation requires approval. Can independently decide on the best way to organise data or format a report within established guidelines. Consults Senior Planner for new approaches. Designs new reporting templates and data structures for complex projects. Approves formats for junior team members.
Budget Reconciliation Discrepancies Flags all discrepancies to supervisor for investigation and resolution. Investigates discrepancies, identifies root causes, and proposes solutions to Senior Planner. Can resolve minor issues (<£1K) independently. Independently resolves most discrepancies (up to £10K). Defines processes for reconciliation and trains junior staff.
Stakeholder Communication (Routine Updates) Drafts emails for supervisor review before sending. Supervisor handles direct follow-ups. Independently communicates routine updates and requests to regional marketing teams and finance partners. Escalates complex or sensitive issues. Acts as primary point of contact for planning communications across multiple regions/product lines. Coaches junior staff on communication best practices.
Process Improvement Suggestions Identifies inefficiencies and suggests them to supervisor. Researches and proposes detailed process improvements for existing workflows. Works with Senior Planner to pilot changes. Designs and implements new processes or tools to improve efficiency across a workstream. Gains buy-in from relevant stakeholders.

6How you'll be judged

The scoreboard, and what is not on it. The hard targets, how often each is actually looked at, and the quiet signals that never reach a dashboard.

Budget Tracker Accuracy
How closely your marketing budget trackers match the official figures from our Finance team.
Target · >99% consistency with finance reports.

If Finance says we spent £1.2M in Q1, your tracker should show £1.19M or £1.21M, not £1.5M. We're talking pence, not pounds, here.

On-Time Reporting
Delivering routine reports and budget updates by their agreed-upon deadlines.
Target · 95% of routine reports delivered by the deadline.

If the weekly spend report is due every Monday at 10 AM, we expect to see it in our inbox by 9:55 AM, not 11 AM.

Data Entry Error Rate
The percentage of errors found in any manual data inputs you're responsible for.
Target · <1% on all manual data inputs.

You've entered 500 lines of campaign data; finding fewer than 5 mistakes would hit the target. Even one wrong decimal can mess up a whole regional budget, so this is crucial.

Campaign Performance Dashboard Reliability
Ensuring the dashboards you build are always up-to-date and pull accurate figures from source systems.
Target · 98% data accuracy and uptime for key dashboards.

If a regional marketing lead points out that the 'leads generated' figure on your dashboard doesn't match the CRM, that's an issue. We need to trust these numbers implicitly.

Data Reliability & Trust
How much the team relies on your data and reports for their own decision-making.
  • People consistently refer to your reports in meetings
  • they ask you for specific numbers rather than digging them up themselves
  • you're seen as the 'go-to' person for campaign performance data. Frankly, if people trust your numbers, you're doing well.
Process Adherence & Improvement
Following established planning processes and identifying ways to make them better.
  • Your budget submissions always follow the template
  • you flag when a process isn't working and suggest a fix
  • new joiners come to you for guidance on 'how things are done around here.' We're not looking for robots, but we need people who respect the process.
Proactive Problem Solving
Spotting potential issues before they become big problems and suggesting solutions.
  • You notice a budget line is about to be overspent and flag it early
  • you see a discrepancy between two reports and investigate it without being asked
  • you anticipate what information a stakeholder will need next and prepare it in advance. It's about thinking one step ahead, not just reacting.
Stakeholder Communication Clarity
How clearly and concisely you communicate updates, issues, and data insights to various internal teams.
  • Your emails are easy to understand, even for non-marketing folks
  • you can explain complex data simply
  • people don't need to ask follow-up questions because your initial message was comprehensive. No jargon, just clear facts.

7Would you like it

Both sides. What people enjoy, and what grinds them down.

What people enjoy
Bringing Order to Chaos

You get a genuine kick out of taking a jumble of spreadsheets and turning them into a clean, coherent plan. You love building a system that actually works and helps others.

Taking 15 different regional budget requests, each in its own format, and consolidating them into one master document that makes sense to everyone. That's your happy place.

Being the Trusted Source of Truth

It's important to you that your data is accurate and that people rely on your reports. You feel a sense of pride when someone says, 'Let's check with [Your Name], they'll have the real numbers.'

When the CMO asks for a specific campaign spend figure in a leadership meeting, and your number is the one everyone references, not the one from an agency report.

Enabling Smart Decisions

You're not just moving numbers around; you understand that your work helps the business make better choices about where to invest. You want your efforts to have a tangible impact.

Building a campaign performance dashboard that clearly shows which channels are delivering the best ROI, leading to a decision to shift budget to those channels.

What frustrates people
  • The Spreadsheet is the Job: Honestly, you'll spend about 70% of your time in Excel, chasing people for inputs, cleaning messy data, and reconciling numbers that never quite match between Finance, the ad platforms, and the CRM. It's a grind.
  • Professional Cat Herder: Your primary role is often chasing down powerful, busy regional marketing leaders for their budget submissions and status updates, especially at the end of a quarter. It can feel like you're constantly nagging.
  • Last-Minute Fire Drills: Expect the 'great idea' from the CEO or CMO to land on a Friday afternoon, with no budget, needing a full plan by Monday morning. This will derail all your carefully planned work, and it happens more often than you'd like.
  • Death by a Thousand Cuts: You'll be constantly justifying the marketing budget to finance stakeholders who often view it as a cost center, not a growth driver. It can be exhausting to fight the same battles.
  • The 'Single Source of Truth' Lie: You'll create a beautiful, centralised planning document in Notion or Asana, only to find half the team is still using their own offline spreadsheets, causing massive reconciliation headaches. It's frustrating, but it's reality.
  • Blame Sponge: When a campaign underperforms, the plan and the forecast (your work) are scrutinised first, even if the failure was due to poor creative or sales execution. You've got to have thick skin.
What this role does not give you
  • Constant creative freedom or direct campaign execution. You're more about the 'how' and 'how much' than the 'what.'
  • A quiet, predictable routine. While you bring order, the inputs you receive are often anything but.
  • Immediate gratification on every project. Some plans take months to come to fruition, and some might even get scrapped.

8Who you work with

Your accurate data and timely reports directly inform how we allocate millions of pounds in marketing spend. Get it right, and we hit our growth targets; get it wrong, and we could be pouring money down the drain. You're essential for ensuring our marketing investments are transparent and effective, helping the business grow.

Inside the business
  • Regional Marketing Leads
  • Finance Business Partners
  • Global Marketing Leadership (VPs, Directors)
  • Product Marketing Managers
  • Sales Operations
Outside the business
  • Media Agency Account Managers
  • Creative Agency Project Managers
  • External Data Providers

9What you need before you start

Not a wish list. The things you would be expected to already have.

  • At least 2 years of experience in a marketing operations, marketing finance, or a highly analytical marketing support role.
  • Demonstrable experience using Microsoft Excel for data analysis and reporting (beyond just basic sums).
  • A proven track record of managing multiple tasks and deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
  • Experience working with data from marketing platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, social media ad platforms).

10What to practise next

Where the job is going, and what to do about it starting this week.

Advanced Excel Modelling

While dedicated planning tools exist, Excel remains the workhorse for many ad-hoc analyses and complex scenarios. Being able to build flexible, error-free models is crucial for higher-level planning.

Power Query for Data Transformation · Scenario Analysis with Data Tables · Basic VBA Macros

  • This week: Explore Power Query in Excel and try to automate one data import task.
  • This month: Learn about data tables and build a simple scenario model for a campaign budget.
  • Month 2: Find a repetitive Excel task you do weekly and research if a simple macro could automate it.
  • Month 3: Take an advanced Excel course focused on financial modelling or data automation.

Quick win: Start using 'Text to Columns' and 'Remove Duplicates' in Excel regularly—they're simple but powerful data cleaning tools.

Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboard Development

As data volumes grow, static reports become less useful. The ability to build interactive, self-service dashboards in tools like Tableau or Power BI will empower stakeholders to find their own answers.

Connecting to Diverse Data Sources · Calculated Fields & Parameters · Dashboard Design Principles

  • This week: Replicate an existing simple dashboard in Tableau/Power BI using dummy data.
  • This month: Take an official Tableau or Power BI certification course (e.g., Desktop Specialist).
  • Month 2: Propose and build a small, internal dashboard for a specific team's needs.
  • Month 3: Get feedback on your dashboard from users and iterate on the design and functionality.

Quick win: Play around with different chart types in your BI tool and see how they change the story of the data. Experimentation is key.

11Staying current once you are in

What people here do to keep up
  • Regularly read industry blogs and publications (e.g., Marketing Week, WARC, Adweek) to stay on top of marketing trends and measurement techniques.
  • Attend webinars or online courses on advanced Excel, data visualisation (Tableau/Power BI), or marketing analytics.
  • Network with other marketing planning professionals to share best practices and learn from their experiences.
  • Take initiative to learn new features in our planning tools or explore how AI can automate your current tasks.

12The rising capability

The rising capability

Zavmo analysis

What's rising in its place

This is where the work is heading, and the higher pay with it. Get fluent here and the shift stops being a threat and starts being your edge.

Prompt Engineering for Marketing Analysis

AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are getting incredibly powerful for data summarisation, initial analysis, and even drafting reports. People who know how to 'talk' to these AIs effectively will be significantly more productive.

  • Clear and Concise Prompting
  • Context Provision
  • Iterative Refinement
  • Output Validation

Data Storytelling & Visualisation

It's not enough to just present data; you need to tell a compelling story with it. Leadership is swamped with numbers, so the ability to cut through the noise and highlight key insights will become even more valuable.

  • Audience-Centric Reporting
  • Narrative Structure
  • Effective Chart Selection
  • Highlighting Key Insights

13What you’ll use

What you’ll use

Skills this role draws on

Technical

  • Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) & Attribution Principles
  • Go-to-Market (GTM) Planning Support
  • Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) Concepts
  • Campaign Performance Analysis & Reporting
  • Competitive & Market Intelligence Gathering
  • Stakeholder Alignment (RACI/DACI Awareness)

14The pathway

The pathway

How you actually get there, here

How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.

  1. 1

    Marketing Coordinator / Junior Analyst

    1-3 years

    Skills to master

    • Data entry accuracy, basic reporting, understanding marketing campaign lifecycles, initial stakeholder communication.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You're the go-to person for pulling basic campaign reports.
    • You've taken ownership of small, recurring analytical tasks.
    • You're proactively identifying data discrepancies and trying to fix them.
  2. 2

    Finance Analyst (supporting Marketing)

    2-4 years

    Skills to master

    • Budget reconciliation, financial reporting, understanding P&L statements, working with ERP systems.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You've become the expert on marketing spend within your finance team.
    • You enjoy digging into the 'why' behind financial numbers.
    • You're curious about how marketing activities drive business outcomes.
  3. 3

    Marketing Operations Assistant

    2-3 years

    Skills to master

    • Process documentation, CRM data management, marketing automation tool usage, project coordination.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You've helped streamline an existing marketing process.
    • You're skilled at organising information and keeping projects on track.
    • You have a good grasp of the tools and systems used in marketing.

15Where this role leads

The long view: This work can lead into managing a planning team, shaping marketing strategy at director level, or specialising deeply in marketing data and analytics.

The ten Future Fluencies

Zavmo analysis

The credential is what you can do today. These are what keep you valuable.

A qualification proves you can do the job as it's defined today. These ten are what decide whether you're still the obvious person for it in five years. They're the capabilities employers are now writing into senior roles faster than people are learning them. Zavmo weaves them through whatever you study, so you come out with both: the credential and the fluency.

The highlighted ones are the Fluencies your role leans on hardest, from how Global Marketing Planning Assistant is actually changing.

Where it leads

Roles this leads to

The record names a next step, but the catalogue has no page for it yet:

  • Senior Global Marketing Planner (Level 003)

How you would learn this

One to one, on the work you already do

A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.

A lesson from Digital Analytics, worked against Global Marketing Planning Assistant.

Digital Analytics Level 4

Applied to your work in Global Marketing Planning Assistant

This unit aims to provide learners with a comprehensive understanding of digital analytics principles, tools, and techniques. Learners will develop the skills to collect, analyse, and interpret digital data from various sources, enabling them to measure the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns, improve strategies, and report findings to stakeholders, while adhering to data protection regulations.

How the thinking builds
  1. 1 Remember
  2. 2 Understand
  3. 3 Apply
  4. 4 Analyse
  5. 5 Evaluate
  6. 6 Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.

It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time.

See Your Progress Grow Illustration
Global Marketing Planning Assistant
  • Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) & Attribution Principles
  • Go-to-Market (GTM) Planning Support
  • Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) Concepts
  • Campaign Performance Analysis & Reporting
  • Competitive & Market Intelligence Gathering
  • Stakeholder Alignment (RACI/DACI Awareness)
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

16The detail, folded away

Everything else the record holds

The career branches in full, how AI is already showing up in the day-to-day, and the questions people ask about this job. Here when you want them, out of the way while you decide.

Where it leads next, rung by rung

Where it leads

The career path, and where it branches

Global Marketing Planning Assistant is a start, not a ceiling. Each step below asks for new skills and hands back more autonomy.

  1. Senior Global Marketing Planner (Level 003)

    3-5 years in current role

    You'll move from owning deliverables to leading entire workstreams and projects. More autonomy, more complex problem-solving, and you'll start mentoring others.

    • Advanced BI Dashboard Development Building complex, interactive dashboards from scratch.
    • Marketing Mix Modelling Interpretation Critically evaluating MMM outputs and translating them into actionable budget recommendations.
    • Process Design & Optimisation Designing entirely new planning processes, not just following existing ones.
    • Vendor Management Working directly with external agencies and tech providers to improve our planning capabilities.
Working with AI on the job

Working with AI

Where AI is starting to help

Imagine getting a significant chunk of your week back, not by working less, but by working smarter. That's the reality with AI. We're not talking about replacing your job, but about giving you superpowers to tackle the tedious, time-consuming tasks that usually eat up your day.

In global marketing planning, AI isn't some far-off concept; it's here now, helping people like you make sense of mountains of data, automate repetitive tasks, and get to insights faster. Think of it as your super-efficient personal assistant, ready to take on the grunt work so you can focus on the stuff that actually matters.

Budget Consolidation Automation

Use an AI assistant (like a custom GPT or a tool like Coefficient) to automatically ingest dozens of differently formatted regional budget spreadsheets. The AI standardises categories, flags anomalies, and consolidates them into a single master budget file. No more manual copy-pasting and endless reconciliation—the AI does the heavy lifting, you just validate.

Predictive Performance Analysis

Leverage AI tools to analyse historical campaign data (spend, channel, creative, audience) and generate initial recommendations for budget allocation in a new plan. It can answer questions like, 'Based on past performance, what is the optimal media mix for a £500K product launch in Germany?' This means less time crunching numbers and more time interpreting what they mean.

Automated Competitive Intelligence Briefing

Set up an AI agent to monitor competitor earning calls, press releases, and social media campaigns. It generates a weekly summarised email briefing highlighting key strategic shifts, new messaging, and significant campaign launches. You'll get actionable insights dropped into your inbox, saving you hours of manual research and summarisation.

Meeting Summary & Action Item Generation

Use an AI meeting assistant (e.g., Otter.ai, Fathom) to transcribe complex multi-stakeholder planning meetings. The AI then automatically generates a concise summary, identifies key decisions, and drafts a list of action items with assigned owners. This means you can focus on the conversation, not frantic note-taking, and follow-ups are a breeze.

Common questions

Common questions

How do you become a Global Marketing Planning Assistant?

Common routes in include Marketing Coordinator / Junior Analyst (1-3 years), Finance Analyst (supporting Marketing) (2-4 years) and Marketing Operations Assistant (2-3 years). Times vary with prior experience.

Where can a Global Marketing Planning Assistant progress to?

This role can lead on to Senior Global Marketing Planner (3-5 years in current role), depending on the skills you build.

What new skills matter most for a Global Marketing Planning Assistant?

Increasingly, Prompt Engineering for Marketing Analysis and Data Storytelling & Visualisation. These are the skills our record of this role lists as growing.

Free tools

Want a read on where you stand?

Three free tools, no account needed. Each one ends with a role, a level and a way in.

Read the Zavmo manifesto to understand how you will be taught Meet your tutors

Or try another one

17Where to go from here

Other roles at Level 3

Same depth of qualification, different job. Useful if the work appeals but this particular role does not.

 More jobs in marketing

Stay in the field you know and move sideways rather than up.
If you leave this industry

The skills built here, data analysis, financial planning, project coordination and stakeholder management, carry over into other kinds of work. They open paths into finance operations, business intelligence, sales operations, or general business operations in other industries. Bringing order to a lot of moving parts is useful in most sectors.

This role profile is © 2026 Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.

You're not behind. You're right on time. The shift is only just beginning. Your role won't look the same in two years. Be the one who leads the change, not the one it happens to. Start my free AI Fluency module What happens next: a free account, then we build your plan as you set up. No card. Build your plan, see your roadmap and meet the twelve tutors matched to you. All free. When you're ready to start learning, it's £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.