Digital marketing is a constantly evolving field, so there’s more and more demand for skilled professionals. Hiring marketers with the right knowledge and skills to build and grow a strong online presence and attract new leads is key for nearly every business out there – and yet, it might be difficult to find the right talent.
Finding skilled candidates can be challenging if you don’t ask the right questions during interviews. Plus, you also need to make sure that interviews are engaging and interesting for applicants, especially if you want your company to stand out and attract the best.
To enhance your hiring process, it’s worth sending candidates a Market Analysis skills test before the interview stage. This will help you:
Reduce bias in hiring and assess skills objectively
Improve your screening process and save time, money, and effort
Quickly identify the most promising candidates – and only invite them to an interview
You can even entirely replace resume screening with skills testing and shortlist candidates based on their actual skills and knowledge, rather than on the incomplete and imprecise information you get in resumes.
So, once you find out who your most skilled applicants are, where can you find the right interview questions to ask? We’ve done the legwork for you and prepared a list of 65+ digital marketing interview questions to help you hire the right candidate.
28 general digital marketing interview questions to ask candidates
Check out these 28 general digital marketing interview questions to ask beginner and advanced professionals alike.
1. What are the different types of digital marketing?
2. Tell me the difference between direct marketing and branding.
3. What are some drawbacks of digital marketing?
4. Do you know any popular digital marketing tools?
5. What are the four C’s of digital marketing?
6. Explain some effective ways of increasing traffic to your website.
7. Define SEO.
8. How important are keywords for SEO?
9. How do you use keywords to optimize your site ranking?
10. What are the different types of SEO?
11. What is on-page and off-page optimization?
12. Give some examples of effective digital marketing tools.
13. Define PPC advertising.
14. How would you improve your conversion rates?
15. Why are backlinks important in SEO?
16. What are the best practices to rank YouTube videos?
17. What are the limitations of online marketing?
18. Describe the differences between SEO and SEM.
19. How would you use social media for marketing?
20. Do you have experience with email marketing?
21. What is content marketing?
22. What are some crucial elements for developing a website?
23. What is AMP?
24. How do you calculate CTR?
25. What is Google Adwords?
26. What is RLSA, and how does it work?
27. Name some automatic bidding strategies.
28. Define the journey of online shoppers in a few steps.
5 general digital marketing interview questions and sample answers
Below, you’ll find our sample answers to the five most important general interview questions from the previous section. Use them to assess applicants’ responses.
1. What are the different types of digital marketing?
All candidates should know what digital marketing involves, regardless of their seniority level. They should name a few types of digital marketing and provide examples of the content they’d use for each.
If they can’t name more than one or two categories, this might be a sign that they don’t have enough digital marketing experience.
The main types of digital marketing include:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine marketing (SEM)
E-commerce marketing
Content marketing
Email marketing
Social media marketing
In terms of examples, candidates could mention websites, social media content, blog posts, gated content, webinars, and more.
With a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9% between 2020 and 2026, digital marketing is rapidly gaining traction, so hiring candidates with deep knowledge of the different types of marketing is essential to staying competitive.
2. What are the four C’s of digital marketing?
The four C rule is a framework that digital marketing teams use when building new campaigns. Whether they have experience with this or not, candidates should still understand how this approach works.
The four C’s of digital marketing are:
Customer
Customers are at the center of all marketing efforts. Their needs, demands, and values determine whether your product or service would be beneficial to them – and also whether they’d be interested in engaging with your brand.
Getting to know your customers better can help companies build tailored marketing strategies to suit their preferences.
Cost
Every brand needs to research prices before putting the cost of their products or services online. They should evaluate the market before deciding on their pricing strategy – and also need to consider hidden costs to which customers are sensitive, such as maintenance costs, shipping fees, upgrades, or even a product’s environmental impact.
Convenience
Making shopping as convenient as possible is one of the best ways to attract potential consumers. Research suggests that global e-commerce is currently growing at about 10% each year, with companies fiercely competing for buyers’ attention (and money). To succeed, they need to provide a streamlined, frictionless shopping experience.
Conversation
No marketing strategy can be successful if you’re not communicating with your customers. This method is one of the most important ‘C’s’ for brand engagement.
Communicate with customers frequently: Tell them what to expect upon purchase, send prompt status updates, ask for feedback, and engage with them on social media to keep the conversation going.
3. Define SEO.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential component of digital marketing.
Marketing professionals should define this term without any problem and explain how it relates to websites, content marketing, and social media campaigns.
Every company wants to rank high on search engines to attract more visitors, so it’s important to hire someone who’s familiar with SEO’s best practices and the latest developments in the field to be able to outsmart your competitors.
You can also use a Technical SEO test to better understand the candidates’ knowledge of keywords, search engine requirements, and effective ranking strategies.
4. What are the best practices to rank YouTube videos?
Depending on the content, people will type specific words into the search bar to find the most popular, engaging, and interesting video. So, how do you rank yours in the top results?
There are several ways digital marketers can optimize YouTube videos. For example, they can:
Always strive to create content that is informative and fun
Use high search volume titles that are easy to type
Write a compelling description containing strategic keywords
Add relevant video tags
Keep the main title under 100 characters
Design an attractive thumbnail that relates to the topic
Share the company’s content on popular social media channels
The ideal candidate may share a few examples of these practices. Digital marketers (and especially SEO specialists) should understand how to work with YouTube’s complex algorithm to rank videos successfully.
5. How would you use social media for marketing?
Candidates should have a deep understanding of social media marketing and know how to:
Identify trends
Research competitors
Create engaging content
Grow your following
Promote new products
They may discuss different types of content they could use to attract the right audience on social media, such as pictures, stories, live videos, and links. They might also talk about the importance of actively engaging with followers and building a community around the brand to reach a wider audience.
Send candidates a Social Media Management test to determine how they would increase brand awareness on different platforms. Even if you’re not looking to hire a social media manager, you can still use this test to evaluate applicants’ skills.
20 digital marketing interview questions for managers
Below are 20 digital marketing interview questions to help you assess managers’ marketing skills and SEO experience.
1. What is your approach to structuring a marketing budget?
2. Do you have any experience with co-marketing campaigns?
3. What emerging marketing trends do you think could affect our industry?
4. What three social media platforms would you use to promote our brand?
5. How many people are there on your current marketing team?
6. How do you collect product feedback from customers?
7. Talk about your experience with using editorial calendars.
8. Name some common SEO mistakes.
9. Describe a time you worked with your team to create a campaign within a tight deadline.
10. What is your approach to editing copy?
11. How would you deal with negative feedback for your brand?
12. What could our company do better in terms of digital marketing?
13. What has been your most successful campaign?
14. How would you give constructive feedback to a team member?
15. Do you have marketing automation experience?
16. What do brand voice and visual identity mean to you?
17. What does a conversion funnel look like?
18. Are rich snippets important for SEO?
19. What are your favorite tools and tactics for creating a successful newsletter?
20. Name some of your favorite sources of digital marketing news.
5 digital marketing manager interview questions and sample answers
Use the sample answers below to review applicants’ responses and identify the best talent.
1. What emerging marketing trends do you think could affect our industry?
Candidates who follow the latest trends may be more passionate about the role. They have the motivation to stay up-to-date with new developments and therefore understand how quickly the digital marketing industry is changing.
The ideal candidate will mention trends such as:
Online chatbots
Shoppable content
Instagram reels
Voice SEO
Augmented and virtual-reality marketing
Live video content
Engagement-based email marketing
Push notifications
TikTok shopping
Content personalization
Mobile devices account for nearly 60% of global online traffic, which means that most of these emerging trends are mobile-first.
Use a Market Research test to evaluate your candidates’ ability to conduct quantitative research, apply different research methodologies, and analyze data.
2. How do you collect product feedback from customers?
There are many ways to gather feedback from customers. Candidates should know how important it is to receive constructive criticism from a wide audience.
Some ways to collect feedback include:
Online surveys
Email contact forms
Social media polls
Exploratory customer interviews
Website reviews
Instagram stories
Direct messaging
Consider sending candidates a Customer Service test to determine whether they know how to interact with customers efficiently to gain their input.
3. Describe a time you worked with your team to create a campaign within a tight deadline.
Managers must communicate regularly with the team to ensure each marketing campaign succeeds. By asking this interview question, you can learn whether the candidate has strong communication skills to achieve this goal.
In response, the candidate might explain how they would plan the work of the team and set regular meetings to discuss the next steps and improvements in the project.
A Communication test can help you choose leaders with strong communication skills for the open position. They can prove their ability to understand and use verbal communication in the workplace.
4. What three social media platforms would you use to promote our brand?
Candidates should know that not all platforms are a good fit for every brand out there – and be familiar with the pros and cons of each. Their answer will give you more insight into their marketing mindset. In this case, the candidate might provide examples such as Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
To learn more about their social media knowledge, send them a Social Media Management test.
5. What do brand voice and visual identity mean to you?
This is a more personal question for potential managers to express themselves. They may explain how brand voice speaks to the audience through engaging campaigns and that visual identity is a collection of images or graphical information representing the brand’s overall mission.
To assess applicants’ ability to manage brands successfully, you can use our Branding Strategy test. This test focuses on the candidate’s understanding of visual identity, research, messaging, and rebranding.
25 personalized digital marketing interview questions to help you learn about candidates’ skills and behaviors
Use these 25 personalized digital marketing interview questions to better understand your candidates’ personalities, skills, and goals.
1. What made you apply for this role in digital marketing?
2. Which is more important: the number of engagements or the number of likes and followers?
3. Name some skills you need for digital marketing.
4. What do you dislike most about digital marketing?
5. How would you use social media to attract potential buyers?
6. Do you find anything wrong with the marketing tactics that we use right now?
7. What are some digital marketing trends you would like to see?
8. What is your experience in our industry?
9. What is the biggest challenge facing digital marketing teams today?
10. Describe a team environment you work best in.
11. What interests you most about this digital marketing role?
12. What do you like most about digital marketing?
13. Name some brands you follow on social media. How did they catch your interest?
14. What type of campaign would you like to create in our company?
15. How do you communicate your progress to clients?
16. Have you worked on a cross-functional project?
17. Tell me about a time you experienced pressure in the workplace.
18. Have you ever taken a risk in digital marketing?
19. Tell me about a time you failed at launching a campaign. What did you learn?
20. How do you use creativity to make a unique product or service?
21. What was the last marketing book you read?
22. What would you do within the first few weeks of starting this job?
23. What do you know about our target audience?
24. What new marketing tactic have you recently tried?
25. What is an example of a digital marketing goal you have achieved?
5 personalized digital marketing interview questions and sample answers
Use the answers below to five of the digital marketing interview questions from the previous section to review applicants’ responses and determine which candidates are suitable for the open position.
1. Which is more important: the number of engagements or the number of likes and followers?
Candidates should be honest when answering this question. From their response, you can learn more about their opinion and whether they believe the number of followers is a priority.
Keep in mind that social media engagement is usually the more important metric of the two because it represents how many people visit and engage with the brand’s content.
Research also suggests that people spend 2 hours and 31 minutes on social media each day, with most of that consuming and engaging with content: YouTube and Facebook rank the highest by number of active users. Therefore, it’s important to focus on engagement to attract a wider audience and sell more.
You could send candidates a Growth Marketing test to see how they monitor the customer journey and create social media strategies for customer engagement.
2. Do you find anything wrong with the marketing tactics that we use right now?
The ideal candidate will know how your company navigates digital marketing and what strategies it uses and will have researched your campaigns before the interview.
This question might put them on the spot, but the best candidates will be honest about what they agree and disagree with. For example, they might not like how you design your YouTube thumbnails.
Candidates should get a bonus point if they suggest ways your company can improve its marketing tactics and build better campaigns.
3. How would you use social media to attract potential buyers?
Social media helps small and large brands alike spread awareness and attract potential customers. Candidates should fully understand the role of social media in attracting website traffic. They may suggest providing real-time customer service via social media or sharing informative content on how to use specific products.
A Content Strategy test determines whether the candidates can produce search-optimized content and make a good first impression with a target audience – which, when combined with the right social media tactics, can really boost growth.
In this test, candidates will also have to answer questions regarding customer retention, content distribution, and successful business targets.
4. Name some brands you follow on social media. How did they catch your interest?
Everyone follows specific brands because they feel interested and engaged. Many popular brands use social media posts and interactive content to attract potential consumers to trending products.
Candidates may provide a few examples of their favorite brands. Some of these could include Starbucks, Nike, and Chanel, which are some of the most popular accounts on Instagram.
Their answers can also give you insights on their interests and personality traits. For instance, those who follow Coca-Cola may enjoy their posts because they evoke emotion and tell unique stories.
5. Tell me about a time you failed at launching a campaign. What did you learn?
This question helps you gain a deeper insight into the candidate’s personality and mindset. The candidate should give an example of a failed campaign and how they recovered from it. Many unsuccessful launches happen because of poor budgeting skills or the lack of creativity when creating engaging social media posts.
It’s common knowledge that mistakes help you learn, but actually there’s even research to support this. Therefore, candidates who have experience with failed campaigns are more likely to succeed with future projects. They know how to prevent human errors and better manage their time, budget, and marketing efforts.
You could use our Big 5 (OCEAN) personality test to evaluate how the candidate’s traits help them learn from common business mistakes. Another assessment, such as the Motivation test, gives you insight into their personal development strategies and determination to succeed in the digital marketing industry.
For what kind of roles can you use digital marketing interview questions?
You can use digital marketing interview questions for a wide range of roles. Digital marketing is about promoting brands using creative strategies and analytical thinking.
Below are some roles for which you can use digital marketing interview questions:
Digital marketing project manager
Copywriter
Email marketing specialist
Analytics expert
Digital marketing strategist
Social media manager
Content writer
SEO specialist
Graphic designer
At which stage of the hiring process should you use these digital marketing interview questions?
We recommend you use our digital marketing interview questions after assessing candidates’ skills with the help of skill tests. This screening process can help you identify skilled professionals with the right digital marketing knowledge and expertise.
Skill assessments are a data-driven tool that tests a candidate’s understanding of the digital marketing world. They can reveal more about your candidates’ knowledge about specific pieces of software or marketing business decisions. For example, you may send them a Business Judgment test to determine whether they can make the right calls in large projects.
On top of that, you can easily download and compare results. Use them to narrow down your list of candidates and choose the most talented applicants, whom you can then invite to an interview.
Find your next professional marketer by using our digital marketing interview questions and skill tests
Are you on the hunt for relevant skills tests for your assessment?
You can find plenty of tests in our comprehensive test library. We have tests covering personality, situational judgment, software skills, and cognitive ability. All you need to do is find a test that suits your digital marketing role.
Sign up for our free 30-minute live demo to learn all the perks and features of these tests. Our team will explain how they work and why you should use them for your hiring process. After that, it’s a matter of putting your candidates to the test.
As soon as you’ve received test results, you can shortlist the best candidates and invite them to an interview. Then, you can use our digital marketing interview questions and skill assessments to hire the best digital marketing professional. Streamline your recruitment with this simple, effective approach to finding an expert.
