The Performance Marketing Interview Guide: 10 Questions to Vet Your Next Hire
By Brooke Barrett, Digital and Performance Marketing Recruiter
Hiring a performance marketer is notoriously difficult, especially if you aren’t an “ads person” or part of the marketing team yourself. For those of you outside this world, it’s an overwhelming minefield of acronyms, data and technical know-how.
CPA, ROAS, MER, LTV…it’s easy to get lost in the jargon.
As a former Performance Marketer, I’ve seen the same story play out many times in this space: the recruiter/hiring manager asks a few basic questions, hears a confident answer filled with technical terms, and assumes they’ve found a winner. It’s only months later, or during a call with a performance specialist, that the business realises the candidate might understand the buttons but doesn’t understand the business.
This guide is designed to help you bridge that gap. Whether you’re hiring in-house or agency-side, these questions will help you determine if a candidate can truly walk the walk.
The Top 10 “Smart” Performance Marketing Interview Questions
These questions are designed to test logic, communication, and technical foundations. Whilst there may not be one right answer and plenty of room for error, it’s more about seeing their thought process and approach to problem solving.
1. “What’s your process for diagnosing an underperforming campaign?”
What to look for: You want to hear a logical, step-by-step “funnel” approach. Do they look at the creative (CTR), the landing page (CVR), or the offer itself? A great candidate identifies where the leak is before suggesting a fix.
2. “How do you distinguish between ‘platform data’ and ‘actual business results’?”
What to look for: Platforms like Facebook and Google often “claim” credit for the same conversion action (purchase, lead, etc). A savvy, senior performance marketer understands incrementality—the art of proving that an ad actually caused a sale that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Use of third party tracking platforms like Triple Whale or Thought Metric, also help to provide better visibility over platform vs off-platform data. Giving you a more accurate “whole picture” view of marketing performance.
3. “Tell me about a time when a campaign didn’t go to plan. How did you pivot?”
What to look for: Resilience and analytical thinking. Performance marketing is a series of experiments. You’re looking for someone who treats a “failed” test as a data point to inform the next winning strategy.
4. “How do you approach creative testing without overspending?”
What to look for: Structure. They should mention testing one variable at a time (e.g., the headline or the visual) and using smaller “sandbox” budgets to find a winner before scaling. Or focusing on one buyer persona/customer avatar and drawing insights before moving to creative that targets the next one.
5. “In a post-iOS14 and cookieless world, how do you ensure our tracking remains accurate?”
What to look for: They should mention solutions like Conversion API (CAPI), first-party data collection, or using server-side tracking rather than just relying on standard browser pixels.
6. “What is the most important metric that many marketers focus too much on?”
What to look for: A move away from “vanity metrics” (clicks, impressions, or even just high ROAS) toward Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Lifetime Value (LTV).
7. “How do you stay ahead of platform algorithm changes?”
What to look for: Specificity. Do they follow specific industry leaders, participate in Slack communities, or run their own “alpha” tests?
8. “What would your ideal ‘Tech Stack’ look like for a role like this?”
What to look for: This is a great way to see if they know how to implement, optimise, track, report, and strategise efficiently. They should mention tools for attribution (e.g., Triple Whale or Northbeam), reporting (e.g., Looker Studio), and execution (AI tools or the platforms themselves).
9. “How do you decide when it’s the right time to scale a winning campaign?”
What to look for: A math-based answer. Scaling isn’t just “increasing the budget.” They should mention monitoring the marginal CPA (how much the next lead costs) and ensuring the creative isn’t becoming “fatigued” by the audience. As well as having a plan for budget scaling increments and a clear understanding of what targets need to be hit before they continue to scale.
10. “How do you communicate performance to stakeholders or clients who aren’t ads-savvy?”
What to look for: The ability to clearly turn performance-heavy data into clear information that’s easily digestible, regardless of performance marketing knowledge.
- In-house: Can they tell the CEO “We spent $X to make $Y. And these results are because of X”?
- Agency-side: Can they explain to a client why a “down” month happened, the various factors and how they’re using that data as an important informant for the next steps. As well as explaining the flip side of this, when things are doing well and they’re working towards keeping momentum.
Look for someone who speaks in terms of business growth.
Tailoring Questions by Experience Level
For the Junior (The Doer)
At this stage, you’re testing for basic knowledge and the ability to execute tasks with some support. Remember, these candidates are still learning and should have a more senior team member to lean on when needed.
- Scenario Question: “If we are an accounting firm looking for new clients, what type of campaign objective should we set up?”
- The Answer: A Lead Generation campaign.
- Technical Question: “Can you walk me through the steps of adding our Meta pixel to a new landing page?”
- What to look for: They should mention either manual code installation, using a partner integration (like Shopify), or via Meta Pixel Helper. As well as mentioning the steps they’ll need to take to complete this in the back end.
*Remember that doing something when it’s right in front of you is different to having to recount everything from memory. As long as they can tell you the main method of execution, they’re probably on the right track.
- The “Details” Question: You’re likely hiring junior talent because they have something that an AI automation/agent doesn’t.
They might be a great content creator, have niche industry skills/knowledge, or simply have a hunger to learn and try their best.
Ensure you’re probing candidates with the right questions that get them to open up. E.g. “Is there anything you do outside of work/uni in your personal time that you could transfer into this role? (AI knowledge, video editing, content creation, sports, etc)”
For the Mid-Level (The Efficient Executor & Problem Solver)
A mid-level hire should be able to manage workflows and optimise campaigns independently.
- Creative Question: “How do you brief a creative team to ensure the assets you receive require minimal revisions?”
- What to look for: Do they provide clear “hooks,” specific dimensions, and examples of what has worked previously?
- Data Question: “How do you track data off-platform, and what are the key metrics you report on to show true ROI?”
- What to look for: Mentions of UTM parameters, CRM integration, and “Blended ROAS” (total revenue divided by total ad spend).
For the Senior (The Strategist)
A senior hire is a business partner. They should be driving the company’s growth trajectory.
- Strategic Question: “What would your 90-day roadmap look like to ensure we meet our business growth targets?”
- What to look for: Month 1: Audit and “low-hanging fruit.” Month 2: Testing and infrastructure. Month 3: Scaling and long-term channel diversification. It should be a plan tied to business finances, not just running a department.
All in all, the best performance marketers are essentially “data-driven storytellers.” They should be able to look at the back end of your business and tell you exactly what is happening and how it should be improved.
By using these questions, you’ll move past the basic jargon and “yes/no” answers to find a candidate who is a highly valued member of your team.