Digital Marketer interview questions and answers

On-page SEO is what I control on the page itself: matching content to search intent, title tags, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, image alt text and URL structure. Off-page SEO is about signals from outside the site, mainly quality backlinks from relevant sites, plus brand mentions and a Google Business Profile for local search. Technical SEO makes sure search engines can crawl and index the site: page speed, mobile-friendliness, an XML sitemap, a correct robots.txt, canonical tags, fixing broken links and redirects, and structured data. In my internship, I fixed missing title tags and duplicate pages on a coaching institute’s website.

I would first set up conversion tracking for enquiry form submissions and calls. Then I would build separate ad groups per course, like NEET coaching and JEE coaching, with tightly related keywords using phrase and exact match, and add location targeting within about 15 kilometres of the centre. I would add negative keywords early, such as free, PDF, jobs and online test, which attract people not looking to enrol. Each ad group gets responsive search ads mentioning batch timings and results, plus call and location assets. I would start on maximise conversions once tracking is reliable and review search terms twice a week.

CTR is click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions. CPC is cost per click: spend divided by clicks. CPM is cost per thousand impressions, used mostly for awareness campaigns. CPA is cost per acquisition: spend divided by conversions, such as leads or purchases. ROAS is return on ad spend: revenue from ads divided by ad spend. So 2,00,000 divided by 50,000 gives a ROAS of 4, or 4x. Whether that is good depends on margins. If the product margin is 20 per cent, that revenue brings 40,000 rupees of margin, which does not cover the 50,000 spent.

I start by defining the key conversions, like purchase, lead form submit and signup, and set them up as events in GA4, usually through Google Tag Manager, marking the important ones as key events. I link GA4 with Google Ads and set up the Meta Pixel with the Conversions API for Meta campaigns. Every link in emails, social posts and influencer campaigns gets UTM parameters for source, medium and campaign, using one naming sheet so the data stays clean. Then I test each conversion with a real test order and check it appears correctly before spending money.

First I would check tracking, because a broken pixel or form makes cost per lead look worse than it is. Then I would break it down: did CPM rise, meaning the auction got more expensive, perhaps due to a festive season, or did click-through rate or landing page conversion fall? If CTR fell and frequency is high, it is creative fatigue, so I would launch new ad creatives with different hooks. If conversion on the landing page fell, I would check page speed and the form. I would also review audience overlap between ad sets and consolidate them.

I start with the brand’s goals for the month, such as launching a product or growing followers, and list key dates like festivals and sale days. I decide three or four content pillars, for a café maybe menu highlights, behind the scenes, customer stories and offers, and keep promotional posts to about one in four. Then I plan the number of posts, Reels and stories per week in a sheet with dates, format, caption, visual brief and status. I batch-create content a week in advance, schedule it, and leave room for trending topics. At month end I review what performed best.

Attribution decides which touchpoints get credit for a conversion. Last-click gives all credit to the final click, which overvalues branded search and retargeting. First-click credits whatever introduced the customer, which overvalues awareness channels. Data-driven attribution, which GA4 uses by default, spreads credit based on observed paths. I use data-driven where there is enough conversion volume, but I do not treat any model as truth. For big budget calls, I test incrementality, for example pausing a channel in a few cities and comparing sales with similar cities where it keeps running.

On the technical side, I make sure the sending domain has SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up correctly, because major inbox providers now expect them for bulk senders. I clean the list regularly, removing hard bounces and people who have not opened in months, and I never buy lists. I include a clear one-click unsubscribe. On the content side, I test subject lines, keep them short and specific, use a recognisable sender name and personalise by segment, like past buyers versus new signups. I also send at times when that audience usually opens, based on past campaign data.

I start with the business: what it sells, to whom, and where. I list seed topics, then expand them using Google Keyword Planner, Search Console data if the site exists, autocomplete, People also ask and a paid SEO tool. For each keyword I note search volume, difficulty and intent: informational, commercial or transactional. A new site cannot rank for broad terms immediately, so I target specific long-tail keywords first, like physiotherapy clinic for back pain in Kothrud. I group keywords into topic clusters, map one main keyword per page, and check what is ranking now to see what format Google prefers.

I start with a hypothesis based on data, for example users drop off because the form asks for too much, so reducing it from eight fields to four will raise form submissions. I change only that one element, split traffic evenly and randomly, and decide the primary metric and test duration in advance, running at least one or two full weeks to cover weekday patterns. I check that enough conversions come in for the result to be reliable, and I do not stop the test the moment one version looks ahead. Then I roll out the winner and log the learning.

I would start with the target: say 60 site visits a month, and work back using past conversion rates from lead to visit. As a starting split, I would put about 45 per cent into Google search for high-intent terms like 2 BHK flats in a specific locality, 35 per cent into Meta lead campaigns targeting the right age, income signals and area, 10 per cent into retargeting across Google Display and Meta, and keep 10 per cent for testing, like YouTube or property portals. After two weeks, I would move budget toward channels with the lowest cost per site visit, not per lead.

I ran an Instagram influencer campaign for a skincare brand with five mid-size creators. We got good reach and likes, but very few sales. When I looked closer, three creators’ audiences were mostly outside India, and the discount code was only mentioned at the end of their videos. I had chosen creators based on follower counts and engagement rates, not on audience location and past sales results. For the next campaign, I asked creators for audience demographics, tested with micro-creators first, and gave them clear briefs with the code in the first few seconds. Sales from the code improved several times over.

A restaurant client wanted more Instagram followers every month and judged us on that. Followers were growing, but table bookings were flat. I did not argue against followers. I added two things to the monthly report: bookings from Instagram, tracked through a link in bio with UTM tags, and orders from a code only used on Instagram. After two months, I showed that Reels about weekend offers brought bookings, while giveaway posts brought followers who never booked. The client agreed to shift budget toward the offer Reels, and we reported bookings as the main metric from then on.

Organic traffic on our e-commerce blog fell by about a third in two weeks. I first checked Search Console and found it matched a core algorithm update, but I also checked technical issues. A developer had accidentally added noindex to category pages during a redesign, which I fixed the same day. For the update, the pages that lost most were thin, keyword-stuffed posts written years ago. I shared a clear plan with my manager: merge weak posts, update the best ones with real product advice and expert input, and remove the rest. Traffic recovered gradually over the next few months.

Our sales team complained that leads from our software demo campaign were poor, while my dashboard showed low cost per lead. I sat with two sales executives for a morning and listened to their calls. Many leads were students and small shops, not the mid-size businesses we sold to. We agreed on a definition of a qualified lead, and I added two questions to the form: company size and role. Lead volume dropped, but the sales team’s qualified leads rose, and cost per qualified lead fell. We now review lead quality together every Friday.

In my final year, I offered to run social media for my uncle’s bakery in Nagpur for free. It had an Instagram page with 300 followers and no plan. I started posting Reels of cakes being decorated three times a week, set up a Google Business Profile with photos and asked happy customers for reviews. With a 3,000-rupee budget I ran a local Meta campaign for a festive cake pre-order. Over four months the page grew to about 2,400 followers, and the bakery took around 60 pre-orders during the festival through WhatsApp. I documented everything in a case study.

Our founder decided to run a flash sale for Independence Day just three days before. I listed what was essential: landing page, Meta and Google ads, one email, and working tracking. I briefed the designer on day one with exact sizes and copy for three creatives, reused our existing landing page template, and set up the sale code and UTM links myself. On day two I tested the full journey with a real order. The sale went live on time. I dropped extras like influencer posts and a WhatsApp broadcast series, but tracking was solid, so we measured the results clearly.

I have two and a half years of experience in performance marketing and currently manage about 8 lakh rupees a month in Google and Meta spend for three clients at an agency. My current CTC is 6 lakh. For in-house performance marketing roles with similar spend in Mumbai, I have seen offers in roughly the 8 to 10 lakh range. So I am looking for about 9 lakh. If the role includes a performance incentive linked to targets such as cost per acquisition, I am happy to discuss a slightly lower fixed component.

At the agency, I handle four or five brands at a time, which taught me a lot across categories. But I rarely see what happens after the lead reaches the client: whether it turned into a sale, what the customer lifetime value was, or how marketing fit into the product plan. In-house, I can own the full funnel for one brand, work closely with sales and product, and run longer tests. Your company is growing its direct-to-consumer channel, and I want to build that measurement and campaign system properly from the start, not just manage accounts.

Yes, I understand that marketing is busiest around launches and big sale periods like Diwali or end-of-season sales, and campaigns need monitoring when they go live. In my current role I monitor ads over sale weekends, adjusting budgets and pausing poor ads from my phone when needed. What helps me is planning: I try to finish creatives and set up tracking well ahead, so weekend work is monitoring, not building. I would appreciate compensatory time off after heavy periods, but I do not expect to be rigid when a launch needs attention.