Marketing Consultant
The world of marketing is no longer just about creativity, campaigns and clever copy. Today, digital marketing professionals are expected to combine creative thinking with technical expertise.
Whether you’re preparing for your next role or trying to stand out to a digital marketing recruitment agency, being ready to answer technical questions is a must. Employers increasingly want marketers who understand not only the message, but also the mechanics behind digital success.
If you’re navigating the marketing recruitment process, these five technical questions are likely to come up – and being confident with your answers could be what lands you the job.
1. How do you implement and troubleshoot tracking (e.g. Google Tag Manager & Analytics)?
Understanding how to track user behaviour accurately is a fundamental skill for any digital marketer.
Why it matters: Data drives everything in digital marketing, from optimising ad spend to refining user journeys. If your tracking setup is off, your data will be unreliable.
What you should know:
- Use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to implement tags and events without editing the site’s code directly. Be familiar with setting up triggers for clicks, scrolls, form submissions and more.
- Understand the basics of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), including how to create and monitor custom events and conversions.
- Be comfortable using tools like GTM’s preview mode, Google’s Tag Assistant, and the GA DebugView to test and troubleshoot.
Tip for candidates: During interviews with a digital marketing recruitment agency like Intelligent People, showcasing your ability to set up and debug tracking systems demonstrates a strong command of performance marketing tools.
2. Can you explain how SEO works from a technical perspective?
While content and keywords remain critical, technical SEO ensures your site is discoverable, fast and user-friendly.
Why it matters: If search engines can’t crawl or index your site properly, even the best content won’t perform.
What you should know:
- Understand how robots.txt files, sitemaps and meta tags influence how Google crawls your site.
- Know how to analyse and improve Core Web Vitals, which focus on loading speed, interactivity and visual stability.
- Be familiar with canonical tags, 301 redirects and structured data to handle duplicate content and support rich search results.
A strong grasp of technical SEO not only improves your website’s visibility, it also shows employers that you can think beyond just content and keywords.
3. What’s your approach to A/B testing and conversion rate optimisation (CRO)?
Great marketers don’t just rely on instinct, they test, iterate and improve.
Why it matters: A/B testing is essential for improving conversions, whether you’re working on landing pages, ads or email campaigns.
What you should know:
- Use platforms like VWO, Optimizely or CMS-native tools to run tests on headlines, layouts, calls-to-action and more.
- Build tests around clear hypotheses, define key performance indicators (KPIs), and understand when results are statistically significant.
- Know the technical difference between a redirect test and a client-side variation (where the page is altered with JavaScript or CSS).
Interview tip: Employers hiring through a marketing recruitment agency often look for marketers who can demonstrate a data-driven mindset. Discuss examples of past tests and the impact they had.
4. How do you work with APIs in marketing?
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) might sound like a developer’s tool, but marketers increasingly rely on them for automation and data integration.
Why it matters: APIs help streamline reporting, personalise campaigns, and link platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads and CRMs.
What you should know:
- Use Zapier, Make or Supermetrics to automate data flows without writing code.
- Understand the basics: What an API is, how endpoints and tokens work and what kind of data you can retrieve or send.
- Recognise common use cases like pulling ad data into a reporting dashboard, or syncing customer information between platforms.
In a tech-savvy marketing team, your ability to work with APIs, even at a basic level, can set you apart in the marketing recruitment process.
5. How do you ensure data integrity and attribution accuracy?
With data privacy changes and multi-device journeys, accurate tracking is more difficult, but more important, than ever.
Why it matters: Attribution errors can lead to poor decisions and wasted ad spend. Employers need marketers who understand the nuances of data accuracy.
What you should know:
- Be familiar with attribution models like first-click, last-click, and data-driven attribution in GA4 or ad platforms.
- Understand how to properly build and use UTM parameters for campaign tracking.
- Know how privacy regulations (like GDPR) and browser changes (like iOS 14+ and cookie deprecation) affect tracking and reporting.
- Get a high-level understanding of server-side tracking, a growing solution for maintaining data quality in a privacy-focused world.
Pro tip: Digital marketing recruitment agencies are increasingly seeking candidates who understand these challenges and have strategies to work around them.
Final thoughts: Become the hybrid marketer employers want
The marketing landscape in the UK is shifting. Employers, hiring managers and digital marketing recruitment agencies alike are looking for hybrid marketers – those who combine creative thinking with technical skills.
Being able to confidently answer technical questions shows you’re not just a thinker, you’re a doer. Whether you’re applying for an in-house role or working with a marketing recruitment agency, your ability to talk tech will open doors.
If some of these topics feel new, don’t worry. There are countless resources and free tools to help you build your technical skills. Start small, play around in Google Tag Manager, audit a site’s SEO using free tools, or build a test A/B campaign using your CMS.
The future of marketing isn’t just creative, it’s data-driven, tech-enabled and constantly evolving. So, the real question is: Are you ready to level up?
That said, the specific technical questions you’ll face in an interview will depend entirely on the role you’re applying for. A purely performance-focused digital role may lean heavily into tools, data and automation, while a hybrid marketing position – combining traditional and digital channels – might involve a broader mix of questions, from brand positioning to offline campaign planning. Preparing for both technical depth and strategic breadth will give you the best chance of success.
Work with Intelligent People
At Intelligent People, we’re a specialist marketing and digital marketing recruitment agency helping candidates find high-impact roles and businesses hire the talent they need to grow.
Whether you’re looking for your next opportunity or need to hire marketing professionals today, we’re here to help.
