Define what the person will own
Separate campaign strategy from campaign operations. A specialist building programs from a clear brief needs a different assessment from a manager redesigning lifecycle processes or a director setting the platform roadmap.
List the marketing automation platform, CRM, integrations, and campaign types the person will use. Decide which skills need to be present on day one and which can be learned with support. A long list of tool names makes it harder to see the responsibilities that actually matter.
Walk through a campaign launch
Give the candidate a fictional brief: a webinar campaign with an existing customer audience, prospects, a registration form, and a sales follow-up. Ask them to explain how they would prepare and check the program.
Look for audience logic, suppression and contact preferences, form testing, naming conventions, link tracking, and a check that records reach the intended systems. Strong evidence includes a clear sequence of checks and a plan for finding errors before the launch.
- Which records should be excluded, and how would you verify that?
- What would you test from registration through the CRM?
- How would sales know who needs follow-up?
- How would you investigate a campaign that launched to the wrong segment?
Test the handoff between marketing and sales
Introduce a second scenario: qualified leads appear in the marketing platform but some never reach the correct sales owner. Ask the candidate to explain the investigation before proposing a fix.
Look for attention to field mappings, synchronization errors, duplicate records, routing conditions, and differences in lifecycle definitions. Ask how they would test exceptions and monitor the change after it is released. Naming a workflow tool is not the same as explaining the workflow.
Ask about conflicting reports
Tell the candidate that marketing reports more opportunities from a campaign than sales recognizes. Ask which questions they would ask first.
Useful answers explore the reporting period, campaign membership, opportunity relationships, source definitions, and attribution assumptions. Ask them to explain what the report can support and what it cannot. Be cautious about conclusions that jump directly from campaign association to causal impact.
Record evidence consistently
Use the same core scenarios for candidates applying to the same role. Have interviewers write down observations before the group debrief, separating what was demonstrated from what was merely asserted.
Mark untested areas as missing evidence. A candidate who has not had a chance to demonstrate a skill should not receive the same assessment as someone who demonstrated a gap. Use a short follow-up to resolve questions tied to an essential responsibility.
- Platform knowledge: can they explain the relevant configuration and constraints?
- Execution discipline: do they identify checks, exceptions, and ongoing ownership?
- Measurement judgment: do they inspect definitions and qualify conclusions?
- Collaboration: can they explain how others use the process and how changes are agreed?
Keep work samples relevant and bounded
Use fictional or sanitized inputs for an exercise. Tell the candidate what you are evaluating, what preparation is needed, and how much time to spend. Avoid asking them to expose a former employer’s confidential data or build a live campaign for your business.
The goal is enough evidence to make a role-specific decision. Combine the exercise with discussion of prior work and agreed follow-up checks instead of relying on presentation polish or a single numerical score.