Questions to Ask a Marketer
Good questions to ask a marketer over coffee, on a mentoring call, for a class assignment or across the table from one you might hire. The 67 questions start with their path and current work, then move through strategy and channels, budgets and measurement, customers and copy, and career advice, and end with a group for anyone hiring a marketer, a freelancer or an agency.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
How did you get into marketing, and what kind of marketer would you call yourself now?
Why ask it
Few people planned it, so the route is usually a good story and an easy one to tell. The second half matters more: a brand person, a media buyer and a content lead will answer everything after this differently, and you should know which you are talking to.
What are you working on this quarter, and what would count as success?
Why ask it
They can answer without preparing, because it is already on their desk. If success turns out to be a volume of activity, so many posts or emails sent, and not a number tied to customers or revenue, you have learned how their work is judged.
What does a typical week look like for you: making things, sitting in meetings or reading numbers?
Why ask it
The proportions tell you what the job is behind the title. If most of the week goes on meetings and approvals, find out who does the making, because that may be the person to ask about craft.
How do you know your marketing is working, when a sale is rarely down to one thing?
Why ask it
The honest replies put several rough readings side by side: what the ad platforms report, what new customers say when asked how they found the company, and what happens to sales when spending is paused. Someone who says one dashboard settles it is quoting the dashboard, not reading it.
What is the best campaign you have worked on, and what made it work?
Why ask it
The pick says what they value: the cleverest idea, the biggest number or the hardest thing to get approved. Ask what their own part was, since big campaigns have many parents, and whether they could tell at the time that it was going well.
Which channel is actually bringing in customers at the moment?
Why ask it
Compare the reply with where they said their week goes. A marketer who answers quickly probably has measurement they trust. One who lists every channel as equally important often cannot tell them apart.
What is the last thing you tried that did not work?
Why ask it
Someone running real experiments has a recent flop and can say what they concluded from it. If nothing comes to mind, either little is being tested or results only get reported when they flatter.
What is the hardest part of your job right now?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and wait. The reply is often not about marketing at all: a product that is hard to explain, a target nobody believes in, a team of one. Whatever they name is what they will talk about most openly, so stay on it for a few minutes.
Which campaign from another company do you wish had been yours?
Why ask it
A light one that still tells you something. What they admire shows their taste, and the reason they give shows whether they judge work by how it looked or by what it did for the business.
Strategy
How do you split effort between things that pay off this month and things that pay off next year?
Why ask it
Ads aimed at people ready to buy pay back fast. Building a name and an audience pays back slowly, and the two compete for the same budget. Ask for a rough proportion, and who defends the slow half when a quarter goes badly, since it tends to be cut first.
How do you decide what not to do?
Why ask it
Marketing never runs short of plausible things to try. The reply worth having includes a rule they apply and a channel they ignore on purpose, despite pressure to be on it. With no rule, the plan is whatever arrived most recently.
Where would you start with a product nobody has heard of and no audience to tell?
Why ask it
With no data to lean on, you see how they think. The strongest replies begin with finding the first handful of customers by hand and learning why they bought. A list of channels to switch on tends to come from someone who has only worked where demand already existed.
With a few hundred dollars a month and no team, what would you do and what would you skip?
Why ask it
The small business owner's question, and worth asking even if that is not you. Notice whether they shrink their usual plan or start again from the constraint. Their list of things not worth doing at that size may be worth more than the list of things to do.
Where do you land on brand spend versus performance spend?
Why ask it
Brand spend is meant to make people know and like you, and performance spend is advertising you can trace to a sale. How to balance them is an open argument in the field, so the reasoning matters more than the position. The real test is how they would defend the brand half to a finance director.
How much of your traffic depends on a platform you do not control?
Why ask it
Search rankings, a social feed, an app store, one large partner: any of them can change its rules without notice. How they spread that risk is more instructive than hearing about their best month.
What part does email play for you, and how was the list built?
Why ask it
An email list is one of the few audiences a platform cannot switch off, so how it was gathered matters. How often they write to it, and what happens to sales when they do, shows whether it is an asset or an archive. Consent rules for email differ by country, so before copying their method, check what applies where you are.
Which new thing in marketing are you taking seriously, and which do you think is hype?
Why ask it
The trends question, with an escape hatch. Asking for the hype as well stops the reply turning into a list of whatever everyone is posting about this month. Then find out where they have moved budget or hours, which is the real vote.
How has search changed for you now that answers often appear before anyone clicks?
Why ask it
Ask what they have seen in their own numbers, since this varies a great deal by subject and nobody has a settled answer yet. The useful replies describe what they changed in response. Be wary of certainty in either direction.
Which social platform is worth your time, and which do you keep up only for appearances?
Why ask it
Plenty of teams run an account they could close without a customer noticing. Their choice tells you if platforms get picked by where buyers are or by where competitors post. A good follow-up is what happened the last time they went quiet on one for a month.
How do you decide what content to make, and how do you tell whether a piece earned its keep?
Why ask it
Content is where output is most easily mistaken for results. You are hoping to hear that topics come from questions customers really ask, and that there is some way of telling which pieces led anywhere. A publishing calendar is a schedule, not a reason.
Where are you using AI tools in the work, and where have you taken them back out?
Why ask it
The second half is the test of real use. People who have run these tools on live work can name a task where fixing the output cost more than it saved. The follow-up is what they now check by hand that they did not at first.
What worked once that you could not repeat?
Why ask it
Most marketers have a campaign or a post that took off for reasons partly outside their control. Saying so, and not claiming a repeatable playbook, is a fair sign of honesty about their own results.
Numbers
Which number does your leadership care about, and which do you think matters more?
Why ask it
The gap between the two is where a lot of internal arguments about marketing sit. You also learn whether they are judged on something they can influence. If they are not, ask how they live with that.
Roughly what do you have to spend, and where does most of it go?
Why ask it
A tactic that works on a hundred thousand a month may be irrelevant at two thousand, so their advice is hard to use without the scale behind it. Many marketers are not free to share the figure. In that case, ask for the rough split between ads, tools, agencies and people.
What does a new customer cost you, and what goes into that figure?
Why ask it
The number means little until you know whether it counts salaries, tools and agency fees or only the ad spend. Then compare it with what that customer is worth over time. Not knowing is common on small teams, and a plain admission beats an invented figure.
How long do you give something new before you decide it is not working?
Why ask it
Paid ads can usually be judged within weeks, while search and content work tends to need months. What you hope to hear is a deadline set in advance and an early signal they watch in the meantime. Deciding afterwards is how weak projects live for years.
How do you run a test when you do not have much traffic?
Why ask it
A clean split test needs more visitors than many small sites get. Marketers who have dealt with that talk about testing bigger changes, running them for longer, or accepting judgment where the numbers cannot decide. A textbook reply about statistical significance suggests they have only tested with volume to spare.
What goes in your regular report, and who actually reads it?
Why ask it
Reports grow by addition, so many carry numbers nobody has acted on in a year. Ask which line last changed a decision. If none has, the report exists to show that work happened.
What did you have to stop doing the last time the budget was cut?
Why ask it
Cuts show the real order of priorities, which rarely matches the plan. Find out whether the first thing to go was also the thing that took longest to build, and whether it ever came back.
Which tools are worth what they cost, and which have you canceled?
Why ask it
The cancellations are the useful part, and they tend to be specific and slightly bitter. You also find out whether the set of tools was chosen or inherited, and how much of the budget goes on software before any advertising is bought.
Customers and copy
Who exactly are you trying to reach, and how did you settle on them?
Why ask it
A marketer close to the work describes a person with a problem and the moment they go looking for help. A reply made only of age brackets and income usually came from a slide. If the description has not changed since the business started, it may be that nobody has checked it.
How do you find out what customers actually say about the product?
Why ask it
Direct contact is the thing to hear about: calls, support tickets, sales recordings, reviews read in full. Marketers who only see survey scores added up tend to write copy about the company and not about the customer's problem.
What is the last customer conversation that changed your plan?
Why ask it
Some research is done for reassurance and some has consequences, and this tells them apart. Press for the particular conversation and what was different the week after. If the last one was a long time ago, that is an answer too.
How would a customer describe what you sell, and how far is that from your own tagline?
Why ask it
The distance between the two measures how much of the positioning was written from the inside. Marketers who have closed the gap can usually quote a customer word for word. Afterwards, look at their homepage and see whether that phrase is on it.
What do you know about the people who nearly bought and did not?
Why ask it
Most teams study the customers they won, who are the ones the marketing already works on. Lost-deal notes, abandoned carts and a few calls with people who said no are where the next improvement tends to hide. Few teams make those calls, so a real example stands out.
When you only get one line, in an ad or an email subject, how do you decide what it says?
Why ask it
A craft question, and most marketers enjoy it. Some start from the customer's own words, some from the offer, and some write thirty lines and test the best three. Ask for a line of theirs that did well and the version it beat.
Who writes your copy, and how does it get approved?
Why ask it
Approval chains explain a good deal about why marketing sounds the way it does. If legal, a founder or a committee touches every line, the limit on quality is the process and not the writer. How long one email takes to get out the door is a fair measure.
What happens to a lead after marketing hands it to sales, and where does it go wrong?
Why ask it
Where a company sells through a sales team, a lot of marketing effort can vanish at this point: leads passed over and never called, or arguments about which ones were worth calling. If they say the handoff is fine, ask when they last sat in on a sales call. Skip this one if they sell straight to shoppers.
Career
What do you still enjoy about the work, and which part wears you down?
Why ask it
Worth asking before you copy anyone's career. If what they enjoy is the part you would dread, say the spreadsheets or the pitching, that is useful to know early. When they name what wears them down, ask whether it is the field or only this employer.
What part of this job did nobody warn you about?
Why ask it
Expect the reply to be about life inside the company: managing expectations, waiting for approvals, defending a budget, taking the blame for a product problem. If you are deciding whether to go into the field, this is the one to write down.
Which skill has paid off most over your career, and which did you overrate early on?
Why ask it
Expect to hear writing, comfort with numbers or knowing customers more often than any single platform. The overrated half is the more useful to you, because it saves the months they spent on it.
If you were starting again now, what would you learn first?
Why ask it
Not the same as asking what paid off for them, because the field they entered may have changed past recognition. Someone who names writing, analysis or media buying is telling you what they think will hold up. Push back gently if they only name the channel that made their own career.
Would you tell someone starting out to specialize or to stay broad?
Why ask it
There is no agreed answer, so listen to the reasoning and the conditions attached. Ask at what point in their own career the choice was made, and whether it felt like a choice at the time.
What did agency work teach you that in-house work could not, or the other way round?
Why ask it
Agencies tend to give range and speed. In-house roles give depth and the chance to see what happened a year later. If they have only done one, ask what they envy about the other, which helps if you are choosing a first job.
How much do a marketing degree and certificates count when you hire, compared with work someone can show?
Why ask it
This differs by employer and by country: some large companies screen on a degree and many small teams never ask. Take the reply as how it works where they hire, and put the same thing to someone at the kind of company you are aiming for.
If I wanted to show I could do this job before anyone hired me, what should I make?
Why ask it
The suggestions are usually small and real: a site of your own with some traffic, a local shop's ads run on a tiny budget, a newsletter with a hundred readers. Follow up with what they would look at first if you sent it to them. Of all the career questions, this one hands you something to start on next week.
What do the best marketers you have worked with do that the rest do not?
Why ask it
Asking about other people gets a franker reply than asking what makes a good marketer. They will describe a habit they watched up close, such as rewriting a headline twenty times or phoning customers every week. A habit is something you can copy, which a list of traits is not.
What is something about marketing you have changed your mind about?
Why ask it
A changed mind has three parts: what they used to believe, what broke it, and what they do now. Someone who can give all three has watched their own results closely. Give them a moment, since this takes longer to answer than most.
Which piece of popular marketing advice do you think is wrong?
Why ask it
Most working marketers have one and enjoy being asked. Press for the situation where the advice fails, because that is the part you can use. If the reply is itself a slogan, they may collect opinions more than results.
Who do you still learn from: a newsletter, a community, a particular person?
Why ask it
Names are what you want here, so write them down. Somebody who learns from peers running similar accounts is probably getting fresher information than somebody relying on conference talks. The sources they have dropped are as telling as the ones they kept.
Is there one person you think I should talk to next?
Why ask it
Save it for the end, once they know what you are after. A named introduction can be worth more than any answer they gave, and people who enjoyed the conversation offer one readily. Follow up within a few days or the offer goes stale.
Hiring
Which channels have you run yourself, and which have you managed someone else running?
Why ask it
People who have sat in the ad account themselves talk about bids, daily budgets and ads that stopped working after two weeks. People who managed it talk about performance in general terms. Either can be the right hire, as long as you know which one you are getting.
Walk me through the last campaign you took from idea to result.
Why ask it
Ask for one campaign end to end, not the highlights. Notice whether they know the budget, the timeline and the numbers without checking, since people describe their own work with specifics and other people's work with adjectives.
When a launch landed flat, what did you do in the week after?
Why ask it
There are three usual moves: find the cause, stop the spending, or quietly change the metric. How long the decision took matters as much as which it was, because money is lost for as long as a weak campaign is left running.
What metric would you refuse to be measured on?
Why ask it
The refusal shows what they think the job is. Turning down follower counts or impressions suggests they want to be tied to sales. Turning down any number connected to revenue deserves a follow-up about why.
What does your brief to a designer or writer look like?
Why ask it
Ask to see a real one if you can. A brief shows whether someone can pin down an audience and a single message, or whether they hand over a vague request and then rewrite what comes back.
What do you insist on doing in house, and what would you outsource?
Why ask it
The line someone draws shows what they believe is core. Ask what went wrong the last time they outsourced something they should have kept, since almost everyone has one of those and the story is specific.
What happens when a founder or a chief executive wants a channel you think is wrong?
Why ask it
It comes up often and there is no perfect answer. The experienced move is to propose a small test with a fixed budget and an end date, which turns an argument into evidence. Be cautious of the candidate who always gives in and of the one who never does.
What have you done for a business of our size and kind, and could I speak to someone there?
Why ask it
Results at a company with ten times your budget say little about what they can do with yours. The request for a reference matters as much as the case itself: an easy yes is reassuring, and hesitation deserves a follow-up.
Having looked at our site and our ads, what would you leave alone and what would you change first?
Why ask it
It checks whether they prepared, and the first half checks judgment. A candidate who would change everything has not asked why any of it is there. One who wants to see the numbers before answering is already doing the job.
What would your first month with us look like, week by week?
Why ask it
A sensible first month is mostly listening: getting into the accounts, calls with customers and sales, a read of what has been tried before. Be cautious of a launch promised in week one, since it can only be a plan they brought with them.
What do you need from us that marketers often do not get?
Why ask it
Access to data, one named person who can approve things and time with customers are the usual requests. This turns the interview around usefully: if you cannot provide what they list, the hire will struggle whoever it is.
What should we honestly expect in the first three months, and what will take longer?
Why ask it
Nobody can promise outcomes, and a candidate who does is selling. What you want is a split between early signs, such as cleaner tracking or a first test you can read, and results that need a longer run. Write the answer down and bring it to the first review.
How often would we hear from you, and what would you show us each time?
Why ask it
Settle this before work starts and not after the first quiet month. A short regular update on the two or three numbers you both agreed on beats a long report nobody reads. Ask to see one they have sent another client, with the names removed.
Who would do the work day to day: you, or someone we have not met?
Why ask it
Mostly one for agencies, where the person who pitches is not always the person who runs the account. Neither arrangement is wrong, but ask to meet whoever it will be before you sign. With a freelancer, ask what happens when they are sick or away.
How is your fee worked out, and what sits outside it?
Why ask it
One for freelancers and agencies. Ad spend, software, design and photography are often billed on top, so ask for a typical month's total and not only the headline rate. Notice periods and minimum terms vary a great deal, so ask about those too.
If we stopped working together, who would own the ad accounts, the email list and the files?
Why ask it
The answer you want is that everything sits in accounts your business owns, with the marketer given access. Sorting it out afterwards is slow and sometimes impossible. Arrangements differ between providers, so ask how theirs works and get it in writing before work starts.
Getting useful answers from a marketer
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Establish the context before you take any advice
The same tactic can be excellent or useless depending on the business it ran in. Before you act on anything a marketer tells you, find out four things: whether they sell to businesses or consumers, the price and purchase frequency of what they sell, their monthly budget, and their team size. A playbook built on a long sales cycle with a sales team attached does not transfer to a low-cost consumer product, and advice from a marketer with an agency behind them rarely survives contact with a one-person operation.
How to ask
Pick a handful, not the whole list
Nobody gets through this page in one sitting. For half an hour, choose two openers and four or five from the group that matches why you are there, then leave room for follow-ups, which is where the specific answers come from. The groups are there so you can skip the ones that do not fit: a student has little use for the hiring questions, and a shop owner choosing an agency can leave the career ones alone.
Ask about the last time, not the general case
How do you handle launches produces a framework. What happened on your last launch produces the truth, including the parts that went badly. Use the same move whenever an answer starts to sound like a conference talk.
Ask for the number and the denominator
A tripled conversion rate from a small base can mean two extra sales. Whenever you hear a percentage, ask what it was out of, and expect a good marketer to volunteer it before you have to.
Bring one specific problem, not your whole situation
If you are asking for their time, come with a single decision you are stuck on and the numbers around it. Open requests to look at everything get polite generalities, because that is all they can honestly offer in half an hour.
Reading the answers
- Named numbers, dates, and failed tests suggest they are close to the work
- Only impressions, reach, and engagement usually means results are not tied to revenue
- An unwillingness to say what a campaign cost makes any claim about return unverifiable
- Credit for growth that coincided with a funding round, a price change, or a product launch is worth probing
- Advice built entirely on one channel that worked years ago tends not to survive platform changes
Adjusting for the setting
A career conversation
Spend most of it on how the work is judged, what the week involves, and which skills they would learn first. Ask about the internal politics of the role too, since people often leave over those and not over the craft.
A recorded interview or podcast
Agree beforehand which figures they can say publicly, because many marketers cannot share revenue or spend without approval. Asking on air puts them in an awkward position and produces vaguer answers than a quiet check in advance.
Assessing someone you might hire
Focus on what they personally did as opposed to what their team's results were, and ask who else was involved in the campaign they are proudest of. Attribution problems inside a resume are as common as attribution problems in advertising.
A small business hiring a freelancer or an agency
Lead with your own numbers: what you sell, what you can spend each month and what a new customer is worth to you. Then ask what they have done at that scale, what the first month would involve, who would do the work, what the fee leaves out and who owns the accounts. A marketer who asks you hard questions back before quoting is usually a better sign than one who has a package ready.