When you are interviewing candidates for digital marketing positions, it is important to be aware that digital marketing requires specific skillsets that are quite different from those needed for traditional marketing. Technological knowledge wasn’t always a must in traditional marketing, but you can’t get very far without it in digital marketing. Potential candidates must not only have advanced digital skills, but they must also regularly update these skills or learn new ones to master new technologies as they appear in the market. In addition, candidates must know how to plan and implement marketing campaigns strategically.

Let’s look at some of the must-ask digital marketing interview questions that you should pose to all potential candidates for marketing positions:

Can you tell us what you understand about digital marketing and how it differs from traditional marketing?

This basic question serves as a conversation opener to set candidates at ease. It also lets you know how well the candidates understand digital marketing fundamentals and how well they can articulate their familiarity with it. They should be able to offer a clear definition of digital marketing and to explain why digital marketing trumps traditional marketing when it comes to reaching and influencing a wider audience.

They should also be able to tell you how they will go about planning digital marketing campaigns, how they will reach out online to current and new clients, and what steps they will take to keep their potential audience engaged. They should be able to explain the difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing. They should be well versed in multiple digital marketing platforms and have a good understanding of conducting market research.

Why should we implement digital marketing? Can you tell us what the specific benefits are?

Here is a seemingly simple question with plenty of depth and scope in its possible answers. A candidate could start at the beginning and tell you how digital marketing revolutionized the advertising and marketing fields. Where once consumers were a mostly passive audience for all the marketing campaigns that advertisers unleashed on them, the digital marketing trend has now transformed them into active participants when and if they want to voice their reactions and opinions.

This allows marketers to gauge what the general public thinks of their products and marketing campaigns and if these are having or not having the desired effect. They can quickly alter or altogether change their marketing campaign to better fit in with public opinion. Such quick turnabouts are not easily and inexpensively achieved in traditional advertising.

What do you know about search engine optimization (SEO)? In your opinion, how crucial is it to digital marketing?

If anyone tells you ‘not crucial’, cross them from the list of potential candidates. Digital marketing depends to such an extent on SEO that claiming no knowledge of it these days borders on digital illiteracy. The candidates should be able to tell you how SEO makes it possible for search engines to find and index your website and web pages, using specific words and phrases that you have included in the pages. SEO influences your website traffic. Every time someone types certain words and phrases into a search box, the results display sites that have included them in their content.

No forms of marketing are all encompassing. What do you think are the limitations of digital marketing?

Having limitations isn’t necessarily a drawback. Candidates should tell you how it allows you to streamline your marketing process for better results. That said, the principal limitation of digital marketing is, ironically enough, its very inclusiveness. Everyone can post-marketing campaigns online to reach to a broad public, and so everyone does just that. Often, with unimaginative sameness, and the result is that the public will either miss you in the crowd or tune out from boredom. The candidates should offer suggestions to avoid this and to come up with fresh marketing ideas that give results without wasting time, money, and effort.

These and other must-ask digital marketing interview questions will highlight how knowledgeable the candidates are about this type of marketing. You can then pare down the candidate list for your marketing position. Pick the most well-informed, efficient, and experienced candidates.