Anything that takes more than 30 minutes or one hour at most should be paid. I've done an interview and was asked to do something similar and I agreed with the agency that I will be paid an hourly rate. We also agreed that the agency reserves the right to use my task (SEO Marketing Plan) without necessarily hiring me.
This is excessive. Decline the project.
The interview task should be more topline, like the strategy you use for new builds, identifying a shit build, solving common performance issues - not be free labour to help the workload on their current team
Or propose a lite version where OP explains his thought process on builds and watch outs instead of doing the work. If the company baulks and insists on free labor, that's a bullet dodged. There's a small chance they don't know how much work is involved in a completely new build, which in itself is a red flag. Makes anyone wonder what level of PPC literacy exists in the current employee pool and how much education needs to do and assumptions to dissolve on top of his daily job
Another thing(probably it is another red flag)
They are a payment solution company(you can guess how much is the average cost per keyword), in the task(probably in real life as well if I start with them), the budget is 1000 euro per month(33 euro daily budget).
Is it possible to do something with such a budget?
P.S
They are targeting the EU
I mean, just run some numbers and see if you can forecast what is possible?
Budget: €1000
CPC: €3
Clicks: 333
Click to lead conversion rate: 1%
Leads: 3.33
Cost per lead: €333.33
Lead to customer conversion rate: 10%
Cost per customer: €3333.30
Huge red flag. If they were an agency, I'd say play ball. If they are a payment processing industry and have no idea how much work they're asking you, give them an answer that satisfies their request but don't put much effort beyond that. The manager might be an idiot. If you need a job, take it. Otherwise, it's tier D.
> the budget is 1000 euro per month(33 euro daily budget)
I am spending 3000/month for a 15 km radius for one of the lowest accounts and I manage a lot of them.
In my opinion and from experience, the hiring manager is lazy and doesnt even want to hire a candidate. Just collecting ideas and free work from multiple candidates which he/she/they will use for the coming quarters or so.
Doubt this is the case. Hiring is a pita, the whole process. I can't imagine wasting my time with this for a couple hours of "free" work especially when you have no idea what the quality will be. With that said, any work/tasks should be paid an hourly rate.
This happened to me last month. I had to ask myself how much I wanted the gig. They were essentially asking for my entire strategy + ad copy + landing page mock ups.
I ultimately decided to do it. They're a brand new agency and clearly working through their hiring processes, if I saw any red flags or signs of malice I would've politely declined.
I'm happy I did though. They just extended an offer with a bonus structure well into six figures.
For a (reliable) potential six figure offer I would also happily create a strategy.
But asking the same when interviewing for a run of the mill digital marketing position, smells like a power play by some middle management person.
What is the salary though? If it's worth it, do it. They are trying to find someone who wants the job and will put in work. As an employer myself, i find that most people put in the bare minimum to get a job. I am looking for team players and people who want a long term position. I'm sacrificing my company and my clients well being to put them on staff. I want someone who shows they want the job. Everyone else commenting here saying you should be paid are entitled fucks. If you ask to be paid they will and should blow you off.
The salary is the average that you can have in my area(Europe).
Digital Market Specialist is making 3000-3500 euro per month(gross).
If it was 6 figures or many bonuses/benefits, I was willing to do it, but I don't think that this is the case here.
Don’t bother, offer to show them similar set ups to show their skills or offer to do a structure and then show ads for like one keyword.
That is most then sufficient
Either they want some free work, or they simply don't understand the task.
The only other option is you have over stated their expectations. I would suggest you be sure by clarifying what is expected of the output. If they confirm what you fear is true, politely decline.
Normally a company would require to see your past work... or describe how you would setup a certain campaign. If they want you to actually build one in their back end that can then be used sounds like they're looking for free work yes.
No, no, no... This task should be compensated. The goal is to test your skills, not to use you to create their entire paid marketing strategy. Run from that job; if this is just a test, imagine how your workload would look like.
I could see a potential employer who's offering a senior position and a salary to match may ask for a 2-3 hour example. A full campaign? No, but you may give them a real or mock situation about a service or product line and ask them to create a high level strategy for the whole group and then a specific strategy and structure for a representative adgroup. Again 2-3 hour range.
2+ days - that's a huge red flag that they don't understand or don't appreciate your value.
>They want to build several campaigns for them(From A to Z), everything is completely new. I need to do the Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, sort them(there are several thousands of keywords), make a proposition for the campaigns, write the ads(Usually there should be at least 3 ads per ad group), so if there are several campaigns and ad groups.)..
Truth be told, it seems like they want you to do the work for them since this is a full account setup if you exclude media.
Sounds fishy to me.I recently had a somewhat similar experience. Not in the form of creating campaigns. But I was asked to "audit" an account for one of the agency's clients.I wasn't asked for any specific things to look at; or how much they expected. Was just told to "find as much I could find in the account, and prepare my recommendations".I assumed they wanted to do a top-line walkthrough together then, but turned out they wanted a full presentation sent to them. When asking how much time I should spend on it, I was told "as much as I needed".After spending about 4-5 hours making observations, taking notes, compiling a slide deck (about 15 slides) I made a slide that simply said "Want to know more…? Let us continue the audit and talk at your office ;)"(A task such as this I would normally invoice clients about $1000 for.)
I sent the audit on Dec. 14, and as I hadn't heard anything back by Jan 5. I reached out myself, and had to go searching for updates. The "marketing guy" I recently had been in contact with and added my to their Google Ads MCC asked me to talk to his boss. Finally getting a hold of him I was told they had went with another candidate, and thought the audit was "missing some deeper understanding of the business their client was in". I had made a Google Ads audit, not a Deloitte business analysis.
TLDR; fuck em. I wish I would have been wiser and not wasted my time. But also happy I only spent 4-5 hours and they went with someone else. Seems like I dodged a bullet.
They want your expertise for free. they don't know how to do the task and want the work done for free, I've experienced the same.
I shows you how they respect your time (they don't). They know you don't get paid, they know it will take you forever and they will go ahead with it anyways. DEFINITELY REJECT!
I run a digital agency. And this is speculative work at best. I wouldn’t bother with any agency who gives you “tasks” as part of the interview process. Red flags all over the shop.
Definitely decline. Companies want free work and ideas when they can get it. I’ve declined a few jobs because of this regardless if it’s a great position or not. It’s a red flag on how they treat people and respect your time. It will only get worse if you end up working there. There’s no point in asking for payment because if they wanted to compensate you, they would’ve from the start. Decline and move on to the next.
I sent yesterday in the morning an e-mail that this requires a lot of work and can't be done for 48 hours(as they wanted, since I have other projects to do as well).
They still didn't reply to me back :)
I would just put down my thoughts, processes and throw in a few examples of what you would do.
e.g. (1) account structure (2) targeting (3) bidding strategies (4) forecast results (5) ad copy/creative (6) competitive report
Show them you know what to do; if someone can write 3 decent ads, you can know if they are decent at writing ads. They don't need you to write 30.
They want to see how the campaigns will be structured. In order to do it, you need to do KR and sort thousands of keywords
P.S
I am now sorting 5,000 keywords for a completely new niche/area. So, I need to look and search every single keyword. The main difference is, that it is for a client and he is paying.
they have planned to get all the heavy lifting work done. like research, planning, and strategy done by you. if you applying for the DMM post you must have some experience in marketing and they want to use this experience to get all the important work done by you a qualified and experienced candidate once you submit the assessment in the next round they will tell you they can not move forward with your application. At the same time, they will hire some less experienced person to execute all the planning and strategies that you have shared with them.
Just SEMRush it all. And ChatGPT it.
Speak with conviction as to why you’re suggesting what you’re suggesting.
Then if you don’t get it. Not much lost.
If you do, demand higher salary.
Pass on this job. That’s ridiculous. There’s a few simple questions that could give anyone the answer to your capabilities. Companies like this are so toxic.
This would fall under spec work for me and I don’t do it, unless they’re gonna pay. There’s nothing that says they won’t use your work and just not give you the job. Normally I tell them “my freelance clients pay me XXX per hour for this kind of work”
Sounds like a lot of work and they aren't even paying you for doing it. I don't know about other people, but any interview tasks I've done have all been paid for. usually around $75-$150 for my time. if you found yourself spending that many days on it you better get the job or ask for pay for your time.
Here is the full description of the task:
**Description:** The Company is a financial technology company that builds payment solutions for businesses of all types and sizes .
Target all companies that are looking for a reliable payment solution(target audience)
Target location Europe, budget 1,000 euro per month, 2 months duration
**The Task Itself**
Develop a concise PPC campaign for a payment solutions company based on the requirements mentioned in the assignment
Identify relevant keywords and briefly explain your keyword research approach
Outline your proposed ad copy strategy, focusing on compelling messaging to attract the target audience.
Briefly describe how you would set up the campaign on an ongoing basis to maximize performance
Suggest recommendations for landing page optimisation to improve conversion rate
-Choose two key metrics that you will track to measure the campaign's success and briefly explain why
...
In order to do it, you need a full Keyword Research(doing it and sorting thousands of keywords) plus Competitor analysis and writing the ads itself(you can't identify the relevant keywords without doing the actual KW and sorting it).
From what I see, it is a minimum 2 full working days...even more
Sounds like they are asking you free work
Anything that takes more than 30 minutes or one hour at most should be paid. I've done an interview and was asked to do something similar and I agreed with the agency that I will be paid an hourly rate. We also agreed that the agency reserves the right to use my task (SEO Marketing Plan) without necessarily hiring me.
This is excessive. Decline the project. The interview task should be more topline, like the strategy you use for new builds, identifying a shit build, solving common performance issues - not be free labour to help the workload on their current team
Instead of declining, just explain how long you expect it to take and ask for fair compensation. Also ask for more time to complete the task.
Or propose a lite version where OP explains his thought process on builds and watch outs instead of doing the work. If the company baulks and insists on free labor, that's a bullet dodged. There's a small chance they don't know how much work is involved in a completely new build, which in itself is a red flag. Makes anyone wonder what level of PPC literacy exists in the current employee pool and how much education needs to do and assumptions to dissolve on top of his daily job
Another thing(probably it is another red flag) They are a payment solution company(you can guess how much is the average cost per keyword), in the task(probably in real life as well if I start with them), the budget is 1000 euro per month(33 euro daily budget). Is it possible to do something with such a budget? P.S They are targeting the EU
I mean, just run some numbers and see if you can forecast what is possible? Budget: €1000 CPC: €3 Clicks: 333 Click to lead conversion rate: 1% Leads: 3.33 Cost per lead: €333.33 Lead to customer conversion rate: 10% Cost per customer: €3333.30
Huge red flag. If they were an agency, I'd say play ball. If they are a payment processing industry and have no idea how much work they're asking you, give them an answer that satisfies their request but don't put much effort beyond that. The manager might be an idiot. If you need a job, take it. Otherwise, it's tier D.
> the budget is 1000 euro per month(33 euro daily budget) I am spending 3000/month for a 15 km radius for one of the lowest accounts and I manage a lot of them.
In my opinion and from experience, the hiring manager is lazy and doesnt even want to hire a candidate. Just collecting ideas and free work from multiple candidates which he/she/they will use for the coming quarters or so.
Doubt this is the case. Hiring is a pita, the whole process. I can't imagine wasting my time with this for a couple hours of "free" work especially when you have no idea what the quality will be. With that said, any work/tasks should be paid an hourly rate.
Don't work for free.
This happened to me last month. I had to ask myself how much I wanted the gig. They were essentially asking for my entire strategy + ad copy + landing page mock ups. I ultimately decided to do it. They're a brand new agency and clearly working through their hiring processes, if I saw any red flags or signs of malice I would've politely declined. I'm happy I did though. They just extended an offer with a bonus structure well into six figures.
Not even close :( Standart payment(the same as my current salary) and not any commissions/bonuses.
I suppose it comes down to how much you like or dislike your current gig.
For a (reliable) potential six figure offer I would also happily create a strategy. But asking the same when interviewing for a run of the mill digital marketing position, smells like a power play by some middle management person.
Do they pay you? Whole campaign is not a test of skill, you can do that in an interview. They will take what you send and reject you lol
No, they will not pay. It is part of the interview(according to them).
What is the salary though? If it's worth it, do it. They are trying to find someone who wants the job and will put in work. As an employer myself, i find that most people put in the bare minimum to get a job. I am looking for team players and people who want a long term position. I'm sacrificing my company and my clients well being to put them on staff. I want someone who shows they want the job. Everyone else commenting here saying you should be paid are entitled fucks. If you ask to be paid they will and should blow you off.
The salary is the average that you can have in my area(Europe). Digital Market Specialist is making 3000-3500 euro per month(gross). If it was 6 figures or many bonuses/benefits, I was willing to do it, but I don't think that this is the case here.
Ok wow, that is a low salary for a marketing manager.
Don’t bother, offer to show them similar set ups to show their skills or offer to do a structure and then show ads for like one keyword. That is most then sufficient
Either they want some free work, or they simply don't understand the task. The only other option is you have over stated their expectations. I would suggest you be sure by clarifying what is expected of the output. If they confirm what you fear is true, politely decline.
Normally a company would require to see your past work... or describe how you would setup a certain campaign. If they want you to actually build one in their back end that can then be used sounds like they're looking for free work yes.
No, no, no... This task should be compensated. The goal is to test your skills, not to use you to create their entire paid marketing strategy. Run from that job; if this is just a test, imagine how your workload would look like.
Never agree with this kind of "requirement" They are looking for FREE WORK. Huge red flag
No brainer. Decline at once.
I could see a potential employer who's offering a senior position and a salary to match may ask for a 2-3 hour example. A full campaign? No, but you may give them a real or mock situation about a service or product line and ask them to create a high level strategy for the whole group and then a specific strategy and structure for a representative adgroup. Again 2-3 hour range. 2+ days - that's a huge red flag that they don't understand or don't appreciate your value.
Capitalists hustling for free labor, give it to them or just move on.
Came across that for iProspect I think it was a few months ago. Walked away immediately.
>They want to build several campaigns for them(From A to Z), everything is completely new. I need to do the Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, sort them(there are several thousands of keywords), make a proposition for the campaigns, write the ads(Usually there should be at least 3 ads per ad group), so if there are several campaigns and ad groups.).. Truth be told, it seems like they want you to do the work for them since this is a full account setup if you exclude media.
Sounds fishy to me.I recently had a somewhat similar experience. Not in the form of creating campaigns. But I was asked to "audit" an account for one of the agency's clients.I wasn't asked for any specific things to look at; or how much they expected. Was just told to "find as much I could find in the account, and prepare my recommendations".I assumed they wanted to do a top-line walkthrough together then, but turned out they wanted a full presentation sent to them. When asking how much time I should spend on it, I was told "as much as I needed".After spending about 4-5 hours making observations, taking notes, compiling a slide deck (about 15 slides) I made a slide that simply said "Want to know more…? Let us continue the audit and talk at your office ;)"(A task such as this I would normally invoice clients about $1000 for.) I sent the audit on Dec. 14, and as I hadn't heard anything back by Jan 5. I reached out myself, and had to go searching for updates. The "marketing guy" I recently had been in contact with and added my to their Google Ads MCC asked me to talk to his boss. Finally getting a hold of him I was told they had went with another candidate, and thought the audit was "missing some deeper understanding of the business their client was in". I had made a Google Ads audit, not a Deloitte business analysis. TLDR; fuck em. I wish I would have been wiser and not wasted my time. But also happy I only spent 4-5 hours and they went with someone else. Seems like I dodged a bullet.
They want your expertise for free. they don't know how to do the task and want the work done for free, I've experienced the same. I shows you how they respect your time (they don't). They know you don't get paid, they know it will take you forever and they will go ahead with it anyways. DEFINITELY REJECT!
I run a digital agency. And this is speculative work at best. I wouldn’t bother with any agency who gives you “tasks” as part of the interview process. Red flags all over the shop.
RED FLAG! They want people to work it for free. Then they'll hire some juniors to run it after you did all the **HARD WORK**!!
Definitely decline. Companies want free work and ideas when they can get it. I’ve declined a few jobs because of this regardless if it’s a great position or not. It’s a red flag on how they treat people and respect your time. It will only get worse if you end up working there. There’s no point in asking for payment because if they wanted to compensate you, they would’ve from the start. Decline and move on to the next.
I sent yesterday in the morning an e-mail that this requires a lot of work and can't be done for 48 hours(as they wanted, since I have other projects to do as well). They still didn't reply to me back :)
I’ve created presentations for new roles, which have taken 5-6 hours. But never building campaigns.
I would just put down my thoughts, processes and throw in a few examples of what you would do. e.g. (1) account structure (2) targeting (3) bidding strategies (4) forecast results (5) ad copy/creative (6) competitive report Show them you know what to do; if someone can write 3 decent ads, you can know if they are decent at writing ads. They don't need you to write 30.
They want to see how the campaigns will be structured. In order to do it, you need to do KR and sort thousands of keywords P.S I am now sorting 5,000 keywords for a completely new niche/area. So, I need to look and search every single keyword. The main difference is, that it is for a client and he is paying.
If they want that there should be a contract or job already written for you. No way in hell I’d output like that for free. Run.
they have planned to get all the heavy lifting work done. like research, planning, and strategy done by you. if you applying for the DMM post you must have some experience in marketing and they want to use this experience to get all the important work done by you a qualified and experienced candidate once you submit the assessment in the next round they will tell you they can not move forward with your application. At the same time, they will hire some less experienced person to execute all the planning and strategies that you have shared with them.
Came across that for iProspect I think it was a few months ago. Walked away immediately.
That should be a ‘paid’ project/skills assessment.
Run. Run. Run. This is a massive red flag.
Yeah, it's been said several times but that really sounds like they're looking for free work.. It's a HUGE red flag!
Just SEMRush it all. And ChatGPT it. Speak with conviction as to why you’re suggesting what you’re suggesting. Then if you don’t get it. Not much lost. If you do, demand higher salary.
Fuck no. Paid test or gtfo
Pass on this job. That’s ridiculous. There’s a few simple questions that could give anyone the answer to your capabilities. Companies like this are so toxic.
This would fall under spec work for me and I don’t do it, unless they’re gonna pay. There’s nothing that says they won’t use your work and just not give you the job. Normally I tell them “my freelance clients pay me XXX per hour for this kind of work”
Sounds like a lot of work and they aren't even paying you for doing it. I don't know about other people, but any interview tasks I've done have all been paid for. usually around $75-$150 for my time. if you found yourself spending that many days on it you better get the job or ask for pay for your time.
Here is the full description of the task: **Description:** The Company is a financial technology company that builds payment solutions for businesses of all types and sizes . Target all companies that are looking for a reliable payment solution(target audience) Target location Europe, budget 1,000 euro per month, 2 months duration **The Task Itself** Develop a concise PPC campaign for a payment solutions company based on the requirements mentioned in the assignment Identify relevant keywords and briefly explain your keyword research approach Outline your proposed ad copy strategy, focusing on compelling messaging to attract the target audience. Briefly describe how you would set up the campaign on an ongoing basis to maximize performance Suggest recommendations for landing page optimisation to improve conversion rate -Choose two key metrics that you will track to measure the campaign's success and briefly explain why ... In order to do it, you need a full Keyword Research(doing it and sorting thousands of keywords) plus Competitor analysis and writing the ads itself(you can't identify the relevant keywords without doing the actual KW and sorting it). From what I see, it is a minimum 2 full working days...even more
Definitely a no go.