Preparing for a PPC or digital marketing interview has always meant revising the fundamentals.
You’ll still want to be comfortable discussing Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, analytics, bidding strategies and campaign performance.
But digital marketing is evolving quickly; junior roles are vanishing, and more senior roles are expected to manage a lot more using automation and tools. With estimates that competition generally for UK vacancies has increased from 1.6 to 2.5 people per job, in paid search that’s more like 12.5 people for each vacancy. With an abundance of people for the roles available, there is also downward pressure on salaries.
Artificial Intelligence is changing how customers search, how businesses advertise, and how marketing success is measured. As a result, employers are increasingly looking for candidates who understand not only today’s marketing landscape but also where it’s heading.
Whether you’re applying for a role in ecommerce or lead generation, here are ten AI topics worth understanding before your next interview.
1. Agentic AI
AI is moving beyond answering questions and beginning to complete tasks on behalf of users, from researching suppliers to comparing products and making recommendations. Understanding how this could reshape customer journeys shows you’re thinking beyond traditional digital marketing.
Want to explore this topic further?
Read our Latest AI Advertising Executive Briefing, where we discuss how Agentic AI could reshape digital advertising over the coming years.
2. AI Search Optimisation
Search is changing. Customers are increasingly using ChatGPT, Copilot and Google’s AI experiences to discover businesses. Understanding how content can be optimised for AI-generated responses is becoming an important marketing skill.
Our Google’s AI Search Optimisation Guide explains practical steps businesses can take to improve their visibility in AI-powered search experiences.
3. AI Visibility
Can AI understand your website?
New tools such as Microsoft Clarity’s Topic Insights provide insight into how AI interprets your content, helping marketers think beyond keywords and focus on topical authority.
Discover how Microsoft Clarity’s Topic Insights can help you understand how AI interprets your website content.
4. ChatGPT Visibility
More businesses are asking whether they appear in ChatGPT recommendations. Understanding AI visibility is becoming another way marketers assess their online presence alongside traditional SEO.
Learn how to find out if your business is appearing in ChatGPT and Copilot results and why this is becoming an important marketing metric.
5. ChatGPT Advertising
Conversational AI is expected to become another advertising channel over time. Marketers who understand these developments will be better prepared as new opportunities emerge. We’re already advertising in the US for our clients there.
Read ChatGPT Advertising: The Early Adopter Advantage to understand why conversational advertising could become the next major opportunity for UK marketers.
6. Control of Negatives
Negative keywords are an important part of keeping PPC campaigns focused and reducing wasted spend. With greater access through the Google Ads API, Dream Agility can now access and manage this data through our full Google Ads API connection.
This creates more opportunities to identify irrelevant searches, improve campaign control and make sure budget is being directed towards the searches that matter. Some agencies may use scripts to attempt to do this, however the amount of data required to make statistically significant changes cannot be pulled back accurately by this method and large amounts of wasted spend will remain undiscovered.
How to discuss this in an interview:
Talk about how good PPC management isn’t just about increasing traffic, it is also about understanding where spend is being wasted and taking action to prevent it, which will give your new employer a competitive advantage.
Explore Signal IQ:
Learn how Dream Agility uses Google Ads data to identify opportunities, waste and areas for improvement across campaigns.
7. Product Feed Optimisation (Ecommerce)
High-quality product data helps AI systems understand products and make better recommendations. Product feeds are becoming more strategic than ever.
Learn how optimising your product feeds for AI search can help prepare your ecommerce business for AI-powered shopping.
8. Universal Commerce Protocol (Ecommerce)
Structured product information is becoming increasingly important as AI shopping experiences evolve. Understanding this trend demonstrates forward-thinking ecommerce knowledge.
Read our guide to Google Gemini’s Universal Commerce Protocol to understand why structured product data is becoming more important.
9. Customer Journey Measurement
Marketers should understand how businesses connect advertising activity with genuine customer outcomes through attribution and connection to the deal value. Google offers Enhanced Conversions and Google Tag Gateway. But it’s not the whole picture. It gives better visibility of non-Apple customers, but they’re still essentially guessing/extrapolating what the Apple data is. Plus, they want all your customer data to do it – which a lot of businesses are not happy sharing with Google and many a legal department has put the block on it.
Dream Agility’s tracking pixel offers the breadth of tracking on operating systems (user permissions allowing) without sharing anything with Google or leaving them to fill in the gaps they can’t track. It’s one of most accurate solutions on the market.
10. Continuous Learning
Perhaps the biggest advantage you can bring to an interview is curiosity.
AI is evolving rapidly, and employers increasingly value marketers who stay informed and adapt to new technologies.
Final Thoughts
The fundamentals of PPC and digital marketing remain essential, but the conversations happening in interviews are beginning to evolve.
Understanding AI search, attribution, emerging advertising channels and how customer journeys are changing won’t just help you answer interview questions; it demonstrates that you’re thinking strategically about the future of marketing.
Whether you’re pursuing an ecommerce or lead generation role, investing time in these topics could help you stand out from other candidates.
Want to Explore These Topics in More Detail?
If these topics have sparked ideas or raised questions, we’d love to continue the conversation.
At Dream Agility, we’re actively researching and testing the technologies shaping the future of digital marketing, from AI search and Agentic AI to attribution and ecommerce optimisation.
We’ve also put together a more detailed AI Interview Preparation Guide that expands on each of these topics with interview discussion points, practical examples and additional insights.
If you’d like a copy, get in touch with the Dream Agility team and we’ll happily send it over.
