How to hire an advertising and promotions manager

Hiring an advertising and promotions manager comes down to one thing: proof that the person can plan a campaign, spend a budget well, and show the results. To hire the right one, define the role, test the skills that predict on-the-job performance, and interview only the candidates who clear that bar. This guide walks through each step, with current market data and a workflow your team can run this week.

Get it wrong and the bill adds up fast. The average cost per hire is nearly $4,700, according to SHRM benchmarking data, and that number climbs for management roles once you count ramp time and the campaigns a weak manager runs into the ground. A structured, evidence-based process is how you avoid paying twice.

TL;DR

• Hire on evidence, not resumes: an advertising and promotions manager should prove campaign, budget, and analytics skills before the first interview.
• Benchmark pay to your market. The median wage was $126,960 in May 2024, and it moves with industry, company size, and location.
• Test what predicts performance: analytical thinking, creativity, budget control, and communication, roughly in that order of weight for most teams.
• Write a job description that filters, so the wrong applicants opt out before they apply.
• Use a structured interview and a shared scorecard so every candidate is judged on the same criteria.

What does an advertising and promotions manager do?

An advertising and promotions manager plans, runs, and measures the campaigns that carry a company’s message to its market. They set the campaign strategy, own the budget, brief creative teams, choose channels, and report on results against targets like reach, qualified leads, and return on ad spend. In short, they turn a marketing goal into paid activity that pays back.

The job sits at the meeting point of two skill sets that rarely live in the same person: the creative side that dreams up a campaign, and the analytical side that proves it worked. The best managers are strong enough at both to argue for a bold idea and then defend the spend with a spreadsheet. When you hire, you are really testing whether one candidate can hold both.

What should you pay, and how strong is the talent market?

Pay a market rate and expect real competition for good people. The median annual wage for advertising and promotions managers was $126,960 in May 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The wider field of advertising, promotions, and marketing managers held about 434,000 jobs in 2024 and is projected to grow 6 percent through 2034, with roughly 36,400 openings a year over the decade. Demand is steady, so a slow or vague hiring process loses candidates to faster teams.

That median is a starting line, not the answer. Pay shifts with industry (tech and finance run higher than nonprofit), company size, and city. Before you post the role, pull two or three current salary sources for your sector and region and set a band, not a single number, so you have room to reward a stronger track record. An offer built on old figures either loses the candidate or overpays for the wrong one.

Pro tip: Set the salary band before you write the job description, not after the first interview. Teams that decide pay early move faster on strong candidates, because the offer is ready the moment the evidence lines up.

What skills should you test before the first interview?

Test analytical thinking, creativity, budget and campaign management, and communication. Analytical thinking is the skill employers rate highest in the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, and creative thinking ranks among the fastest-rising, which is exactly the pairing this role needs. Measure them with a role-specific assessment before anyone books an interview slot.

This is the Testlify Competency-to-Evidence Matrix in practice. Start with the role, map each competency that matters to a piece of measurable evidence, then let a skills assessment, a portfolio, and a structured interview supply that evidence, instead of taking a resume’s word for it. Across the marketing teams we work with, the managers who screen skills first spend their interview time on two or three proven finalists rather than ten maybes.

A marketing skills assessment covers most of this in one sitting, and you can add a digital marketing manager test when the role leans heavily on paid channels. The point is not to test everything; it is to test the few skills that separate a manager who hits targets from one who just sounds good in a room.

How do you write a job description that attracts talent?

Write the job description as a filter, not a wish list. Name the outcomes the manager owns, the budget and team they will run, and the skills you will actually test. A vague post pulls a flood of loosely-qualified applicants; a specific one makes the wrong fit self-select out before they hit submit, which saves your team hours of screening.

• Role and reporting line: state the title, the team it sits in, and who the manager reports to.
• Outcomes, not tasks: lead with what success looks like in the first year (for example, own a paid-media budget and lift qualified leads by a set target), then list responsibilities.
• Must-have skills: campaign planning, budget management, analytics, and creative direction, with the level of each spelled out.
• Experience and education: a bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field plus a few years of campaign ownership, framed as a guide rather than a hard gate.
• How you hire: tell candidates there is a short skills assessment up front. Strong people welcome a fair test; the ones who avoid it are self-selecting out.

If you hire across marketing roles, a shared set of pre-hire assessments for marketing and advertising teams keeps your bar consistent from one job description to the next.

How should you screen and interview candidates?

Screen on skills first, then interview a short list against a shared scorecard. Send every applicant the same role-specific assessment, rank the results, and only invite the top few to interview. A role that pulls 120 applicants can shrink to a shortlist of 5 before anyone books a call, which is where most of the time savings come from. Instead of reading resumes and hoping, you walk into interviews already knowing who can do the work. A structured interview process then keeps the conversation comparable across candidates.

1. Assess up front: a marketing skills assessment scores campaign, analytics, and budget ability before you spend interview time.
2. Review the portfolio: ask for two or three real campaigns with the goal, the spend, and the measured result, not just the finished creative.
3. Run a structured interview: same core questions, same scorecard, for every finalist. It is the difference between comparable evidence and a gut-feel debate.
4. Add a panel where it counts: include a marketer and a stakeholder the manager will present to, so you test communication as well as craft.
5. Check references last: confirm scope and results with a past manager once a candidate is otherwise a yes.

The goal of screening is to screen candidates in, not just out: use the evidence to find the people worth your time, not only to reject the obvious misses.

Which interview questions reveal a strong candidate?

Ask questions that force specifics: real campaigns, real numbers, real tradeoffs. A strong advertising and promotions manager answers with what they measured and why; a weak one answers with adjectives. These eight questions each surface a signal you can score.

1. Walk us through a campaign you planned from brief to results. What did you measure, and what did the numbers say? (tests end-to-end ownership and analytics)
2. A campaign is halfway through and the cost per lead is climbing. What do you do? (tests real-time budget and data judgment)
3. How do you split a fixed budget across channels, and when do you move it? (tests prioritization)
4. Tell us about a creative idea that fell flat. What did you learn? (tests honesty and learning, not just highlight reels)
5. How do you get the best work out of a creative team on a tight deadline? (tests leadership and communication)
6. Which metrics tell you a campaign is working, and which are vanity numbers? (tests analytical maturity)
7. How do you keep campaigns on-brand and compliant across channels? (tests risk awareness)
8. How do you keep up with new advertising channels without chasing every trend? (tests judgment)

Bottom line: Score interview answers against the same rubric you tested for. If a candidate aced the analytics assessment but cannot explain a single metric out loud, that gap is your signal, not their charm.

What hiring mistakes should you avoid?

• Screening on resume keywords instead of tested skills. A polished resume proves writing ability, not campaign results. Test the work.
• Over-indexing on one half of the role. A brilliant creative who cannot read a report, or an analyst with no taste, will both underperform. Weight both sides.
• Skipping the scorecard. Without a shared rubric, interviewers rate on rapport, and the most likeable candidate wins, not the most capable.
• Letting the process drift. Strong candidates take other offers. Assess fast, decide fast, and keep the loop to a few weeks.
• Setting pay from a stale benchmark. A number from a few years ago either scares off the candidate you want or overpays for the one you do not.

Hire your next advertising and promotions manager on evidence

Testlify lets you test campaign, analytical, and communication skills with a role-specific marketing skills assessment before the first interview, so your shortlist is scored, not guessed. See how it fits your hiring workflow.

Book a demo with Testlify

Key takeaways

• Evidence beats resumes. A resume lists claims; an assessment proves them. Scoring campaign and analytics ability up front is what cuts the risk of a costly mis-hire.
• Analytical thinking is the anchor skill. Employers rank it the most valuable skill for 2025, so weight it heavily for a role that lives and dies by campaign data.
• Benchmark pay to current data. A $126,960 median moves with industry and region, so an offer built on old numbers loses the candidate or overpays.
• A job description is a filter. Write it to make the wrong applicants self-select out, and the shortlist shrinks before you spend a minute interviewing.
• Structure the interview. A shared scorecard and the same questions for every candidate turn interviews into comparable evidence instead of a popularity contest.
• Speed and rigor are not opposites. Assessing skills first is what lets you move fast without lowering the bar, because only proven candidates reach the panel.

Frequently asked questions