Digital Marketing Manager job description
A digital marketing manager plans and runs online campaigns across search, social, email and websites to bring in leads or sales. They manage budgets, the team and reporting on what works.
Why the role exists
Most Indian businesses now find customers online. The digital marketing manager decides which channels to use, how to spend the budget and what message to put out. They work with sales, design and content, and often manage agencies or a small in-house team.
What the person does
- Build the monthly campaign plan across search ads, social media, email and the website, with the sales team.
- Run and optimise paid campaigns on Google Ads and Meta, checking spend and results every week.
- Brief designers, writers and video editors on campaign creatives and approve the final work.
- Track leads and sales from each channel in Google Analytics and the CRM, and fix tracking gaps.
- Test landing pages, ad copy and email subject lines and keep a record of what was learned.
- Manage agencies, freelancers and the marketing team, including tasks, deadlines and quality.
- Prepare a weekly and monthly report that shows spend, results and next steps in plain language.
- Plan seasonal campaigns around festivals and sale periods and align stock and offers with the business.
Skills and tools
- Google Ads and Meta Ads Manager for paid campaigns
- Google Analytics 4 and tag management for tracking
- SEO, content and email marketing fundamentals
- CRM and marketing automation tools such as HubSpot or Zoho
- Budget planning and cost control across channels
- Reading funnel data and running simple A/B tests
- Team and agency management
- Clear written briefs and reports
Education and experience
Preferred, never a bar: equivalent experience counts.
- Degree in marketing, business, mass communication or a related field preferred, or equivalent practical experience.
- Several years running paid and organic campaigns for a business or agency is preferred.
- Google or Meta platform certifications are useful but optional, and results can stand in for them.
- Experience managing a budget and reporting results to senior management, or equivalent experience.
How the work is judged
- Quality and volume of leads or sales from digital channels, judged with the sales team.
- Return on marketing spend against what the business agreed.
- Accuracy and usefulness of tracking and reporting.
- Delivery of the campaign plan on time and on brief.
- Team and agency output quality and speed.
Where the role can lead
- Head of marketing or marketing director, owning brand and demand together.
- Growth lead or head of growth, working closely with product and sales.
- Chief marketing officer in larger companies, or independent consultant.
Interview questions to ask
Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order and score them against written anchors, so the decision rests on the work and not the impression.
- Tell us about a campaign that did not work. What did the data show and what did you change?
- You have a fixed monthly budget and three channels. How do you decide the split?
- How do you check that leads from ads are good enough for the sales team to call?
- Walk us through how you would set up tracking for a new landing page.
- How do you brief an agency and judge their work without doing it yourself?
- Describe how you would plan a Diwali campaign for an online store.
Hiring tips for this role
- Ask for results in terms of leads, cost per lead and sales, with the account details hidden. Candidates who cannot explain numbers rarely managed them.
- Test the candidate on a real tracking or reporting problem from your business. Many managers run ads well but cannot prove returns.
- Define whether you need a strategist or a hands-on executor. Hiring a strategist for a team of one often leads to dropped campaigns.
- Check platform skills with a screen share on a live or sample ad account rather than asking only for tool names.
Questions about hiring a digital marketing manager
They plan and run online marketing, covering paid ads, search visibility, social media, email and website conversion. They manage budgets, brief creative teams, track results and report to the business on what is working and what to change.
An SEO specialist focuses on getting traffic from search engines without paying per click. A digital marketing manager looks across all online channels, including paid ads, social and email, and owns the overall plan and budget.
An agency suits short projects or when you need many skills at once. An in-house manager suits a business that markets every day and needs someone to know the product. Many firms hire a manager who directs agencies.
GullyHR agrees the job description with you, finds and screens candidates for permanent roles, checks channel experience against your needs, and supports you through the offer. We do not supply contract staff.
Hiring a digital marketing manager?
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles. We agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.