To succeed in the System1 interview loop, you must prepare across several core competencies. The hiring team looks for candidates who can seamlessly bridge the gap between raw data and marketing strategy.

Analytical Rigor & Data Manipulation – You must demonstrate absolute mastery of Excel. The team evaluates your ability to quickly organize messy data, build pivot tables, and use advanced formulas to extract insights. Speed and accuracy are both critical during the timed assessment phase.

Digital Marketing Acumen – You need a deep understanding of digital marketing jargon and performance metrics. You should be able to perform mental math for key metrics like CPA, CPC, CTR, and ROAS, and explain how these metrics interact to drive campaign profitability.

Structured Problem Solving – When faced with open-ended business cases or product evaluation questions, you must use a structured framework. Interviewers want to see how you break down complex, ambiguous problems into logical components rather than just guessing an answer.

Resilience & Communication – The interview process can be intensive, featuring long loops and rigorous technical tests. You must remain focused, communicate your thought process clearly, and demonstrate the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional stakeholders.

The interview process for the Marketing Analytics Specialist at System1 is highly structured, focusing heavily on verifying your technical skills early in the cycle. The company utilizes a rigorous screening process to ensure candidates possess the baseline analytical capabilities required for the day-to-day work.

You should expect a multi-stage journey that begins with a technical assessment, followed by conversations with recruitment and hiring managers, and culminates in an intensive team interview loop. The process is designed to evaluate both your execution speed and your strategic thinking.

The typical progression consists of the following stages:

The timeline shown above outlines the standard path a candidate takes through the hiring funnel. The initial technical assessment acts as a strict gatekeeper; you must pass this test before advancing to the recruiter phone screen. This ensures that all candidates who reach the hiring manager and team loop stages possess verified data manipulation skills, allowing the later conversations to focus on strategic alignment, product thinking, and cultural fit.

Excel and Data Manipulation

This is the most critical technical hurdle in the System1 interview process. You will be asked to complete a timed assessment that tests your ability to handle real-world marketing and traffic data.

Strong performance in this area means completing the tasks accurately within the time limit, structuring your pivot tables cleanly, and ensuring your formulas are dynamic rather than hard-coded.

Be ready to go over:

• Pivot Tables and Charting – Creating, filtering, and segmenting multi-campaign traffic datasets to find specific performance anomalies.
• Data Cleansing – Handling missing values, identifying duplicate records, and formatting raw export data for analysis.
• Logical and Lookup Formulas – Using complex logical statements (IF, AND, OR) and lookups (VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH) to merge and categorize marketing data.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Multi-layered nested formulas, array formulas, and basic macro/VBA logic for automation.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Using the provided 7-day traffic dataset, create a pivot table that displays the total cost and conversion count for each device type, filtered by campaign category."
• "Write a formula to calculate the weighted average cost-per-click across three separate marketing channels."

Digital Marketing Metrics

You must show that you do not just know the definitions of marketing terms, but that you understand how they function mathematically. The assessment includes word problems that require you to solve for missing campaign metrics.

Be ready to go over:

• Performance Formulas – Calculating CTR, CVR, CPA, CPM, and conversion values from raw impressions, clicks, spend, and conversions.
• Arbitrage Math – Understanding revenue-share models, search syndication metrics, and calculating net margin.
• Traffic Quality Analysis – Evaluating bounce rates, session duration, and page views per visit to determine traffic value.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Cohort analysis, customer lifetime value (LTV) modeling, and attribution modeling.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "A campaign generated 500,000 impressions, 10,000 clicks, and 200 conversions. The total spend was $4,000. Calculate the CTR, CVR, CPC, and CPA."
• "If our revenue per click is $0.15 and our traffic acquisition cost is$0.12 per click, what is our profit margin percentage?"

Product & Traffic Evaluation Case

During the hiring manager and team loop stages, you will face case-based questions designed to test your creative and strategic thinking. You will be asked to evaluate a product or campaign strategy on the spot.

Be ready to go over:

• Framework-Driven Analysis – Structuring your approach to product evaluation (e.g., Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization).
• A/B Testing Concepts – Understanding sample sizes, statistical significance, and how to set up a clean campaign test.
• Competitive Analysis – Evaluating how System1 products compare to competitors and identifying opportunities for traffic growth.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk me through how you would evaluate the performance and potential of one of our current search comparison websites."
• "If we want to test a new landing page design, how would you set up the experiment and what metrics would you monitor to declare a winner?"