SPARKLOFT Media Paid Media Coordinator Interview Prep

Vocabulary flashcards covering key marketing metrics, background experience, campaign case studies, and interview preparation terms from Soluna Career Consulting notes.

Reach

The number of unique people who saw an advertisement.

Impressions

The total number of times an advertisement was shown.

Frequency

The average number of times each unique person saw an advertisement.

CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions)

A metric that helps measure how efficiently an ad campaign gets in front of people per thousand impressions.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

A metric measuring revenue generated relative to advertising dollars spent, calculated as $\text{ROAS} = \frac{\text{Revenue Generated}}{\text{Amount Spent}}$.

Saudi Arabia (Pronunciation)

SOW-dee uh-RAY-bee-uh

Inaugural (Pronunciation)

ih-NAW-gyuh-rul

SPARKLOFT values

Curiosity — staying curious and continuing to understand audiences, culture, technology, etc.

Excellent customer service — being committed to delivering for clients.

Solutions — bringing solutions to clients rather than simply executing tasks.

Spark Joy — creating work and interactions that bring joy

Josue Morales

Paid Media Supervisor at SPARKLOFT Media.

Alec Wooden

Director, Paid Media & Insights at SPARKLOFT Media.

Shaniqua Cole

SHRM-CP Director of People & Culture at SPARKLOFT Media.

Tell Me About Yourself

Hi, I’m Maya. My background is in social media, communications, and community engagement, and throughout those roles I’ve realized that the part of marketing I’m most interested in is understanding audiences and using data to figure out what’s actually working.

Most recently, I worked as a Community Engagement Coordinator at Arrive, a nonprofit focused on making homeownership more accessible. A big part of my role was understanding the audiences we were trying to reach, identifying opportunities to connect with them, building community partnerships, and finding ways to move that engagement toward our programs and services.

Before that, I was the Communications Coordinator at Centro Cultural, where I managed social media and communications across seven program areas. We grew our audience 52% year over year, doubled engagement to about 10,400 interactions, and expanded our reach to non-followers. That’s also where I first got exposure to paid media through Meta Ads Manager.

I also gained agency experience at IZO Marketing, supporting creative for paid and organic campaigns across multiple B2B and B2C clients. That taught me how to adapt quickly between different brands, audiences, and priorities.

Looking across those experiences, I realized I don’t just want to create content or think about how to reach an audience. I want to understand the strategy behind it—the targeting, optimization, and performance. That’s what ultimately pushed me toward specializing in paid media.

And after going through this interview process, I’m even more excited about Sparkloft. I especially connected with what the team shared about having strong processes, because that’s something I really value in how I work as well.

Why Sparkloft / Why This Role?

What initially attracted me to this role was that it feels like a natural next step in my career. I’ve worked across social media, content, communications, community engagement, and some paid media, and those experiences helped me realize that paid media is where I want to specialize.

What specifically attracts me to Sparkloft is the emphasis on curiosity and continuous learning. I’m naturally someone who asks a lot of questions and wants to understand why something works, not just how to do it. That’s one of the things that has drawn me toward paid media because there’s always something to test, analyze, and learn from.

I’ve also been really impressed by how Sparkloft seems to invest in its employees’ growth and curiosity. I was reading the article about the Discovery Trip to Saudi Arabia, and I thought it was really interesting that an employee was able to take that experience and bring those observations and perspectives back into their work. To me, that showed that learning here isn’t limited to just your day-to-day responsibilities.

And then throughout the interview process, hearing the team talk about the importance of strong processes also really resonated with me. I’m someone who appreciates having structure and clear processes, but I also like looking for ways to improve them and make the work more efficient.

So the more I’ve learned about Sparkloft, the more interested I’ve become. I’m looking for somewhere I can build real expertise in paid media, continue learning, and grow with a team long term, and I see those opportunities here.

What Motivates You?

I really love learning. When I come across something that has layers to it, where the more I learn, the more I realize there is still so much to understand, I get really intrigued by that.

And I think that’s a big reason why I’m drawn to paid media. It was actually something that had been on my list for a while. I had some exposure to it through placing ads and creating content for paid campaigns, but I knew there was a whole other side of it that I hadn’t explored yet.

Now that I’ve decided this is the direction I want to take my career, I’ve really gone all in. I’ve been taking courses, researching things I don’t understand, talking to people who work in the industry, and even reaching out to agencies about internship opportunities because I want to get as much exposure as I can.

That’s kind of how I am when I’m clear about wanting something—I’m 100% in. And I feel like that time has arrived for me with paid media. There’s so much for me to learn, and that actually excites me.

Interests Outside of Work

Outside of work, I really enjoy being active. I run, work out, and do yoga, and I've found that physical activity helps me reset and concentrate.

I'm also someone who genuinely enjoys learning. I'll take online courses, attend networking events and workshops, or reach out to people working in areas I'm interested in. I like being introduced to topics and perspectives that I

wouldn't necessarily be encountered in my everyday life.

How Can You Contribute to Sparkloft?

I think one thing I could bring immediately is a strong understanding of audiences, creative, and social platforms. I've spent several years thinking about who we're trying to reach, what message will resonate with them, what creative makes sense for that audience, and then looking at performance to understand what worked.

I also have agency experience that was contract based, so I've already experienced having to switch between different clients, industries, brand voices, and priorities.

Where I want to continue developing is the deeper paid-media side - campaign setup, optimization, budgeting, testing, and performance analysis. 

So I see myself bringing a foundation that's immediately useful while also being

very coachable and excited to learn Sparkloft's processes.

HERO STORY - Latina Power Luncheon

One project I’m really proud of was the inaugural Latina Power Luncheon at Centro Cultural, which featured Julissa Prado, the founder of Rizos Curls. We were really building the campaign from the ground up, and my role was to help develop the digital strategy and figure out how we could reach professional Latinas while still making sure the campaign felt authentic to Centro’s community and aligned with Julissa’s established brand.

I approached it from a multi-channel perspective. I developed content across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, email, and our website, including bilingual content. I also collaborated with Julissa’s team, community organizations, and local influencers to help expand our reach, while monitoring engagement and performance throughout the campaign so we could see what was resonating.

The event ended up selling out with 200 attendees, we grew our Instagram audience by 25%, and our influencer collaborations averaged around 4,000 impressions and 3,400 people reached.

What I really took away from that experience is that I wasn’t thinking about content in isolation. I was thinking about who the audience was, what our objective was, which channels made sense, what creative would resonate, who we could partner with, and then looking at the performance. That’s actually a big part of what attracts me to paid media—I want to take that same way of thinking and go deeper into the targeting, testing, optimization, and measurement side.

DIFFERENTIATOR - $50 Meta Campaign

At Centro, we had a state contract to raise awareness about syphilis, particularly within the Latino community. No one on my team had much experience with ads, so I set up a campaign myself in Meta Ads Manager. I put about $50 behind one piece of content and saw it reach around 75,000 views.

What was important to me was that the experience created more questions than answers. I wanted to understand why it performed that way. Was it the audience? The creative? The objective? How efficient was the spend? What would I test next?

That's when I became more interested in learning the strategy behind paid media rather than only looking at the result.

Awareness campaign metrics

Reach, impressions, frequency, and CPM. Know what each metric tells you and connect the metric back to the campaign objective.

Reach vs. impressions

Reach = unique people who saw the ad. Impressions = total times the ad was shown. One person seeing an ad three times = 1 person reached and 3 impressions.

If a campaign isn't performing well

Start with the campaign goal and success metric. Then inspect the audience, creative, copy, placements, and budget. Work with the manager or strategist to decide what to test or adjust.

ROAS

Revenue generated / ad spend. Example: $500 revenue / $100 spend = 5x ROAS, or $5 generated for every $1 spent.

Pre-launch QA

Check objective, audience, budget, schedule, placements, creative, copy, links, tracking, platform requirements, and team review/approval.

Your Closing Statement

I also just want to say that after going through this process and meeting the team, I'm genuinely even more interested in the position than I was when I applied. I've been really intentional about making paid media the next direction in my career, and I can see myself learning a lot here while also bringing the audience, creative, social, and

communications experience I've already developed. I'd be really excited to join the team.

Conflict Resolution

One challenge I've faced is balancing high-quality work with true inclusion when collaborating across teams. I worked with another department on a monthly newsletter—we tag-teamed the process, where they provided the content and I handled formatting and design. When we expanded to a Spanish version, they asked if it would be a lot of additional work, and I was honest. Meaningful inclusion does take extra steps, and I believe in doing it thoughtfully, not just checking a box.

When the first round of materials came in, a lot of the pieces—like flyers, riddles, and the activities calendar—were only in English. Instead of moving forward as-is, I scheduled a meeting to walk through what true bilingual content looks like and why it matters. I framed it as a shared goal: if we’re going to commit to inclusion, let’s make sure both audiences have the same experience.

By the next month, the department sent fully bilingual flyers and adapted content that worked well for both language groups. It took transparency and collaboration, but the process improved, and the final product reflected the values we wanted to uphold. I learned that people want to do things the right way—they just sometimes need clarity and guidance on what that actually looks like.

Leadership or initiative 

One example of taking initiative in my current role was when we were looking for better ways to reach our target audience. We had a specific household income range we were trying to reach, and we also wanted to increase engagement with the Hispanic and Latino community.

I had the idea of reaching people through all-staff meetings rather than only relying on community events. I had an existing relationship with my former supervisor, Jairo, so I suggested reaching out to see if we could present at one of their all-staff meetings.

Once they agreed, I took the lead on coordinating the logistics and putting together the presentation. I also made sure we had a way to capture people’s interest so we could follow up afterward.

From that presentation, we had six people interested in attending our upcoming open house, and another ten who were interested in our services but weren’t ready to take action yet. We may not have hit our overall registration goal from that one outreach effort, but we reached a new audience, increased awareness of our organization, and created opportunities for word-of-mouth referrals.

For me, that was a good example of leadership because I saw an opportunity, brought the idea forward, and then took ownership of actually executing it and measuring the response.”

Working with a team

I really enjoy working with a team. I think that's actually where I thrive the most because I like brainstorming with other people, bringing different ideas together, and then figuring out how we can actually execute them.

One example was when my organization was preparing to do an all-staff presentation for the first time. I managed the external relationship, but internally I worked closely with the department that manages our homebuyer classes to build the presentation.

We went back and forth on what topics we should include, the language we wanted to use, and the overall design and branding. Once we had the presentation finalized, we selected two colleagues to present, and I helped prepare their talking points and coordinated everyone's schedules.

We successfully launched our first presentation, and afterward I documented the process and created a shared folder with the materials and instructions so other staff could replicate it in the future.

I liked that project because everyone brought something different to the table. I handled the coordination and communications side, the other department brought their program expertise, and our presenters brought their experience working directly with clients.

A time I made a mistake

There was a tabling event that I had planned and coordinated that I was really excited about. I had been communicating with one of the event managers and had requested a table and two chairs for our staff.

On the day of the event, I learned that someone else was actually managing it. Unfortunately, that information hadn't been communicated between the two event managers, so when our staff arrived, our organization wasn't listed for a table. At the time, we were still in the process of ordering our own outreach equipment, so we were relying on what I had requested from the event.

“I was actually on vacation at the time, so although I had prepared everything for my manager before I left, I wasn't available to immediately resolve the issue myself. That made the situation more difficult when the other party said they hadn't received the request. Afterward, I was able to share the original email with my manager, confirming that the request had been communicated.”

I did take some time to reflect from that incident,I looked at what I could improve on my end. I pitched the idea of creating a general email for my position that could be used for event coordination. That way, my manager could have access to the communication and easily find important details if I was ever out of the office.

That experience taught me that even when a miscommunication isn't entirely within my control, I can still look at the process and ask what I can put in place to prevent it from becoming an issue again.

An ambiguous situation or problem you had to address

When I started working with IZO Marketing, one of the biggest challenges was adapting to completely different clients, tones, and brand voices. At Centro Cultural, I had one organization to focus on, so the branding and messaging were consistent across all seven departments. Moving into an agency environment meant suddenly having seven or more clients, each with their own branding, audience, and personality. At first, it felt very ambiguous and I wasn’t sure where to begin.

I took initiative by doing deep research—looking at competitors, reviewing industry standards, studying each client’s messaging, and learning the fundamentals of their brand identity. I also reached out to teammates to understand their process and what had worked well for them.

Over time, I built my own workflow for learning a brand quickly, and eventually I had a clear process for analyzing tone, visual style, and audience expectations. It made onboarding new clients much easier, and it taught me that I can bring structure and clarity to situations that start off unclear.