Digital Marketing Salaries

 This section was condensed and made more “evergreen” as of April 2017.

We crunched a ton of numbers on digital marketing salaries a few years ago.

You can still use the findings to learn more about how salaries work today.

Understanding How Salary Search Works

The Sources

Let’s start with the sources we analyzed. After you understand everything on this page, these are the sites you’ll want to check for the latest salary estimates.

Next to each link is a calculation of how much higher or lower the source was vs. the average. There was a lot of variance. Maybe because these jobs are new?

Salary Index (average = 100)
124.3 – roberthalf.com
122.3 – mondo.com
122 – cranberrypanda.co.uk
111.3 – crandallassociates.com (2013)
100.4 – salary.com
100.3 – indeed.com
97.8 – fivetengroup.com
91.7 – glassdoor.com
91.1 – simplyhired.com
90.9 – careerbliss.com
82.6 – michaelpage.co.uk
69.9 – payscale.com
source: marketingterms.com calculations in 2014/2015

In general, recruiters skew higher than salary sites and job listing sites. Some people question if this is intentional, in order to lure more employees into the job-seeking market. However, it could also be due to different populations, if recruiters deal more with larger companies and higher-end talent.

Meanwhile, payscale.com was consistently lower than the other sources. It appears that while they break out total compensation in great detail, their “average” number is only the base salary. Other sites may include the base salary plus other forms of compensation in their “average” numbers.

The Features

Salary averages can help you to understand the differences between positions, but within a position you’ll want more than a simple average.

Below are the advanced adjustments that were available at the time of our research:

Salary Ranges – payscale.com, glassdoor.com, crandallassociates.com, roberthalf.com, mondo.com, cranberrypanda.co.uk, fivetengroup.com, michaelpage.co.uk
Geographic Differences – payscale.com, indeed.com, crandallassociates.com, roberthalf.com, michaelpage.co.uk
Compensation Breakdown – payscale.com, salary.com
Personalized Report – salary.com
Experience Levels – payscale.com
Details by Company – glassdoor.com, careerbliss.com
Details by Skills – payscale.com
Salary History Chart – indeed.com
User Salary Comments – careerbliss.com
Job Satisfaction Rating – payscale.com

Tips & Tricks

DIY salary search sites give you a lot of flexibility to search however you want. With this power comes more responsibility to know what you are doing. Here’s how to avoid the common pitfalls:

tip #1: pay attention to sample sizes.

Sites like Glassdoor and CareerBliss provide the actual details of individual salaries. This can be very interesting. It also gives you an idea of the sample sizes for different jobs. The salary derived from 300 data points is a lot different than the one with only 3.

tip #2: search syntax can make a big difference!

For example, on Indeed, putting the job title in quotes (exact match) can yield dramatically different results than a regular search. Likewise, checking Indeed’s “Search Job Titles Only” box might make the results more relevant to the actual job you have in mind.

tip #3: experiment with common synonyms.

You can get very different salaries with “Search Engine Optimization” vs. “SEO” in the job title. Even the trivial difference between “ecommerce” and hyphenated “ecommerce” can cause issues. The more popular synonyms are likely to have better information.

Digital Marketing Salaries

Now you are ready to safely handle salary data.

These calculations were from 2014/2015. You’ll want to check today’s numbers.

What this can do is give you a quick overview of the relationships between jobs.

A brief summary of our methodology:

1. Identify as many salary sources as possible.
2. Analyze the sources… did they skew higher or lower?
3. Calculate a weighted average salary for each position.

That way you are less likely to be fooled by an outlier.

 = relative compensation level (based on analysis of up to 12 salary sources)
 = relative job title popularity (based on # of current job titles at LinkedIn)

Top Executives

 – Chief Digital Officer – see details
 – Chief Marketing Technologist – see details
 – VP of Ecommerce – $142,905
 – VP of Digital Marketing – $131,408

Digital Marketing (General)

 – Director of Digital Marketing – $114,064
  – Digital Marketing Manager – $80,650
  – Digital Marketing Strategist – $79,508
  – Digital Marketing Specialist – $54,300
  – Digital Marketing Coordinator – $46,438

Ecommerce

  – Director of Ecommerce – $121,243
  – Ecommerce Manager – $78,543
  – Ecommerce Analyst – $66,421

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 – Director  of SEO – $101,109
 – SEO Manager – $77,177
 – SEO Analyst – $63,020
 – SEO Strategist – $62,999
 – SEO Specialist – $64,603

Paid Search (PPC)

 – Paid Search Manager – $67,375
 – Paid Search Analyst – $59,473
 – Paid Search Specialist – $49,520
 – Paid Search Coordinator – $49,183

Social Media

 – Director of Social Media – $89,591
 – Social Media Manager – $64,798
 – Social Media Strategist – $60,340
 – Social Media Specialist – $50,609
 – Online Community Manager – $56,444

Digital Content

 – Digital Content Strategist – $79,498
 – Digital Copywriter – $62,505

Affiliate Marketing

 – Affiliate Marketing Manager – $65,791

Email Marketing

– Email Marketing Manager – $75,099
 – Email Marketing Specialist – $64,389

Mobile Marketing

 – Mobile Marketing Manager – $74,679

Web Analytics

 – Director of Web Analytics – $129,504
 – Web Analytics Manager – $82,604
 – Web Analytics Specialist – $77,665

Summary Chart