What is the Highest Paying Marketing Job? Top 15 Job Roles (2024)

Marketing has become a billion-dollar industry thanks to companies focusing on omnichannel marketing. Moreover, brands are also hopping on the latest trends like marketing automation, direct marketing, and influencer marketing to increase visibility and stay ahead of the competition. Consequently, this necessitates skilled talent to fill up such marketing positions. Without a doubt. marketing has indeed become one of the most sought-after careers in the industry today. Let’s, therefore, see what is the highest-paying marketing job and what roles and responsibilities they entail.

Here is a list that helps answer what is the highest-paying marketing job, along with associated roles and responsibilities.

1. Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

The role of a CMO is the highest-paying marketing job in this sector. The average salary for the position is $343,918 annually in the U.S. The role of the CMO involves strategizing, managing, and implementing all marketing activities and programs of the company. In addition, they are also responsible for the overall management of branding, digital presence and advertisem*nts of the company.

ALSO READ: How to Become a CMO and Scale Your Company’s Growth

2. Marketing Director

The average salary of a marketing director in the U.S. is $181,405 per year. Evidently, they perform similar functions as that of a CMO. However, marketing directors have less experience than CMO. They primarily do market research and work on marketing campaigns, ideas, and policies for the products or services offered by the company. Moreover, they must ensure that such campaigns and policies align with the business objectives.

3. Product/Brand Management Analyst

The average annual salary for this role in the U.S. is $103,716. The primary role of a product/brand management analyst is to research and analyze market trends. Moreover, they must work on consumer responses to prepare effective marketing strategies.

4. Top Executive for International Marketing

This job involves planning marketing strategies and campaigns to promote products and services in the global market. Furthermore, people in this job must have excellent writing and communication skills. The average salary for this role in the U.S. is $136,785 per year.

5. Creative Director

A creative director’s average annual salary in the U.S. is $142,540. Their job requires them to not only develop creative ideas and designs but promote and market products or services as well.

6. Brand Manager

The average annual salary for this role is $104,603. While this job offers great pay, it comes with many responsibilities. It includes responsibilities such as identifying market demands, working on brand ideas, strategies, communication, and creating brand awareness.

ALSO READ: How to Become a Brand Manager Who Can Create Timeless Brands

7. Public Relations Director

For this role, expect an average salary of $155,249 per year in the U.S. The role mainly involves managing media relations, white papers, and press releases for the company.

8. Vice President (VP), Marketing

If you are searching for what is the highest-paying marketing job in a leadership role, check out the roles and responsibilities of VP marketing. The average salary for this role in the U.S. is $273,953 annually. The role, moreover, requires managing marketing policies and strategies. It also includes creating plans to promote the business.

9. Product Marketing Director

The average annual salary for this role is $197,990. However, it is necessary to have expert knowledge of the product management cycle to market the product. The job also includes preparing budgets and policies for product marketing.

10. Sales Channel Development Manager

Sales channel managers work closely with marketing managers to target leads and meet consumer demands. Therefore, this role requires an in-depth understanding of consumer behavior and market trends. The average annual salary for this role is $126,722.

11. Database Marketing Executive

This is another well-paying marketing job that offers an average salary of $127,191 per year. Nevertheless, this role is more on the technical side: Therefore, one needs to be well-versed in keeping and maintaining the whole marketing database of the company.

12. Communications Director

Communications directors earn $179,812 per year on average. Overall, their work involves promoting marketing campaigns to increase customer engagement.

13. User Experience (UX) Director

It is a niche marketing role that involves market research and knowing customer requirements. This is to help improve the user experience of products. Without a doubt, UX directors help companies retain their customers, and for this, they are offered an average annual salary of $101,350.

14. SEO Specialist

Experienced SEO specialists earn an average salary of $129,969 per year. In brief, this is another niche role in content marketing, and it involves planning SEO strategies to improve website ranking on search engines.

15. E-commerce Marketing Specialist

E-commerce marketing entails designing and implementing promotional marketing campaigns to increase customer engagement. The average salary for this role in the U.S. is $88,428 per yearPlease note all salary figures have been taken from Salary.com.

What Factors Determine the Salary of a Marketing Job?

Let’s understand what is the highest-paying marketing job criteria to consider when applying for the role:

1. Experience: It is one of the crucial factors for determining marketing jobs’ salary. For instance, marketing professionals with six to eight years of experience earn more than entry-level or mid-level marketers
2. Skills: Furthermore, learning top skills like data analytics, market research, search engine optimization, and content marketing can help one get high-paying roles
3. Industry: Nearly every industry requires marketing to promote business growth. However, marketing salaries may differ as per the industry because of market research and trends. For example, marketing roles in fintech, SaaS and e-commerce pay higher salaries
4. Location: In addition to the above factors, living in a city that has all major brands and entities can mean a higher marketing salary

Wondering what is the highest-paying marketing job skill and qualification you need to possess? Then this list should serve as a guide:

Skills for Highest Paying Marketing Jobs:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing
• Copywriting
• Market research
• Brand management
• Storytelling
• Customer relationship management

Qualifications for Highest Paying Marketing Jobs:

• MBA in sales and marketing
• Marketing Management Certification from the American Marketing Association (AMA)
• Google Ads Certification
• Google Analytics IQ Certification

What is the Growth Potential and Career Trajectory for the Highest Paid Marketing Jobs?

As you have understood what is the highest-paying marketing job, let’s now analyze its growth trajectory:

Entry-Level Marketing Jobs

• Marketing Associate
• Social Media Associate
• Digital Marketing Associate
• Product Marketing Associate
• Digital Marketing Coordinator

These jobs require up to 2 years of experience in the field of marketing.

Mid-Level Marketing Jobs

• SEO Strategist
• Content Strategist
• Marketing Coordinator
• Marketing Analyst

Apply for such roles after 3–4 years of marketing experience.

Senior-Level Marketing Jobs

• Senior Marketing Manager
• Brand Manager
• Public Relations Director
• Marketing Director

Gain experience of around 5–8 years in marketing before applying for the job.

Executive-Level Marketing Jobs

• Chief Marketing Officer
• Vice President, Marketing
• Creative Director

Lastly, such C-level executive marketing jobs require a minimum of 8-10 years of experience.So what is the highest paying marketing job’s growth potential? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, marketing manager jobs will likely grow by 10% from 2021 to 2031. Moreover, there will be around 350,000 marketing manager jobs in the U.S. by the end of this decade.

As you already know what is the highest-paying job in marketing, it will be easier to now negotiate because of the average salary range for each role. So, here are a few negotiation tips to get higher pay:

• Suggest a few marketing campaign ideas that you would like to work on after joining the company; it helps the company understand the value you bring to the table
• Provide a salary number in the negotiation round rather than quoting a range
• Propose a higher number than what you want because it is likely the company will negotiate the final amount

It is clear from the article that marketing is essential for brand building, generating leads, customer retention, and business growth. Moreover, since growth is the key focus for companies, marketing is one of the most promising career paths today. Therefore, even though you know what is the highest-paying marketing job today, the rapid change in trends and the evolution of this industry can create intense competition. Nevertheless, one way to beat the competition is by staying up-to-date with what the industry wants: Emeritus’ sales and marketing courses can help you learn the latest marketing trends and acquire skills to make a play for a high-paying job.

By Sneha Chugh
Write to us at content@emeritus.org