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Which Digital Marketing Job Pays the Most? (Some of It Can Be Done Remotely)
Digital marketing has a lot of roles in it. The question is, which role pays the most? Well, most roles start from a low salary. It increases along the way depending on your skill, region and users you serve, your office, tenure of work, the complexity of your work and scope, etc. Most managerial positions have high salaries, both individual contributors and people managers. This is because the scope and the responsibilities are larger than those of entry-level to senior positions. Below are the top 7 of the highest salary roles in digital marketing and can be done remotely.
Updated Aug 11, 2024
Which digital marketing job pays the most? (Some of it can be done remotely)Performance marketer
The performance marketer is responsible for managing paid channel marketing and using these channels to promote the company's products or services. The channels are:
- Search engine (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc.)
- Social media (Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads, etc.)
The performance marketer has to plan, execute and monitor various ad campaigns to achieve the previously defined goal, such as:
- conversion,
- lead generation,
- acquisition, etc.
The challenge of this position is that you have to learn how paid channels work, because not every channel works the same. The algorithm is constantly changing, as are the terms and conditions.
Data analysis is another challenge. You will be handling a lot of channels, which in real life your team will help you with. But the data you get will make you feel overwhelmed.
You need to know how to extract the data and turn it into something that's easy to understand, both for your team and for others who don't understand performance marketing.
Last but not least is budgeting. As a performance marketer, you need to make sure that campaigns are not over budget and that there is enough to execute the short and long term strategy to maximize ROI.
This position requires experience, both from internships and full-time experience. You can apply to the company that is hiring for this position or make an internal move within your current company.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for performance marketers in the United States is 63,368 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Digital marketing manager
Digital marketing itself is responsible for developing and executing marketing campaigns. When it comes to being a manager, a digital marketing manager is also responsible for managing all campaigns that are planned or in execution across all channels, both paid and organic.
The digital marketing manager will have a team consisting of members with different characteristics. However, they have to manage these members, their daily work, and their career development.
Managing multiple digital marketing channels becomes a challenge in itself. As a manager, you need to keep up with the latest trends. The lack of information about the latest trends will affect the wrong strategy and lead to other new problems.
Measuring the ROI and managing the marketing budget will also become another challenge. You have to make sure that the budget spent on the strategies will give ROI to the company.
The digital marketing manager also needs to be adept at data analysis. So that they can define which strategy can be executed in the next campaign or project and what kind of improvements are needed.
To be a digital marketing manager, you need to master most of the digital marketing channels. Not only mastery, but also experience in handling these channels is needed to help you create strategies and advise your team members' ideas.
Typically, you will start out as an associate, then a specialist, and finally be promoted to manager.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for a digital marketing manager in the United States is 86,667 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Social media manager
The social media manager must plan, implement, and monitor the company's social media strategy to increase brand awareness and drive engagement.
Most of the time, the social media manager also has meetings with the team and executives to present the results of campaigns or to negotiate with other teams regarding social media strategies.
Managing multiple platforms simultaneously becomes the biggest challenge. That is why a content calendar is needed to easily track all content schedules.
Then, there is the trend. Social media trends change rapidly. So as a social media manager, you need to keep an eye on the latest trends. If it is in line with the company's brand identity and products, adopt it. Then look at the performance and improve it if necessary.
The last one is community management. The social media accounts will deal with different types of users and comments. Sometimes you will get unpleasant comments. As a team, you need to first monitor the situation and then supervise your team members to respond to the comment as needed and make sure it does not harm the company's reputation.
Becoming a social media manager requires experience for a certain tenure in handling various social media platforms. Generally, someone will have to start as an employee first. In other cases, someone can jump directly to the senior level if the experience is slightly related to social media or the candidate is making a career change by presenting a good case study to the employer.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for a social media manager in the United States is 56,975 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
SEO and SEM manager
SEO managers in some cases also manage SEM, so we're kind of merging the two as one position, and it's another high-paying job. This role is responsible for managing search engine optimization and marketing strategies to increase organic and paid search visibility.
SEO and SEM manager will have two teams, the SEO team and the SEM team. These teams will report to the manager on the current state of the strategies, upcoming plans, backlog, etc.
Other than that, the SEO and SEM manager will often discuss with other marketing managers to align the helicopter view of the grand marketing plan and make sure all strategies are executed well.
Since this position handles both SEO and SEM, the challenge is to know how these two platforms work and complement each other.
A manager must stay on top of the unpredictable algorithm updates that cause earthquakes in site rankings and traffic. At the same time, mastering the SEO technical becomes another difficult challenge.
Last but not least is measuring ROI and budgeting. A manager has to make sure that all budget spent on SEO and SEM strategies brings maximum ROI to the company.
To get this position, you have to get used to SEO and SEM techniques and how they work. Start as an associate or specialist and then move up to manager.
According to Glassdoor as of July 2024, the highest median salary of an SEO and SEM manager in the United States is 69,213 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Email marketing manager
Similar to other managers who specialize in their channels, an email marketing manager must develop and execute email marketing plans to promote products or services.
Most of the time, the email marketing manager has more activities to develop and oversee than to execute, as the execution is handled by the associates or specialists.
An email marketing manager must understand how email marketing works and how to define audience segmentation. They can also advise on the best strategy created by the team members.
Finally, the email marketing manager must have data analysis skills. They need to get used to reading and understanding different metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
From the data obtained, this role can define what is working and what can be improved for the next campaign.
Since email is the most personal marketing channel among others, the challenge for the email marketing manager is how to make the email engaging and drive leads and sales. In addition, data privacy also becomes a challenge as there are rules for data privacy such as GDPR and CCPA.
Finally, the manager's biggest challenge lies in data analysis to know the performance of each campaign and what can be further improved.
Like other positions, this position requires experience in handling email marketing, from content creation, audience segmentation, budgeting, and other related tasks.
You need to have a certain amount of tenure to be an email marketing manager.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for an email marketing manager in the United States is 76,942 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Content manager
The content manager must:
- create plans for the company's content,
- manage the team of writers and designers,
- make sure all plans are executed well, and
- analyze the performance of the content.
In some companies, the content manager's scope also includes social media platforms.
They must stay abreast of current trends and ensure that all communications are delivered in a manner that is consistent with the company's brand values and customer preferences.
A content manager oversees the creation, curation, and distribution of content across various digital platforms to support a company's marketing and communications strategies.
In addition to developing the best strategies, the challenge is to control the quality of the content. The writers on your team have different writing styles. Your job is to ensure that the content they create is consistent with the company's brand identity.
Another is the data analysis itself. Almost every position has this challenge. The content manager has to analyze the performance of the content and distill it into something that is easy to understand for further planning and improvement.
To reach this position, you need to have experience in planning, executing and analyzing different types of content. SEO, project management, creative and strategic thinking will also be some of the skills you will need to master.
If you want to pursue this position, you can tell your direct supervisor and they will help you achieve it.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for a content manager in the United States is 67,412 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Ecommerce manager
The ecommerce manager is responsible for online sales and marketing on ecommerce platforms, both the company's own website and third-party ecommerce platforms such as Shopee, Amazon, eBay, etc.
They analyzes data to identify customer habits and new online shopping trends, ensuring that sales remain above the bare minimum in the midst of rapidly changing behavior.
In addition to being responsible for online sales strategy, the ecommerce manager oversees the team to ensure that all plans are well executed and that all product information assets are complete.
The challenge in this position is to have a deep understanding of what the customer wants and how they behave. The ecommerce manager must provide a good shopping experience and meet customer expectations for products and promotions.
A good shopping experience leads to high sales. As an ecommerce manager, you need to be good at analyzing the sales data, which includes a complex number of leads, conversions, traffic, etc. Poor analysis skills will affect the upcoming marketing strategy.
Experience with ecommerce platforms is required for this position to ensure that you are familiar with the daily activities of an ecommerce marketer.
As with other managerial positions, you will need to start at the bottom and work for a certain amount of time before being promoted to manager.
According to Glassdoor, as of July 2024, the highest median salary for an ecommerce manager in the United States is 81,839 USD per year with 7–9 years of experience.
Ultimately, you will need experience to land this high-paying position because you will be rewarded for helping the company achieve its goals with your skills and experience.
Don't forget to network with professionals and hiring managers. Create a strong resume and portfolio that showcase your skills.
Further reading:
Popular digital marketing jobs in Singapore:
SEO Content Writer
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