The Digital Marketer’s Career Path: 3 Jobs + Salary Guide

Table of Contents

• Meet the Expert: Veronica Ripson
• What is Digital Marketing in 2022?
• Top 3 Traits of Successful Digital Marketers
• The Digital Marketing Tools of the Trade
• The Digital Marketing Career Path
• The Digital Marketing Technical Interview
• How to Prepare for a Digital Marketing Career

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving, vital element in today’s successful businesses. General Assembly instructor and experienced digital marketer, Veronica, offers expert advice on the responsibilities to expect at each level of your digital marketing career (including the average salaries 💰), and insights on how to rise up the career ladder from entry-level to senior-level roles. Plus, find out how General Assembly is inspiring career changers and upskillers to break into tech fields, like digital marketing, with their Free Fridays intro courses!

Meet the Expert: Veronica Ripson

• Veronica Ripson is a Digital Marketing Instructor at General Assembly.
• Veronica has a background in marketing and a love for math and strategy. Her career began at a large advertising agency focused on print media before pivoting her career into digital marketing!

What is Digital Marketing in 2022?

Digital Marketing is, at a high level, any media message delivered from a brand to consumers using an internet connected device. Digital marketing is exciting! Going into 2022, there is so much rapidly changing, from cookie deprecation to the expansion of connected TV to tracking changes. There are huge opportunities to become a generalist or a specialist in digital marketing because both are needed. 

Top 3 Traits of Successful Digital Marketers

As a digital marketer, it is critical to accept the ever-changing nature of digital marketing, so a digital marketer shouldn’t be afraid of change. The best digital marketers are excited to face challenges head-on with solutions.

What soft skills should digital marketers have?

Soft skills are just as important as technical skills in digital marketing. The top three soft skills for excelling in digital marketing is:

1. The desire to learn. This is absolutely imperative in order to keep up with this field.
2. A hunger to dive in. Whether it's a new platform to learn, or a problem you're not sure how to solve, great digital marketers are excited for the challenge and have a willingness to dive into whatever it is.
3. The ability to think outside yourself. Whether that be as a brand manager thinking about who your persona is, whether that be an agency partner trying to understand what the client wants, it's really important to be able to empathize and think outside of yourself.

The Digital Marketing Tools of the Trade

Excel is a must for most digital marketers because we do love pivot tables. Ideally, you'll want to brush up on your statistics; linear regression is incredibly common for a lot of marketers as well as concepts like statistical significance.

The range of digital marketing careers is so vast, so you may end up using tools like: 

• AdTech platforms like Facebook and Google
• Social listing tools
• Site analytics tools
• Photoshop and Illustrator (if you're in creative development)
• Intermediate web development (if your role requires technical SEO)

What kinds of digital marketing jobs do you see students landing when they graduate from General Assembly?

Digital Marketing Bootcamp grads have landed jobs across the board. When coming into the bootcamp, it’s important to know what you want to get out of the program, which our team will help you figure out before you start. For students without previous marketing experience, they typically land roles such as Associate Paid Search Manager, Assistant Digital Marketing Planner, Assistant Brand Manager. 

Those that are brand new to digital marketing can take advantage of General Assembly’s Career Services, who work with every student that comes through the program to hone your interested and desired outcomes.Career Services sticks with you post-bootcamp to ensure you’re finding a job that fits you. 

We also have students who apply digital marketing to their creative passions or to pivot into a new division at their company. For example, one of our Digital Marketing students was a DJ looking to expand their business using marketing, and another was the VP of Product looking to transition to a VP of Marketing role. 

Pro-Tip: Start with Free Fridays at General Assembly 

Free Fridays is an introduction to some of our most popular programs for free from our experienced General Assembly instructors. It's a great first step for those looking to pivot their role to a new set of skills, like Digital Marketing. 

For beginners looking to ground themselves in the digital marketing ecosystem, Free Fridays will offer intro courses to:

• Digital Marketing 101
• Social Media Analytics
• Google Analytics
• Paid Social
• Search Marketing
• Excel 

For those already working in digital marketing and looking to expand your knowledge base, we recommend checking out the Free Fridays events for Tableau, Python, Visual Design, and Data Analytics.

The Digital Marketing Career Path

The digital marketing career path can be broken down into three steps: entry-level, mid-level, and senior-level. Job titles are generally going to be some form of digital marketer, but digital marketing responsibilities may be the responsibilities of another role on the team, such as marketer, analyst, or manager.

ENTRY-LEVEL: ASSISTANT DIGITAL MARKETER 

Entry-level digital marketing roles include Assistant Media Planner, Assistant Digital Marketing Planner, Assistant Brand Manager, and Associate Paid Search Manager. People generally spend 6 months to 2 years in entry-level digital marketing roles before moving into a mid-level role. 

What does an entry-level digital marketer do?

An entry-level digital marketer tends to wear many hats in an organization. Typical responsibilities include helping develop media plans, reaching out to vendors for RFPs, and meeting with their manager to decide which media buys to execute. An entry-level digital marketer may also help with billing, overseeing delivery, creating presentations, drafting POVs and sometimes hopping into platforms like Facebook, Google Ads, Reddit, etc to manage media spend.

Entry-Level Digital Marketing Salaries

The typical salary range for entry-level digital marketing roles is between $35K-75K. Salary depends greatly on the type of organization you work for as well as location. 

MID-LEVEL: DIGITAL MARKETING SUPERVISOR

Mid-level digital marketers are typically in a managerial position. Mid-level digital marketers may have the job titles of Senior Digital Marketing Manager or Digital Marketing Supervisor. Most people spend 2-8 years at the mid-level, depending on specialization, company structure, and location. 

What does a mid-level digital marketer do on the job?

Mid-level digital marketer responsibilities often involve lots of client and agency management, including understanding the strategic needs and goals of the business and translating that to the rest of the team. Mid-level roles are responsible for the performance of the media buys. Mid-level marketers also are responsible for the personal growth of junior members, including hiring and team growth with KPIs focused on account and team performance. Mid-level marketers work with other teams on projects, such as Analytics and AdOps teams to ensure every media plan is ready for success. 

Mid-Level Digital Marketing Salaries

Mid-level digital marketers can expect a salary anywhere from $65K to $150K, depending on the size and location of the company or organization.

SENIOR-LEVEL: VICE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL MARKETING

At the senior-level, digital marketers are leading teams, interacting with clients, and also focused on thought leadership. Senior digital marketers may have titles such as Vice President or Executive of Digital Marketing. Getting to a senior-level digital marketing position could happen quickly if you are working on a small team or take much longer if you are working within a larger organization. 

What does a senior-level digital marketer do?

At the senior-level, a digital marketer still wears lots of hats, but this role is geared toward future growth and brand progression. Senior-level digital marketers oversee all profit and loss (P&L) statements for their teams, including strategic vision, investment strategy, thought-leadership, and top-partner management. Senior-level marketers think strategically about how to grow the business and truly innovate in the space.

Senior-Level Digital Marketing Salaries

Senior-level digital marketers make salaries that exceed $100K, with the average senior-level digital marketing salary being around $132K.

The Digital Marketing Technical Interview

Interviews for digital marketing jobs vary widely depending on the role, but you can count on the interview assessing your ability to multitask, think strategically, and work collaboratively on a team.

For those looking to go into creative design roles: a portfolio demonstrating your work is a must.

For those looking to go into strategy planning/media roles: a sample media campaign or digital marketing project (such as the projects students build at General Assembly) advances you ahead of the typical candidate.

For those looking to go into planning and/or brand roles: consider including a case study interview demonstrating your math or Excel skills. 

Expert Advice: Veronica’s Tips for Moving up the Career Ladder

Stay hungry. If there's something new you can try or learn, go for it. The space is always changing and it's important to change with it. 

Be on social media. I've learned so much by following people in my field on Twitter and LinkedIn and learning from them. 

How to Prepare for a Digital Marketing Career

General Assembly's Digital Marketing Bootcamp offers a realistic perspective on digital marketing. The curriculum follows the objective-first framework that we see in the real world. Students start with objectives and KPIs and then look at the audience and channels to come up with and deliver marketing strategies. The Digital Marketing Bootcamp curriculum follows a framework that covers topics, such as:

• SEO
• SEM
• Paid and organic social
• Campaign planning
• Customer research
• Creative strategy
• Testing
• Ad Tech 

Is there an ideal student for General Assembly’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp?

Whether you’re brand new to digital marketing or working in a digital marketing adjacent career and looking to cross-skill, anyone who is interested in learning all about the digital marketing ecosystem will do well at General Assembly. The Digital Marketing Bootcamp is offered full-time and Flex (part-time), so you can dive into a program that fits your lifestyle. 

Find out more and read General Assembly reviews on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with General Assembly.