8 High-Demand Digital Marketing Jobs (Including Average Salaries)

If you were to survey successful people doing one of the popular digital marketing jobs, you would be likely to find out that the vast majority don’t even hold a degree in marketing. How’s that possible? That’s because at the time most of today’s established digital marketing professionals went to college, there was no option to study digital marketing as we know it.

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field. As a consequence, digital marketing jobs have also been evolving along with the entire industry in the past 10 years or so. Nowadays, more and more people are considering a career change and looking to switch from more traditional job positions to jobs in the digital marketing sphere.

(I, for example, had a career in teaching before taking up the Content Marketing Manager position here at LeadQuizzes.)

So, here’s our selection of digital marketing jobs that are either in the highest demand right now or have the best earning potential.

The 8 Hottest Digital Marketing Jobs

We compiled the list in no particular order of preference. The average salary data for the digital marketing jobs listed below is taken from Glassdoor, for the US job market.

SEO Analyst

SEO (search engine optimization) is an essential marketing discipline responsible for growing visibility in organic search results. If they’re not employing all the right techniques and tools, companies can quite easily get lost in 5th or 6th page of Google. Most importantly, they need the right person to do that for them – an SEO analyst.

An SEO analyst is a person who helps a company optimize their content and website to enable their potential customers to find the company easier. They’re responsible for analyzing the website, and developing and executing marketing strategies, with the aim of improving search rankings.

As SEO is an ever-evolving field, an SEO analyst needs to be following all the latest trends and changes in the Google algorithm.

SEO Analyst Avg. Salary: $60,063/yr

Data Scientist

Along with the growth and evolution of big data, data scientists emerged on the radar. Many data scientists were data analysts or statisticians at first, but their profession evolved along with the big data.

Today, data is a goldmine for any business, as it helps boost revenue and discover new ways of getting profit. As such, it requires utmost creative curiosity and thorough analysis. Data scientists are analytical data experts, playing the role of a mathematician, computer scientist, and trend-spotter at the same time.

Even though the notion of “data science” has been around in the business world for a few decades, in recent years it has evolved to reflect the digital changes. Data scientists are now responsible for huge amounts of structured and unstructured data that needs to be collected, interpreted and utilized to come up with data strategies for companies.

A data scientist’s work can help a company understand their market by compiling information into data visualizations, so as to keep an edge over their competitors.

Data Scientist Avg. Salary: $139,840/yr

Social Media Manager

With 2.62 billion social media users worldwide (the number estimated to reach 3 billion by 2021), it doesn’t come as a surprise that social media manager is one of the digital marketing jobs in highest demand out there.

That’s a huge number of people using social media on a daily basis and, at the same time, a huge opportunity for companies to take advantage of social media to improve the way they do business. To do so, they need an expert on board – and that’s where social media managers come in.

A social media manager is responsible for managing all of the company’s social networks (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) and making sure they consistently reflect the brand’s core values. They are also responsible for addressing customer feedback.

In order to stay ahead in today’s digital world, companies need to hire social media managers to help them stay up to date on social networks.

Social Media Manager Avg. Salary: $59,965/yr

Social Media Influencer

In recent years, brands have been rushing to social media influencers in numbers, hoping they would help them sell more to their engaged and highly-targeted audiences. Based on the social media they use, there are different types of influencer-based digital marketing jobs, vloggers (mainly YouTubers) and Instagram influencers being among the most profitable ones.

Vlogger

Vloggers are the bloggers of the new digital age. It’s just that the medium has changed. Many successful vloggers are considered to be influencers who use their platform to promote sponsored products, do product reviews, and other forms of advertising on their videos.

Instagram Influencer

While 93% of social media influencers say Instagram is the network they’ve focused on most in 2017, 82% of them say they expect it to be the case in 2018 as well. If you’d want to learn more, here’s our detailed guide on Instagram influencer marketing.

Social Media Influencer Avg. Salary: $54,500/yr (it largely depends on the social network, niche, and following)

Content Marketing Manager

Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of any marketing strategy as it touches upon almost every level of marketing. And yes, it’s much more than just mere writing and posting on social media.

A content marketing manager often manages a team of writers, has to be familiar with the best SEO practices, develops editorial calendars, uses analytics to report and strategize, and a whole range of related activities.

They are also typically responsible for writing, editing, and publishing content (articles, blog posts, copies, etc.), increasing organic traffic and leads from search, as well as performing outreach and link-building.

Here’s an example of responsibilities and requirements for an entry-level digital marketing job of a Content Marketing Manager (taken from an actual job post):

Content Marketing Manager Avg. Salary: $93,125/yr

Email Marketing Specialist

Email is not dead. In fact, some projections show that the number of active monthly US email users will reach 251.8 million in 2019. So, email still remains one of the most effective types of content out there.

Email marketing is a specialized area of content marketing. That being said, email marketing specialists are usually extremely well-versed in copywriting (especially persuasive writing) and editing. An email marketing specialist is in charge of promotional campaigns and other PR activities. Email marketing is also closely related to lead generation.

Email Marketing Specialist average salary: $42,153/yr

Lead Generation Specialist

Lead generation is one of the responsibilities often handled by content marketing managers or email marketing specialists, but still, many companies employ people whose sole mission is to generate leads (yes, leads are that important). Hence, the next one in our series of popular digital marketing jobs is the lead generation specialist.

A lead generation specialist focuses on 2 things – generating new leads and/or working with leads generated through other activities. They need to make sure that leads passed from marketing to sales meet the requirements for a sales call and need to research and engage those leads to make them qualify for sales (a.k.a cold calling).

To be successful at what they do, lead generation specialists also need to be able to rely on the best lead generation software out there.

Lead Generation Specialist Avg. Salary: $32,746/yr

UX Designer

The main concern of a UX (user experience) designer is exactly what their job title says – designing (and improving) the overall experience of users.

UX designers are responsible for creating and then A/B testing different options for landing pages, CTAs, customer journeys across a website or an application. Their main goal is to find the best option or approach in order to improve the user experience and satisfaction, while at the same time helping the company improve their conversions and increase revenue.

UX Designer average salary: $107,880/yr

That was our selection of the 8 digital marketing jobs in the highest demand at the moment. As you could see, some of those jobs are more profitable than others, but still, the salary for each of those depends on your experience and level of expertise.

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field, which means that new digital marketing jobs emerge every once in a while. For instance, the latest developments in VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) have led to an increased demand for VR marketing specialists, but still, their time is yet to come.

Of course, finding the right digital marketing job for your skills and preferences is just a start. Once you do that, you need to make sure you get your digital marketing resume shortlisted (here’s how) and then you need to survive several rounds of digital marketing interview questions.