Post updated: January 2021
The digital marketing industry is constantly evolving with new trends and best practices.
As a digital marketer, understanding how to adapt to these changes can play an important role in influencing the roadmap of your career.
With an abundance of opportunities and information available, identifying how to best position your career can quickly become overwhelming.
What skills should you specialize in?
What type of company will offer you the best opportunity?
What skillsets are the most in-demand?
How will remote work change your career?
As a digital marketer myself, I know first-hand how important it is to stay relevant by remaining at the forefront of these new trends.
I find a lot of value in analyzing industry reports from leading sources. These reports help dictate common trends across the landscape and provide a clear picture of what the future will look like.
If you’d like to uncover some of the biggest career trends in digital marketing, I’ve taken the time to summarize 38 of the most important statistics available.
The data will undoubtedly influence how the landscape evolves in the years to come.
With each statistic, I also share a summary of how each trend will impact digital marketers like yourself. This will give you a competitive advantage when planning your future career in digital marketing.
1. 64% of hiring companies list problem solving as the top soft skill they search for when recruiting digital marketing candidates.
Source – Smart Insights (2016)
With the average digital marketer using more platforms and tools than ever, it’s no surprise that problem-solving has become one of the most important soft skills to possess.
It’s essential for marketers to understand how they can independently create the most effective strategies using the resources they have available.
By understanding how to uncover meaningful insights through the use of data, marketers can solve problems in the most accurate way, as well as identify opportunities beyond their direct line of work. Those who have the ability to take ownership and drive new initiatives will see the most demand for their talent.
2. From a corpus of surveyed digital marketers, McKinley found the average salary was $107,100 across all roles.
Source – McKinley (2019)
As companies across the world migrate their marketing strategy to digital channels, the demand for digital marketers has continually risen. As a result, the average salary for digital marketers has increased over time.
This average factors the different salaries across all core marketing functions like social media, SEO, content marketing, and marketing management. It also collates an average based on the different generations within a team.
3. The average salary across each generation.
Source – McKinley (2019)
With more industry experience, it’s no surprise that Baby Boomers take home more each year in comparison to Millenials and Gen Z. As management positions require a higher level of strategic thinking and leadership, these roles are compensated accordingly.
What’s surprising to see within this data, however, is the level of satisfaction that each generation has with their salary.
Throughout the corpus of digital marketers surveyed by McKinley, just 40% of Baby Boomers stated that they were content with their salary, even though they were compensated the most.
On the other hand, Gen Z was the most content with their salary, despite having the lowest yearly income. This trend stems from the values that Gen Z prioritizes within their career. With less priority for monetary incentives, this generation instead values flexibility and sustainability.
If you’re a digital marketing team looking to recruit Gen Z candidates, it’s important to cater to their unique needs within the employment benefits you offer.
4. The average marketing salary by education level.
Source – McKinley (2019)
Digital marketers without a college degree are more content with their yearly salary. As these marketers avoided spending four years working towards a degree, they’re able to kickstart their career earlier than those who do.
With a myriad of free resources such as the Google Digital Garage and Facebook Blueprint, it’s never been easier to learn practical skills that can help land a role in digital marketing.
With more candidates choosing to learn through self-taught practices and online courses, marketing teams are beginning to prioritize candidates who have practical experience over theoretical knowledge.
5. The average salary measured by each marketing role.
Source – AMA (2019)
It’s no surprise that Marketing Directors are compensated the most within a team. With a responsibility to oversee the performance of each digital marketing department, this role influences the overall performance of a team.
What’s interesting, however, is the average salary for those working within a Marketing Analytics role. As companies become more data-driven than ever, the need for quality data analysts has grown significantly.
These roles are responsible for gleaning valuable insights that inform future marketing strategies, helping drive the best performance outcomes.
6. It’s rare to find an internal content marketing team with more than 5 full-time employees. Even within large companies of 1,000+ people, content marketing teams have an average of 2-5 team members.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
With content marketing being one of the most important functions inside any marketing team, this data may come as surprising.
As companies become more strategic about repurposing content, teams have the ability to remain lean by getting more from the existing resources they have.
It’s also common for content marketing teams to outsource tasks, allowing internal members to focus on top-line strategies and more important work.
As a result, these content marketing teams can manage with a small, yet effective team.
7. 50% of B2B marketing teams outsource at least one content marketing activity, with content creation being the most likely.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
As marketing teams prioritize meaningful tasks for internal team members, it’s common to outsource mundane work to external contractors.
With marketplaces like Fiverr and UpWork, it’s never been easier for brands to begin outsourcing work to highly-skilled professionals.
As ghostwriting has also become an effective way for teams to streamline their content creation process, it’s not surprising to see most B2B marketing teams leverage external sources – freeing additional time for internal team members.
8. On average, nearly 22% of social media activities are performed by outside agencies. B2C product companies outsource almost 40% of this work.
Source – AMA (2019)
As B2C brands are more reliant on social channels like Facebook or Instagram, they often experience higher engagement rates than B2B counterparts. With more work required across social channels, B2C brands are more likely to outsource these tasks to external agencies or contractors.
As social media is also an essential acquisition channel for B2C brands, marketing teams will prioritize the time spent on performance-based work, outsourcing tasks like community management to external partners.
9. 61% of surveyed companies have reported that they plan to add digital marketers to their team this year.
Source – McKinley (2019)
As brands continually prioritize digital channels within their marketing strategy, the demand for digital marketers is set to rapidly scale. With 61% of companies planning to hire a digital marketer, there’s more opportunities than ever for those with the relevant skills and experience.
As a result of this increased demand, marketing teams will continually become more competitive when recruiting new candidates.
10. Only 36% of digital marketers believe that full-time employees are more valuable than freelancers.
Source – We Are Rosie (2020)
As younger generations prioritize freedom and flexibility, and the demand for digital marketing talent continues to rise, it’s become easier than ever for marketers to comfortably transition into a freelance position. As a result, these experienced individuals can offer a profusion of value within any position.
Working with an outsourced freelancer can empower teams to uncover new perspectives and strategies, as well as experience in areas that a team might lack.
11. When McKinley interviewed a collective of companies, 47% said they would like to hire a remote marketing candidate.
Source – McKinley (2019)
As digital marketers can work from almost any device with internet connection, remote work has continually become a standard practice.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, companies across the globe have experienced the benefits of offering remote work to team members.
These companies have welcomed the notion of remote work as it allows teams to source high-quality talent from across the world. This ability to uncover new candidates can help create the most competent team possible.
12. The most in-demand digital marketing skills are digital advertising (45%) and content creation and curation (42%).
Source – The Left Bank (2019)
With the worldwide digital ad spend set to reach $500 billion by 2023, the demand for paid performance marketers has only continued to grow.
As ad platforms have become a commodity for user acquisition, brands seek experienced digital marketers who can create and execute the most effective cross-platform strategies. These digital marketers are expected to have a strong affinity for data, allowing them to uncover unique insights that can influence future optimizations.
If you’re a digital marketer yourself, it’s important to familiarize yourself with each digital ad platform and understand what role it can play within a larger strategy.
Curious to know what the remaining top marketing skills are in 2021? I’ve recently shared a list of the most in-demand skills to help you best prepare your career.
13. Demand for digital marketing talent sits at 59%, with active supply at 19%.
Source – The Left Bank (2019)
With such a large portion of marketing teams set to grow their headcount, the demand for digital marketers has only increased over time.
What does this mean for the recruitment landscape?
With candidates having access to more available offers than ever, companies have become more competitive when sourcing talent. Whether it be offering higher salaries or unique benefits, the current landscape favors digital marketers.
Marketing teams that can offer the most meaningful incentives to new candidates will not only be successful at recruiting talent, but also maintaining these positions in the long-term.
14. 50% of digital marketing candidates that ghost a company throughout the recruitment process do so during the interview phase.
Source – McKinley (2019)
Like dating, sourcing a new marketing team can be a tough match to find. Before you swipe right on a new position, you’ll need to know as much as possible to make a well-informed decision.
Throughout the recruitment process, it’s common for some candidates to get cold feet and ghost an opportunity.
With 50% of candidates who ghost a company doing so throughout the interview phase, it’s important for companies to share as much information as possible before this stage of the recruitment process.
By sharing information about a teams culture and expectations, it can help a candidate understand if they’ll be a suitable fit.
When this information is withheld at the beginning of the recruitment process, it can waste the time of both a candidate and a company.
Pro tip: My directory of marketing teams helps identify what values you share with some of the worlds best brands. Once you evaluate which teams are a suitable fit, you can start the recruitment process with confidence in finding a perfect match.
15. Each generations level of satisfaction with their marketing team benefits.
Source – McKinley (2019)
With Gen Z being the newest recruits in the workforce, their expectations for benefits are set lower in comparison to their more experienced colleagues. Baby Boomers and Gen X, however, feel entitled to better benefits as a reward for their longer tenures.
Based on the data in point 3, Baby Boomers were also recorded to prefer monetary compensation over additional benefits. Gen Z, on the other hand, places less value on their compensation and instead prioritizes the importance of lifestyle benefits.
16. Nearly 50% of marketing leaders reported a “lack of people who can link marketing analytics to practice” as a key factor preventing their companies from using marketing analytics more.
Source – AMA (2019)
As teams become more data-driven, it’s essential for marketers to understand how they can uncover valuable insights from data. These insights are the foundation that form agile strategies, driving the best performance results.
Across the digital landscape, there’s no shortage of available tools that can empower data-driven decision making. The digital marketers who can confidently leverage these tools are seeing more demand for their skill sets than ever. As a result, these candidates are compensated higher than most digital marketing roles (see point 5).
17. The total percentage of marketers who believe their managers are can manage different generations within a team.
Source – McKinley (2019)
With most management positions held by older generations, this data visualizes the relationship between management and their Baby Boomer/Gen X counterparts. With a disconnect between the shared values of older and younger generations, it’s challenging for managers to effectively direct both Millennials and Gen Z team members.
18. 40% of roles in digital strategy are filled by candidates with 4-10 years of experience.
Source – Smart Insights (2019)
With 4-10 years of experience, most digital marketers will have the necessary skills to navigate different tools and channels across the landscape. This breadth of experience is essential for building the most effective digital strategies.
With 40% of digital strategy roles being filled by experienced candidates, it’s important to begin your marketing career as soon as possible, helping fast track this process.
As a marketer, you don’t need a job to create your own experience. You could start working on your own small side projects like a blog, eCommerce store, or even a YouTube channel.
By documenting the key takeaways as you learn, it not only showcases the practical experience you possess, but also your ability to learn new skills and remain on the cusp of new trends.
19. The most common recruiting problems for marketing teams.
Source – McKinley (2019)
As the current demand for digital marketers significantly outweighs the available supply, marketing teams are finding it harder to source quality candidates for available roles. This increasing demand for skilled marketers has shifted the recruitment landscape to favor candidates. As a result, it allows skilled marketers to demand more from a position.
This data also highlights the challenge teams face when attracting new inbound talent. With more companies than ever looking to source digital marketing talent, the landscape has become competitive and filled with noise.
For marketing teams to succeed at sourcing talent, they need to thoughtfully build an employer brand that clearly defines their unique values. By showcasing how these values transact into daily practices, marketers can identify which teams will make the most suitable fit for their personal needs.
Note: I’ve created a culture-drive directory that includes some of the best marketing teams from across the world. Eager to find a team that shares your values? Click the button below and start your search.
20. Overall, 79% of surveyed marketing teams use an agency for recruiting, hiring, and contracting.
Source – McKinley (2019)
As digital marketing teams are continually challenged with sourcing new talent, it can become a full-time position to scout candidates, qualify their skills, then undertake interviews.
To alleviate this pressure, most marketing teams will outsource this process to recruitment agencies. This allows a team to focus on delivering work, while also trusting they’ll find quality new additions for their team.
21. B2C product companies have the highest marketing budget as a percent of firm budget (17.2%). B2B product companies budget is less than half that (8.5%).
Source – AMA (2019)
With B2B marketing teams driving higher-priced conversions, this data may come as a surprise.
As B2C brands traditionally have a shorter customer journey, they’re more reliant on paid marketing channels for user acquisition. As a result, these paid acquisition channels will often provide an immediate return on ad spend (ROAS).
B2B brands, however, will often turn to content marketing as a strategy for educating users throughout their customer journey. For these brands, organic content is the preferred long-term strategy over paid acquisition.
22. 36% of B2B marketers reported an annual content marketing budget of less than $100,000.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
With content marketing being one of the most important strategies for B2B brands, it’s surprising to see a third of companies with annual budgets below $100,000. Even with higher-priced conversion values, B2B brands have become lean throughout their marketing efforts.
As these brands require buy-in from larger teams, it’s important to prioritize creating the most informative content that can educate customers about the benefits of their product or service. This education process can include sharing value through blog posts, eBooks, videos, and webinars.
Any content marketing budget will often be used to outsource tasks like ghostwriting, or can help promote content by driving traffic and top-of-funnel leads.
23. On average, marketing budgets will be about 5% of company revenue.
Source – McKinley (2019)
With just 5% of annual revenue being reinvested into marketing spend, it’s essential for marketers to drive the best performance results from their available resources.
As the main priority for digital marketing teams is to create profitable customer acquisition channels, there’s an expectation to return more than this initial 5% into the business.
When marketing teams can drive additional revenue for a brand, their dedicated marketing budget will naturally scale as a result.
If you’re a digital marketer, it’s more important than ever to understand what tangible value you can add to a brands bottom line.
24. 48% of smaller organizations have a documented content strategy, compared to only 41% of larger organizations.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
Documentation is an important part of any marketing team. Whether it be branding guidelines or performance reports, these frameworks help build a valuable repository of information that can be used when building future strategies.
Documentation is also essential for onboarding new team members. Thoroughly documented content strategies can save new team members time getting up to speed with best practices.
Tools like Notion, Confluence, and document360 have made building internal documentation more intuitive than ever.
With less overhead in smaller teams, managing documentation can be affable in comparison to larger brands.
25. 73% of organizations have someone in place to oversee their content strategy.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
With over 113 pieces of content a brand can publish, it’s more important than ever to have a dedicated team member who oversees a content marketing strategy.
Content marketing has continually evolved from simply writing blog posts to now include different forms of content, including; podcasts, webinars, social posts, videos, and eBooks.
With a plethora of distribution channels also available, a dedicated content manager can interpret how to best utilize each opportunity, driving the most engagement from every piece of content.
By having an individual oversee the performance of this content, it’s also possible to uncover performance insights that can form the basis of future strategies.
26. 82% of survey respondents believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage.
Source – Deloitte (2020)
As younger generations make their way into the workforce, recruiting teams are beginning to diversify their cultural benefits beyond competitive salaries.
As the demand for digital marketers continues to rise, candidates have become more selective about choosing the most suitable position optimized for their long-term happiness.
Both working within an environment of like-minded individuals, and being able to make a genuine difference, have become higher priorities over simply receiving the largest salary.
For brands looking to grow their digital marketing teams, it’s important to define a consistent core culture built on the most important values you practice. This will ensure you attract the best candidates who will offer the most long-term value.
27. Companies are 68% more likely to involve the marketing department in employment branding.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
As marketing teams are challenged with sourcing quality talent, building a strong employer brand can be an effective way to drive inbound candidates. Promoting the internal values and culture of a marketing team allows external candidates to source opportunities that best align with their personal values.
By including frontline members within the employer branding process, it can improve the transparency of content that’s published by a brand. This provides team members with the opportunity to share their first-hand experiences working for a company.
28. Candidates trust employees 3x more than the employer to provide information about working at a company.
Source – Linkedin (2016)
It’s becoming essential for teams to empower internal members to build their own personal brand.
Personal branding can not only be used as a distribution channel for promoting branded content, but it can also be an effective way to attract new talent.
External marketers are more likely to trust others working within similar roles over the communication they have with a company itself. By understanding the specific nuances of digital marketing, internal team members can better communicate with outside candidates.
As a marketing team, it’s important to encourage employees to actively share their work experiences within their own network.
29. 78% of CMO’s believe custom content is the future of marketing.
Source – Demand Metric (2018)
As brands look to create the most engaging customer experiences possible, personalization has become essential for building deeper relationships.
Custom content relies on sharing the most relevant and valuable content to a user within their current customer journey.
If an active lead was to view a landing page for a webinar, a brand should have the foundations in place to then retarget this user (through email or a paid ad) with more information about this webinar – prompting them to register.
Custom content is one of the most effective ways to drive conversions within a sales funnel, particularly for B2B brands.
30. 69% of B2B marketing leaders say they feel “empowered to collaborate” with their sales teams.
Source – Salesforce (2017)
Collaborating across departments has become essential for digital marketing teams. Whether it be working with the product team to uncover user insights, or even a design team to create engaging ad assets – marketers should understand how they can work with others to achieve a collective goal.
Working alongside the sales team allows marketers to garner feedback from those who have direct contact with customers. This feedback can include customer pain points or positive responses.
With a better understanding of the customer, digital marketers can optimize their messaging and overall strategy to reflect these opportunities.
Perhaps the sales team has discovered that customers find a specific product feature useful. The marketing team can leverage this information to create a new campaign related to this feature.
Fast-paced startups are continually removing silos between departments to create a supportive environment that fosters innovation.
31. 73% of marketers believe that their efforts through social media marketing have been “somewhat effective” or “very effective” for their business.
Source – Buffer (2019)
Understanding the value you contribute as a digital marketer is essential. As teams continually become more data-driven, marketers must learn to properly measure and analyze the performance of their work. With more social media channels available than ever, it can become difficult to track cross-platform attribution models.
Using tools like Data Studio and Sprout Social, it’s possible to accurately measure the ROI of any social strategy, helping you make well-informed decisions about future forecasts.
32. 19% of social media marketers are still uncertain how to properly measure its effectiveness.
Source – Buffer (2019)
Brands are no longer interested in using social media to drive vanity metrics like engagement. These brands are passionate to understand the tangible value social media can add to their bottom line.
If you’re a social media marketer, it’s more important than ever to understand how to leverage data to glean performance insights.
If you’re interested in becoming a data-driven digital marketer, there’s plenty of great resources to start learning. Some of my personal favorites include Coursera’s Marketing Analytics course, and LinkedIn Learning’s Analytics For Agile Marketers module.
33. 70% of paid social media marketers are recorded to use Facebook ads, followed by Instagram with just 41%.
Source – Social Media Examiner (2020)
For social media marketers, Facebook has only continued to grow as the most ubiquitous ad platform. With over 2.6 billion monthly active users, Facebook’s total reach is unmatchable.
Whether you’re working for a B2C or B2B brand, Facebook’s detailed targeting allows you to target the most relevant users at a reasonable cost.
With Instagram ad placements also purchased within Ads Manager, brands are beginning to include the platform within their paid acquisition strategies.
34. 72% of social media marketers are interested in learning more about Instagram, and 69% are interested in learning more about Facebook.
Source – Social Media Examiner (2020)
Although Facebook’s ad platform has the largest overall adoption, social media marketers have recently shown more interest in leveraging Instagram within their paid performance strategies.
As brands across the world have continually prioritized Facebook ads, the average cost has risen as the platform becomes more competitive.
With more competition across Facebook, brands have started adopting Instagram as an alternative ad placement.
35. 68% of B2B marketers stated their main priority of content marketing is to generate leads.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
With the B2B customer lifecycle spanning over a longer period of time, content marketers must continually drive new top-of-funnel prospects while existing leads nurture through the sales funnel.
As the average deal size for B2B brands is larger, some companies will even require a dedicated sales team to manually convert customers at the end of their journey.
It’s also important for B2B content marketers to work collaboratively with sales teams, ensuring that the quality of leads is consistently high.
36. 84% of B2B marketers use paid distribution channels for content marketing purposes.
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
As B2C brands rely on paid channels to profitably acquire new customers, it often doesn’t make sense for B2B brands to run Facebook ads in the hope of driving sales. With larger sale prices, B2B companies will rarely convert customers directly through paid ads alone.
As B2B marketers are focussed on driving high-quality top-of-funnel leads, paid distribution channels are instead used to promote content for a lower initial cost.
Once a user becomes a registered lead, they’ll be more likely to convert within an automation sequence, educating them throughout their user journey.
37. The top 5 metrics B2B marketers track to measure content performance are email engagement (90%), website traffic (88%), website engagement (86%), social media analytics (83%), and conversions (78%).
Source – Content Marketing Institute (2020)
With the object of B2B content marketing to drive new leads, It’s no surprise that the main performance measurement is rated as high email engagement and website traffic.
After converting leads onto an automation sequence, their engagement with each piece of the content will influence the overall quality of this opportunity. Content marketers must add as much value as possible into each touchpoint throughout an email automation workflow.
In summary
From this data, it’s possible to see that the demand for skilled digital marketers is continually rising. As companies look to drive more value from digital channels, they require the right talent to create and manage the most effective digital strategies.
If you’re a digital marketer, it’s important to continually build on your skillset. This will ensure you remain in sync with the current best practices across the industry.
Skilled digital marketers will have a competitive advantage when shaping the direction of their careers.
If you’re unsure about the direction of your own career path, I’d recommend taking the time to think about what core areas you’d like to specialize in.
What facets of digital marketing are the most appealing to you?
Do you live and breathe social media? Is SEO your jam? Perhaps you’re obsessed with data and analytics.
Once you’ve identified a key area to specialize in, double down and learn as many practical skills as possible.
Its’ also important to identify what type of marketing team you’d like to be a part of.
Finding a team that shares the same values as yourself is the key to long-term success as a digital marketer.
If you’d like a behind-the-scenes look into some of the worlds best marketing teams, my culture-driven directory of brands will help you find the perfect fit.
Each brand has taken the time to share what their core values are, and how they transact into daily practices.
Sources
- Smart Insights – 2016 Digital Job Trends
- McKinley – 2019 Marketing Hiring Trends
- American Marketing Association (AMA) – 2019 Marketing Jobs Outlook
- Content Marketing Institute (CMI) – 2020 B2B Content Marketing Trends
- We Are Rosie – 2020 Rosie Report
- The Left Bank – Demand For Digital Marketing Talent
- LinkedIn – The Ultimate List Of Employer Branding Statistics
- Deloitte – 2020 Human Capital Trends
- Demand Metric – Content Marketing Report
- Salesforce – 2017 State Of Marketing
- Buffer – 2019 State Of Social Report
- Social Media Examiner – 2020 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
ARE YOU READY TO UNCOVER ACTIONABLE GUIDANCE FOR YOUR CAREER IN DIGITAL MARKETING?
JOIN THOUSANDS OF MARKETERS WHO RECEIVE ONE PRACTICAL PIECE OF CONTENT EACH WEEK.
“Actionable advie from a genuine source. ClickThrough posts are a must for anyone in the marketing industry!”
Luke Chapman – Digital Marketing Officer
