How Marketing Team Structures and Salaries Have Evolved

Compared to any other business function, marketing has probably evolved more due to the successive waves of disruption. Apart from disruptions in traditional marketing channels like mass media, old advertising models are becoming less effective.

Social media has emerged as the most popular marketing and advertising medium for companies across domains. With rapid development in technology, huge volumes of data are now available to marketers for analysis. The insights thus drawn are being used to meaningfully engage the customers through various strategies over the duration of the customer life cycle.

Digital mediums are rapidly replacing product-centric marketing models through the latest marketing strategies. With the pace of change gaining momentum, another disruptive change being witnessed in the marketing arena is the increasing penetration of IoT devices. All these developments have helped marketers realize that every interaction that a customer has with the brand affects the customer’s decision at a certain level.

Read on to learn more about the ways in which marketing team structures and salaries have evolved in the last five years.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Heidi Andersen, CMO and CRO at Nextdoor

Evolution of Marketing Team Structures

Here are some key insights pertaining to the evolution of marketing team structures over the last five years:

• Emergence of Marketing Ops: For MarTech to deliver the desired transformative results, it is crucial to ensure the seamless integration of multiple systems. Earlier, marketing teams were facing numerous issues due to silos created by marketing automation professionals. Over the last five years, the skillsets required for MarTech professionals have evolved from having basic knowledge of automation to being proficient in multiple technologies like CMS, CRM, website design, and many more. Additionally, marketing automation professionals in the team must know how to create and streamline the processes. This knowledge will be helpful in ensuring that these technologies are used to achieve certain objectives to answer this need. Companies have thus created a new role in the marketing team, “Marketing Operations”. Now, all the tasks related to marketing automation are handled by the “Marketing Ops” professional.
• Digital Marketing Managers: While digital marketing has been around for some years now, this marketing specialization has undergone rapid changes in the last five years. Now, digital marketing strategies are no longer complementary to traditional marketing. In fact, an increasing number of companies are now transitioning to digital marketing as their primary strategy. As the online world evolves, so does the way of marketing products and services to the target audience. With multiple digital marketing channels to monitor and leverage, there is a growing need for dedicated digital marketing managers. These professionals are well-versed in the latest innovations in the digital space and how to leverage them effectively. Marketing managers are now working in collaboration with digital marketing managers to deliver a cohesive marketing strategy for a brand.
• Inter-departmental collaboration: In hyper-competitive markets, marketing teams cannot work in silos. They need to collaborate with other relevant departments and teams to ensure the perfect execution of retail and digital marketing campaigns. Campaign management is now being driven through collaboration between teams within the business through share service support. For instance, marketers are now seeking the help of IT experts as strategic partners who can help maximize the benefits accrued from their investments in the latest technological solutions. Moreover, marketing teams are witnessing increasing collaboration with product and sales teams to exchange insights related to evolving customer preferences.

Marketing Technology News: How AI Is Improving the Omnichannel Customer Experience

Evolution of Marketing Team Salaries

Here are some key insights related to the evolution in salaries of marketing teams over the last five years:

• Salaries have passed pre-pandemic levels: With the onset of the pandemic, marketing salaries witnessed a sharp decline. But as of 2023, the situation has improved, and now the salaries have reached the pre-pandemic levels and, in many cases, have exceeded that.
• Companies are willing to spend more: Companies are more than willing to spend higher sums on hiring and retaining the best talent. Company leadership believes that if they can hire and onboard a star employee, that person can easily add up to 10x the revenue generated. As per experts, it is now becoming increasingly common for companies to offer an increase of 50% or more to the salaries being offered to senior talent and encourage them to keep working in their current profile.
• More counter-offers: Professionals in leadership roles are now more likely to give a counter-offer to retain top talent as compared to the pre-pandemic times. Many experts are expressing surprise at this trend wherein more than 23% of employers looking to hire marketing professionals are willing to give counter offers. As a result, the job market for marketers is almost unrecognizable compared to pre-pandemic times.

Over the last five years, marketing team structures and salaries have witnessed considerable changes. This trend is expected to continue in the coming years as well, with several new innovations being witnessed in the sector. It will be really interesting to see how the marketing world shapes up in the next five years.