Digital Marketer Salary Growth: What to Expect

If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you are not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later.
– Richard Branson

Quote this to any digital marketer out there, wait till their face lights up with agreement and gear up to listen to their journey in digital marketing so far. If they don’t start talking already, ask them how they got into digital marketing and at least 90% of them will tell you that they stumbled into it and discovered it along the way.

Who is a Digital Marketer? What do they do?

A Digital Marketer is a marketing professional who devises and implements strategies to promote a brand, a product or services on the internet. A digital marketing expert does this using various digital marketing tools and techniques like Online Marketing, Social Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Marketing (SMM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, Display and Affiliate Marketing, Mobile App Marketing, Retargeting/Remarketing, Growth Hacking, Conversion Rate Optimisation, Lead Management, and Web, Mobile and App Analytics – to name a few skills.

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If you are a fresher, chances are that all the above-mentioned skills have already intimidated you and if you are a digital marketing professional with a few years of experience, you are already wondering about the skills which you haven’t got around to mastering yet. Either way, sit back and read on for we’re going to discuss the monies a digital marketer has the potential to earn when rightly powered by the above-mentioned skills and otherwise.

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How does a Digital Marketer’s Salary Grow?

The salaries of digital marketers are heavily dependent on the kind of skills, experience, and the value they bring to a company or a team and they are mostly independent of the regular salary brackets which traditional organizations adhere to. This means if you have the right digital marketing skills and know-how to use them, you already have the potential to mint money.

Let’s take a look at the range of salaries drawn by digital marketers who have no formal training or certifications in Digital Marketing. As per some secondary research conducted by UpGrad, the following are the tentative figures according to the number of years of experience and the kind of industry.

Fresher (Entry-level)

Any fresher who is a graduate or post-graduate, in any field, with the slightest interest to explore the digital marketing world and basic knowledge of how the internet and social platforms work can earn up to 10-15K per month in a mid-level to a large company. If it’s a start-up, the starting salary might be slightly lesser from 8-12K per month.

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Include a credible certification course in Digital Marketing to the kitty and now the fresher has the power to negotiate and get a salary of 18– 25K per month. And if they are exceptionally good with their digital marketing skills with a strong case study or a project to validate it, their salary can go as high as 30-40K per month.

Manager (2-4 years of work exp.)

Digital marketing managers generally start out their careers in one of the specialisations like online media planning, content writing, client servicing, account management, SEO optimisation, Google Adwords specialist, marketing/research analyst, etc. Depending on how much they deep dive into their specialisation and at the same time manage to spread their wings far and wide into other digital marketing verticals out of sheer curiosity, their salaries vary from 30 – 40K per month.

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2-4 years in digital marketing is just about the right time to equip oneself with all the tools and techniques of digital marketing. This not only gives a holistic view of where a professional’s career is headed but also bring about major shifts in the salary scale.

Any digital marketing agency would normally give growth of 20% in the previous salary. But for someone who has a certification in digital marketing, the hike may go up to 40% straight with little negotiation. Once certified and with the right skills for the job, MNCs consider a 35-40% hike while the e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Amazon offer a flat package of 8-9 lakh p.a.

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Digital Marketing Expert (5+ years of work exp.)

From being a digital marketing manager, professionals generally seek to shift into more management heavy roles like Senior Marketing Managers, VP/Head of Marketing, etc. after completing 5 years in the industry. Depending on the quality of experience and the companies they have worked for, their salary varies from 10-15 lakh.

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At such a senior level, salary hikes become less frequent and so do the job shifts due to lack of challenging avenues. A timely intervention in the form of a state-of-the-art certification course in digital marketing; one that challenges old knowledge and helps to open minds to the latest happenings of the digital world can push you towards a salary of as high as 25-30 lakh p.a.

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Why Digital Marketing Education?

Here are a few numbers and stats to give you an overview of where the digital marketing industry stands now. Compared to other Ad-types, the growth rates of digital marketing spend have been significantly higher.

There are approximately 1.5 lakh jobs in digital marketing and these are likely to grow at a very fast pace. These new jobs are split across industries and traditional sectors are increasingly being forced to adapt to the new digital world – and how to market their product in it.

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The current education ecosystem in the area of digital marketing does not meet the significant demand for qualified individuals – this could be because of a multitude of reasons. There are not many traditional institutes that offer new-age programs and courses such as digital marketing. Even those who do address the broader area of marketing, tend to have an outdated curriculum that hasn’t kept up with real-world changes, mainly because of a missing link with industry.

At an individual level, irrespective of which field of marketing, industry or academic background you’re from, digital marketing is open to everyone with courses like Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication to sharpen the fundamentals. At a global level, with the digital marketing world evolving at lightning speed, all the industries, even the most traditional ones, are now being forced to either go big on digital or go home. Which leaves every professional out there with little choice but to get skilled in digital marketing.

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