Explore the diverse career paths in digital marketing, from Digital Marketing Strategist roles focusing on planning, to Social Media Manager roles centered on audience interaction. Discover the skills needed, the job prospects, and potential salary ranges for digital marketing specializations.

Key Insights

  • Digital marketing encompasses several roles such as Digital Marketing Strategist, Marketing Analyst, and Social Media Manager, each with its unique focus and skillset.
  • Digital Marketers require both hard and soft skills, including strong writing, understanding of data analysis tools, multitasking, and empathy.
  • The demand for digital marketing jobs is expected to rise by 10% by 2026, making it a promising career path. Many employers place more emphasis on skills rather than diplomas, making it accessible without a college degree.
  • The average yearly base salary for roles in digital marketing in the U.S. ranges from $43,000 for Social Media Marketers to $62,000 for Marketing Data Analysts and Digital Marketing Strategists.
  • Freelancing is another viable path in digital marketing, offering flexibility in schedules, rates, and work environment.
  • Noble Desktop offers various digital marketing courses, bootcamps, and certificate programs to help individuals acquire necessary skills and knowledge for a digital marketing career.

Digital Marketer is an umbrella term that covers many different skills. You can work as a generalist for a small company or go to work for an agency or larger firm and specialize in an area that interests you. For example, a Digital Marketing Specialist could specialize in the planning side of digital marketing and take a job as a Digital Marketing Strategist. A Digital Marketing Specialist with advanced skills in Google Analytics and data reporting could take a job as a Marketing Analyst. If you enjoy social media interaction, Social Media Manager might be a perfect job for you. Read on to find out what job titles you can find in digital marketing and what they include.

What is a Digital Marketer?

Over half the world’s population uses the internet, and businesses have noticed. Most companies and organizations have a website and use digital marketing to reach potential customers or clients. Digital Marketers use social media platforms, website content, email campaigns, paid and unpaid advertising, and video marketing to promote goods and services to a target audience.

Digital Marketers use data analytics to identify an audience likely to be interested in the products or services they sell. Next, they create a detailed description of that audience, focusing on the pain points and problems the product will solve. Then, Digital Marketers set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the marketing campaign's performance. Common KPIs are sales goals or increasing traffic to a website.

After setting goals and determining strategy, Digital Marketers create high-quality content to engage the audience and place it near the top of search engine pages. After posting the content on social media, Digital Marketers use tools like Google Analytics, SEMRush, or Moz to analyze its performance. Digital Marketers also interact with followers on social media in the company’s brand voice. 

Some Digital Marketers work for agencies and take care of many accounts, while others work for one company. Some are employed in-house, while others work remotely. Digital Marketers in agencies and larger companies often work as part of a team. They may only be responsible for one part of the workload, such as content marketing, SEO, or data analytics. Many people start their careers as freelance Digital Marketers working at home by themselves or in small startups.

Read more about what a Digital Marketer does.

Digital Marketer Skills

Digital marketing jobs require both hard and soft skills. Digital Marketers need strong writing and editing skills to create and manage content. Understanding how keywords, websites, and data analysis tools work is also important. Digital Marketers also need to know their way around social media sites and which ones will work best for a particular audience. They also need to know the difference between paid and unpaid ads and which works best for their company. Finally, Digital Marketers need to understand how to create persuasive emails that will bring customers to the website and get them to order.

Digital Marketers also need soft skills like patience because it takes time to see results. Plus, they need to be adaptable and able to change direction quickly to keep up with changes in search engines and social media platforms. Multitasking, or successfully paying attention to several tasks simultaneously, also allows Digital Marketers to stay on top of changes. Storytelling is another foundational skill for Digital Marketers to connect with customers. Finally, empathy, or the ability to put yourself in the customer’s position to understand what they want or need, also helps build and maintain that connection.

Read more about what skills you need to become a Digital Marketer.

Digital Marketer Career Path

Digital marketing is a good career path for people comfortable working on the internet. As more and more businesses move online, digital marketing job prospects are likely to remain high. The outlook for tech jobs overall is optimistic, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics expects that demand for digital marketing jobs should increase by 10% by 2026, which is an above-average increase for all careers. 

While some companies require a degree in business or marketing, you can get a job as a Digital Marketer without a college degree. Many employers are more interested in what you can do than in diplomas. One of the best ways to launch a career in digital marketing is to create a website and some social media accounts. You can learn a lot on your own by watching tutorials, reading blogs, and listening to podcasts. Test out different techniques and document results for your online portfolio. After they get started, many people find that taking a training class in digital marketing helps bring them up to speed.

You can also move into a career as a Digital Marketer by freelancing. Freelance Digital Marketers are independent and flexible and set their own schedules, rates, and work environment. If you are a motivated self-starter, freelancing could be for you. If you prefer more direction from a supervisor, you may do better working for a company or agency. 

Read more about the typical Digital Marketer career path

Digital Marketer

The job title Digital Marketer or Digital Marketing Specialist is common at smaller companies. While larger firms employ multiple people involved in digital marketing, smaller companies often hire someone to handle all aspects of the job on their own. They collect and analyze data, create content, manage social media, build email lists, and plan digital marketing strategies for the future. Digital Marketers do it all! The average yearly base salary for Digital Marketers in the United States is $58,000. 

Social Media Marketer

A Social Media Marketer or Social Media Specialist represents the company on social media platforms. They create and post content, interact with followers, and respond to comments and direct messages. Social Media Marketers plan campaigns and collect data to judge their success, then they report findings to the digital marketing team. The average annual base pay for a Social Media Marketer in the U.S. is $43,000.

Content Marketer

Content is one of the key parts of digital marketing and the employees who are in charge of it are called Content Marketers, Content Creators, or Content Managers. Blog posts, white papers, videos, and other types of content are aimed at a target audience and used to drive traffic to the company website and increase sales. Content Marketers sometimes create content or work with others who do. They need to develop a publishing schedule and use software tools to post the content according to plan. Content Marketers earn about $56,000 a year before benefits.

SEO Specialist

Ranking near the top on search engine results pages is a crucial part of digital marketing, so SEO Specialists are in demand. This specialization focuses on search engine optimization, which involves using software tools to research what people are looking for on the internet and choosing words and phrases that match those search terms. These are called keywords and they are placed in website content to make a page rank higher on search engines. SEO Specialists are constantly checking data on keyword performance and making changes to stay at the top. The average yearly base salary of an SEO Specialist is $57,000.

Marketing Data Analyst

The data available on the internet is what makes digital marketing possible. Marketing Data Analysts collect information on users and what they do and analyze that data to help the digital marketing team make decisions about campaigns. Data Analysts use tools like Google Analytics and Tableau to track the user experience and help Digital Marketers understand what people are doing and how to reach potential customers. Marketing Data Analysts in the U.S. make an average yearly base salary of $62,000.

Digital Marketing Strategist

Digital Marketing Strategist is a specialization that looks at planning, creating, and evaluating digital marketing campaigns. They are concerned with the overall direction of digital marketing for a company and make decisions about where it should go in the future. This is a higher level position with more responsibility, and Digital Marketing Strategists in the United States earn an average annual base salary of $62,000.

Why Become a Digital Marketer?

With internet sales booming, switching to a career in digital marketing is a good career move. Whether you are considering email marketing, social media marketing, data analytics, or SEO and website optimization, digital marketing jobs are in high demand. This is expected to increase over the next decade.

Digital marketing is a field that changes rapidly, with new tools and platforms constantly improving and evolving their services. If you are a multi-tasker, that is a necessary skill for Digital Marketers. You can also work from anywhere, so digital marketing is a good choice if you are looking for a flexible work environment.

Digital marketing also pays well. The reported yearly average base salary for Digital Marketers is $58,000, with benefits worth $2,000-$3,000 more on top of that. Wages go up as you gain experience or shift to a specialization. You can also receive promotions to a leadership or managerial position that pays more.

Read more about whether Digital Marketer is a good career.

Learn the Skills to Become a Digital Marketer at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop offers many digital marketing courses that teach skills to help you switch to a career in digital marketing. Small class sizes and expert instructors help you learn digital marketing in in-person or live online classes. Plus, you can take a course over again for free at any time during the following year. 

Noble Desktop offers many bootcamps in digital marketing like Facebook Marketing, email marketing, Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter, and Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube. You can also choose the Digital Marketing Certificate or a Social Media Marketing Certificate course. Other Noble Desktop resources that can help prepare for a career in digital marketing include the digital marketing blog with valuable articles about social media marketing, SEO, and other essential tools for digital marketers.