The Day-to-Day as a Marketing Analyst
The role of the Marketing Analyst varies from company to company but most Marketing Analysts help companies make informed decisions based on their market. Their responsibilities vary from researching to inform pricing and production quantities to optimizing marketing campaigns based on statistics. They work on a team of digital marketers or solo as a freelancer or consultant. Their team might include Designers, Pollsters, Data Scientists, Statisticians, Marketing Managers, Search Campaign Managers, and other marketing professionals.
Marketing Analysts can work in almost any industry with business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) marketing campaigns. They usually work a typically 40-hour work week but sometimes might stay late to work on last-minute changes. Marketing Analysts are most commonly employed at marketing agencies and large corporations but can also be found at startups or contracted by smaller businesses. This constantly growing field is predicted to continue growing quickly over the next ten years.
The daily activities of a Marketing Analyst depend on their employer but you might find them providing analytical support for a certain marketing channel, meeting with clients or marketing teams, preparing reports, strategizing for the next marketing campaign, choosing the proper target audience for a client or company, leading focus groups, performing competitor analyses, following market trends, analyzing buying habits of customers, researching the next campaign, measuring the effectiveness of a campaign, and optimizing their work for each channel.
What Skills Should Marketing Analysts Have?
Marketing Analysts should have a strong foundation of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, social media marketing (SMM), pay per click advertising (PPC), and other digital marketing skills. They should also understand industry lingo and paid search campaigns like Google Ads. Marketing analysts will spend a decent amount of time researching and optimizing campaigns and they may be required to use tools like Moz or Ahrefs depending on their employer. A Marketing Analyst must also have a basic understanding of data analysis and using Google Analytics.
Marketing Analysts must be able to think critically, solve complex problems in data and in marketing, and understand how a specific industry functions and changes over time. They need to know how to model and understand their audience, analyze customer behaviors, and perform competitor analysis. They must be able to translate all of their information from research, analysis, and problem-solving exercises into quantifiable and understandable results. They’ll need to effectively communicate those concepts with their team and their clients. Marketing Analysts might also lead focus groups, depending on their employer, and will need to be able to clearly and effectively communicate in those scenarios as well. A Marketing Analyst is most successful when they can think empathetically, build strong relationships with their consumers, fellow researchers, clients, and management.
Tableau and Excel are the most common tools used for analysis in the marketing industry and any Marketing Analyst should be proficient in each. As they move up the ranks, they might find that learning the basics of R or Python will move their analysis more quickly and open up other tools for their use like Jupyter Notebook or RStudio. Some Marketing Analyst positions will require basic programming skills and data mining using SQL, R, SAS, or Python.
Learn the Skills You Need to Become a Marketing Analyst
-
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing utilizes the internet and web based digital platforms to promote products or services. This includes the use of digital advertisements, social media, brand identities, and more.
-
Excel
Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft that runs on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. It is used for calculation, graphing, data visualization, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro programming.
-
SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic using tactics like keywords and backlinks to create organic, high-ranking search engine results.
-
Google Analytics
Google Analytics measures your advertising return on investment while tracking your video, Flash, social networking, and applications. Google Analytics works by tracking website activity through a block of JavaScript code that the web developer, designer, or website owner, embeds within pages on a website.
-
Tableau
Tableau is a data visualization tool. This tool can be used to simplify raw data, reformat data, and perform efficient data analysis. Tableau can also be used to create data visualizations, dashboards, presentations, and worksheets.
-
Google Ads
Google Ads is the new name for Google AdWords. It is an online advertising service that allows advertisers to pay for the display of brief advertisements, video content, listings, and calls to action within the Google Display Network (GDN) to web users. You'll see Google ads on the GDN which includes Google Search, YouTube, and over 2 million other sites.
-
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the practice of using social media platforms to connect with your target audience or end-user. Social media marketing aims to build brand awareness and loyalty, increase sales, convert leads, and drive website traffic. Social media management can be done through content creation, keyword and target audience research, and the use of social media management platforms like Buffer and Hootsuite.
-
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the practice of sending a commercial message to a group of a target audience using email. These emails might be advertisements, business requests, offers, services, sales solicitations, newsletters, donation requests, petition signature requests, and other calls to action.
Marketing Analyst Salaries
A Marketing Analyst in the United States makes, on average, $66,736 annually, according to Indeed.com.
Salaries for Marketing Analysts vary by region within the the United States. Listed below are some Marketing Analyst salaries for specific areas with the United States compared with the average national salary:
- U.S. Average $66K source n/a
-
San Francisco, CA
$79K
source
+19.18%
-
Edmonton
$79K
source
+18.38%
-
San Jose, CA
$75K
source
+13.39%
-
New York City
$75K
source
+13.23%
-
Washington, D.C.
$75K
source
+13.04%
-
Boston, MA
$74K
source
+11.49%
-
Toronto
$74K
source
+11.34%
-
Oakland, CA
$73K
source
+10.47%
-
Seattle, WA
$73K
source
+9.64%
-
Stamford, CT
$72K
source
+8.96%
-
Los Angeles, CA
$71K
source
+7.09%
-
Hartford, CT
$70K
source
+5.98%
-
Chicago, IL
$70K
source
+5.96%
-
Orange County, CA
$70K
source
+5.82%
-
New York
$69K
source
+4.51%
-
San Diego, CA
$69K
source
+4.43%
-
Long Island, NY
$69K
source
+4.39%
-
Sacramento, CA
$69K
source
+4.32%
-
Denver, CO
$69K
source
+3.95%
-
Alexandria, VA
$69K
source
+3.85%
-
Minneapolis, MN
$68K
source
+3.29%
-
Philadelphia, PA
$68K
source
+3.08%
-
Atlanta, GA
$68K
source
+2.65%
-
Baltimore, MD
$68K
source
+2.27%
-
New Jersey
$68K
source
+2.25%
-
Fairfax, VA
$67K
source
+1.87%
-
Dallas, TX
$67K
source
+1.77%
-
Portland, OR
$67K
source
+1.54%
-
Connecticut
$67K
source
+1.49%
-
Detroit, MI
$67K
source
+1.35%
-
Austin, TX
$67K
source
+1.19%
-
Albany, NY
$66K
source
+0.35%
-
Virginia
$66K
source
+0.33%
-
New Haven, CT
$66K
source
+0.15%
- U.S. Average $66K source n/a
-
Houston, TX
$66K
source
-0.31%
-
Charlotte, NC
$66K
source
-0.32%
-
Phoenix, AZ
$66K
source
-0.39%
-
Richmond, VA
$66K
source
-0.52%
-
Raleigh, NC
$66K
source
-1.02%
-
St. Louis, MO
$65K
source
-1.49%
-
Des Moines, IA
$65K
source
-1.93%
-
Milwaukee, WI
$65K
source
-2.13%
-
Worcester, MA
$65K
source
-2.23%
-
Pittsburgh, PA
$65K
source
-2.25%
-
Columbus, OH
$65K
source
-2.26%
-
Nashville, TN
$65K
source
-2.32%
-
United States
$65K
source
-2.34%
-
San Bernardino, CA
$65K
source
-2.35%
-
Riverside, CA
$64K
source
-2.76%
-
Cleveland, OH
$64K
source
-2.93%
-
Madison, WI
$64K
source
-3%
-
Tampa, FL
$64K
source
-3.05%
-
Bakersfield, CA
$64K
source
-3.14%
-
Miami, FL
$64K
source
-3.2%
-
Cincinnati, OH
$64K
source
-3.21%
-
Kansas City, MO
$64K
source
-3.23%
-
Fresno, CA
$64K
source
-3.25%
-
Salt Lake City, UT
$64K
source
-3.42%
-
Buffalo, NY
$64K
source
-3.73%
-
Indianapolis, IN
$64K
source
-3.78%
-
Las Vegas, NV
$64K
source
-3.89%
-
Honolulu, HI
$64K
source
-4.09%
-
New Orleans, LA
$63K
source
-4.26%
-
Montreal
$63K
source
-4.63%
-
Memphis, TN
$63K
source
-4.79%
-
Birmingham, AL
$63K
source
-4.8%
-
Orlando, FL
$63K
source
-5.04%
-
San Antonio, TX
$63K
source
-5.05%
-
Syracuse, NY
$62K
source
-5.87%
-
Florida
$62K
source
-6.01%
-
Omaha, NE
$62K
source
-6.03%
-
Jacksonville, FL
$62K
source
-6.21%
-
Oklahoma City, OK
$62K
source
-6.34%
-
Albuquerque, NM
$62K
source
-6.46%
-
Rochester, NY
$62K
source
-6.46%
-
Dayton, OH
$62K
source
-6.94%
-
Calgary
$62K
source
-7.05%
-
Calgary
$62K
source
-7.05%
-
Columbia, SC
$62K
source
-7.09%
-
Louisville, KY
$61K
source
-7.17%
-
Tucson, AZ
$61K
source
-7.53%
-
Virginia Beach, VA
$61K
source
-8.12%
-
Greensboro, NC
$61K
source
-8.15%
-
Inland Empire, CA
$61K
source
-8.21%
-
Little Rock, AR
$61K
source
-8.3%
-
Baton Rouge, LA
$61K
source
-8.36%
-
Grand Rapids, MI
$61K
source
-8.44%
-
Greenville, SC
$60K
source
-8.76%
-
Tulsa, OK
$60K
source
-9.66%
-
Sarasota, FL
$60K
source
-10.06%
-
Knoxville, TN
$59K
source
-11.1%
-
Ottawa
$58K
source
-12.91%
-
El Paso, TX
$58K
source
-13.06%
-
Vancouver
$56K
source
-14.84%
-
Victoria
$56K
source
-15.99%
-
McAllen, TX
$54K
source
-19.01%
-
Winnipeg
$53K
source
-19.76%
-
San Juan
$52K
source
-21.52%
-
Quebec City, QC
$46K
source
-30.34%
Typical Qualifications to Become a Marketing Analyst
Most employers will require a Marketing Analyst to hold a bachelor’s degree at the minimum. This could be in statistics, math, computer science, economics, marketing, business administration, communications, or consumer psychology. Some positions will require you to hold a master’s degree in business or market research. Some Marketing Analysts do not have a degree but instead attended a data analysis or data science bootcamp and got certifications pertinent to digital marketing like Google Ads. Certifications like Professional Researcher (PRC) from Insights Association and Certified Market Research Analyst (CMRA) from the International Institute of Market Research and Analysis are both well-respected certifications in the Digital Marketing field in the United States. It is possible to get started as a freelance Marketing Analyst with no degree and some certifications, but the learning curve may be steep depending on your skills and experiences.
Searching for Marketing Analyst Jobs
Marketing Analysts can find jobs at marketing agencies, corporations, tech companies, startups, retail companies, and more. Freelance Marketing Analysts are in demand at smaller businesses, startups, and companies looking to expand into new territories. There are remote, full-time, and freelance opportunities for Marketing Analysts. Plus, there is an abundance of upward mobility options and salary growth potential for this role as long as the candidate is willing to learn more technical skills.
Marketing Analysts can find jobs on these sites:
- International Institute of Market Research and Analytics (IIMRA) Job Board
- Insights Association
- ESOMAR
- Glassdoor
- MediaBistro
- TalentZoo
- Krop
- Mashable
- AdRants
- Venture Beat
- Crunchboard
- Paid Content
- Google Jobs
- ZipRecruiter
- Simply Hired
- Indeed
- Behance
- AngelList
- Udacity
Marketing Analysts can find freelance and remote gigs on these sites:
Tips for Marketing Analysts
Marketing Analyst is a results-oriented position. As such, most employers and recruiters will be looking for results. If you don’t have much experience, it helps to demonstrate results from previous companies you’ve worked with, or do practice projects on open source data so that you have some examples to share. You can find free data sets from many different industries included in your Tableau download. You can put these projects up on a blog in a report style to further demonstrate your skills. If you’re having a hard time finding a job with minimal experience, consider trying freelance work or working with a local business for a reduced or free rate.
It might help your job search to find your niche before you begin searching. You can always pivot into a different niche later, but specializing can help you stand out and become a stronger expert in the field. This is especially true for freelance Marketing Analysts. This niche might be refined by industry, type of research you do, type of company you work for, the region you work in, etc. It helps to speak to a more experienced market research professional to narrow down the best place for you to start.
The best way to get a job in this modern climate is most certainly networking. Network with digital marketers, market research professionals, data scientists and analysts, and recruiters. You can find networking opportunities through sending letters of introduction on LinkedIn after researching the people you’re attempting to connect with, attending meetups in-person or virtually, scheduling informational interviews with professionals in the field to learn more about the job, and reaching out to your former educators if you attended university.
What Job Titles Would a Marketing Analyst Hold?
Marketing Analysts can find a variety of opportunities to expand this role into something more broad and in-turn promotable at larger companies or to become an extremely niche expert Market Researcher in a specific area. Either way, the opportunities for upward mobility and pay raises are only going to continue to grow over the next decade.
Marketing Analysts should look for these job titles:
- Marketing Analyst
- Market Research Analyst
- Junior Marketing Analyst
- Associate Marketing Analyst
- Junior Data Analyst – Marketing
- Marketing Operations Analyst
- Market Data Analyst
- Human Insights Data Analyst
- Digital Marketing Analyst
- Social Media Marketing Analyst
- Search Engine Marketing Analyst
- Marketing Performance Analyst
Related Careers
A Marketing Analyst could choose to pivot to become a Digital Analyst. Digital Analysts keep track of advertising and digital marketing campaigns to optimize their performance and recommend changes. A Marketing Analyst would need to learn more about digital marketing and advertising but would use their analytical and reporting skills in a similar way. These positions have similar salaries.
Marketing Analysts who want to broaden their horizons can look at positions like Digital Marketer, Digital Strategist, or Marketing Manager. Similar to a Marketing Analyst, these positions also work on using data to optimize a company’s choices but will focus more on advertising, plans with budgets, and some graphic design. Digital Marketers and Digital Strategists will likely have slightly higher salaries than a Marketing Manager, but that depends on their industry.
Marketing Analysts would have similar responsibilities to a Digital Marketer or Digital Strategist with the added tasks of brand consistency and story, brand audits, overseeing staff, and liaising with upper-level management. These roles would also use many similar types of tools as a Marketing Analyst would.
If they wanted to career move toward a search engine and algorithm focus, a Marketing Analyst could seek out jobs like Search Manager, Web Optimization Specialist, Paid Search Manager, or Social Media Strategist. Web Optimization Specialist is the most data-heavy option of these search positions and a Marketing Analyst would simply need to consider more fields in their analysis but would have very similar responsibilities.
A Marketing Analyst looking to move into a Search Manager or Paid Search Manager role would need to learn more about search engine algorithms, advertising, organic growth, as well as managing a budget. A similar role to these would be Social Media Strategist which would also require learning algorithms, advertising practices, organic growth, and budgeting but with more content creation and audience interaction. A Marketing Analyst will likely find that these jobs pay slightly more or about the same as their current position but might find the work more fulfilling because it’s scope is much broader.
Salary Comparison to Marketing Analyst
-
Search Manager
$82K
+24.33%
-
Digital Analyst
$78K
+17.77%
-
Marketing Manager
$71K
+7.14%
- Marketing Analyst $66K n/a
-
Paid Search Manager
$66K
-0.09%
-
Digital Strategist
$65K
-2.42%
-
Web Optimization Specialist
$62K
-6.05%
-
Digital Marketer
$61K
-8.4%
-
Social Media Strategist
$57K
-14.36%
-
Digital Marketer
Digital marketers are responsible for designing, managing, and reviewing digital marketing campaigns. Using their expertise in search engine optimization (SEO), social media, backlinks, and digital ads, digital marketers provide data and demographic-driven marketing strategies. They may also help companies develop content marketing strategies through the use of blogs. Digital marketers also use data analytics to review digital marketing campaign results and provide guidance for future campaigns.
Learn about becoming a Digital Marketer -
Digital Analyst
Digital analysts work with a marketing team to analyze the effectiveness and reach of digital marketing campaigns. They use Google analytics and site tagging tools to harvest user data. This data is analyzed and interpreted to provide insights into how to improve the user experience and the effectiveness of the digital marketing campaign.
Learn about becoming a Digital Analyst -
Search Manager
A search manager brings expertise with search engines and a deep understanding of how they work to drive results. They will generally work across search from organic search (SEO) to paid search. In this type of role, the manager would oversee both organic and paid search operations, including strategy, optimization, and reporting. In organic search, the manager would be in charge of finding the right keywords to target, improving rank for those keywords, and optimizing the site for SEO. Within paid search, the manager would build the strategy, manage the campaigns, and continually test and optimize for the best performance.
Learn about becoming a Search Manager -
Web Optimization Specialist
Web optimization specialists are experts at analyzing web traffic and making targeted recommendations to increase user engagement. Acting as user-surrogates, web optimization specialists analyze data on user behavior and advocate for new features or functionalities to improve the end-user experience. Web optimization specialists often work with web developers and designers to create funnels, web applications, and marketing campaigns. These professionals must have experience with data analysis, user-testing, prototyping and digital marketing development.
Learn about becoming a Web Optimization Specialist -
Digital Strategist
Digital Strategy is the work behind digitally rich projects like websites, social media, SEO content, digital marketing, and more. Digital Strategists identify opportunities for growth and make plans for new website releases, content for their client with a specific end goal in mind, or an advertising campaign.
Learn about becoming a Digital Strategist -
Marketing Manager
Marketing Managers oversee a team of marketing professionals who find ways to grow the business they're working for, execute those growth ideas through campaigns, and analyze and report on those campaigns.
Learn about becoming a Marketing Manager -
Social Media Strategist
Social Media Strategists design social media blueprints to achieve a client's or company's marketing targets. They also create content and manage client or company accounts.
Learn about becoming a Social Media Strategist -
Paid Search Manager
A paid search manager is tasked with leading search marketing campaigns, generally on Google and Bing Ads. The manager leads the day-to-day strategy, reporting, analysis, and optimization of paid search campaigns. Day-to-day campaign management includes updating bids, adding/removing keywords, monitoring profitability, and more. Strategy and optimization include designing and adjusting paid search strategy to align with overall business goals, running tests to improve performance, and working with other digital partners to develop omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Learn about becoming a Paid Search Manager