2025 Marketing Salaries & Job Trends: What’s Hot, What’s Not

#21: What does the 2025 marketing job market really look like—and how do you stay in demand as AI transforms the way B2B teams hire, operate, and grow?

In this solo episode of Growth Activated, host Mandy Walker breaks down two must-read reports—the Taligence Q1 2025 Jobs Report and the Exit Five Salary Report—to uncover what’s happening beneath the surface of the B2B marketing world.

We’ll cover:

• The highest-paying B2B marketing roles in 2025—and which ones are stalling or shrinking
• How AI is reshaping team structures, job responsibilities, and entry-level career paths
• Why executive and strategic roles are seeing the biggest gains in salary and demand
• Which roles are being commoditized—and how to pivot before your career flatlines
• Four actionable strategies to grow your salary, specialize your skillset, and future-proof your marketing career

If you’re a B2B marketing leader wondering how your comp stacks up, whether your role is future-proof, or where the biggest career opportunities are next—this episode delivers the clarity and confidence you’ve been craving.

🎧 Tune in now to discover what’s rising, what’s fading, and how to stay competitive in the shifting marketing landscape.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Growth Activated
• 1:25 The Marketing Reports Behind the Data
• 2:21 Tier 1: The Highest Paying & Most In-Demand Marketing Roles
• 7:06 Tier 2: Brand & Content Marketing Trends in 2025
• 9:47 Tier 3: Digital Marketing, Paid Media & Generalist Roles
• 13:54 Tier 4: Declining Roles in PR, Comms & Field Marketing
• 17:58 Executive & Leadership Marketing Roles Are Booming
• 20:44 The AI Effect on Early Marketing Career Roles
• 21:39 4 Strategies to Future-Proof Your B2B Marketing Career
• 26:42 Final Takeaways & Career Resources

Transcript

Welcome to Growth Activated

Welcome to Growth Activated.  I'm Mandy Walker, your host with 15 years of experience leading marketing teams ranging from small startups to large service organizations.  I've built high performing teams of all sizes and have seen firsthand how fast the landscape is evolving,  making marketing leadership more complex than ever.  Today, I help marketing leaders elevate their strategies,  lead with confidence and build careers they love.  If you're ready to drive and unlock growth for yourself and your company, you're in the right place.  Let's get started.  Hey everyone,  welcome to Growth Activated. I'm your host, Mandy Walker, and today we're digging into something that's hitting home for a lot of you. What's really happening in the marketing job market right now, and how do you stay in demand as we navigate the future of AI? Over the past few weeks, I've heard from so many of you navigating layoffs, exploring new roles, or just rethinking your next move.

Meanwhile, AI is transforming how teams are structured, how work gets done, and which roles are considered must haves. I wanted to make sense of it all, so I went deep into the data. In this episode, I'm breaking down insights from two major reports. The first being Intelligence Q1 2025 jobs report, which tracks hiring and compensation trends across all marketing functions.

The Reports Behind the Data

And the second being the Exit 5 2025 Salary Report, which shows what B2B marketers are actually earning today. We'll walk through which functions are rising, which ones are stalling, and how to think about your next move, whether you're a CMO or a marketing manager trying to future-proof your career. I'll also share four practical strategies to help you increase your earning potential, especially if you're in a role that's losing ground, because let's face it.

Staying in demand in today's market means more than just doing good work. You've got to align your skills to where the value is shifting. Let's dig into the data and explore what it means for your career. Okay,  so in our first section, I want to cover tier one marketing functions,  which is really four different marketing functions that are highly in demand and also well compensated and continue to rise year over year. The first function that came out

Tier 1: The Highest Paying & Most In-Demand Marketing Roles

ahead of everything else was actually product marketing. So now if you know me, I didn't work with product marketing in the first 10 years of my career. And so  this was a little bit of surprise to me. Um, but that being said, product marketing is one of the most strategic marketing functions in the organization. So I can understand how the median salary is actually the highest across all marketing functions. So exit five shares that the median salary for product marketing and is around 180 K.

Whereas the Talagens report, which is B2B and B2C marketing across all industries is showing product marketing still being the number one at  155K as a median salary. But I think what's also impressive is that the job growth year over year is also incredibly high. So  product marketing roles are increasing nearly 17 % year over year in terms of the marketplace. And the salary growth is also increasing about 7% year over year. So  product marketing is clearly a really healthy marketing function, still very much in demand, still very well compensated, which makes sense because it's essentially seen as a strategic quarterback across product sales and customer success. So high value role, high impact role, obviously high compensation. The second marketing function that is in highest demand, which frankly I would have thought this one was first,  is growth and demand gen.

So growth and demand gen leaders have the second highest median salary,  which according to exit five salary report, the median salary for growth and demand gen leadership  is 160,000. But what I think is impressive is that the year over year job growth is really healthy at over 19 % increasing year over year.  And then the year over year salary growth is also a healthy increase at nearly 8%. So while product marketing still edges out growth and demand gen, growth is certainly still king or queen. Um, and if your role is pipeline or revenue adjacent, the market is certainly rewarding you. Now, the third function that came out on top, according to both of those reports that I actually was quite surprised about  is partner and channel marketing. So  the median salary, uh, within the intelligence reports is 130 K,  which the intelligence compensation reports, just generally speaking, were lower than exit five across the board.

which I sum up by knowing that exit five is one B2B only, whereas Taligence is going to be B2B and B2C. And exit five members tend to be more tech forward,  SaaS forward, know, VC backed companies. So it makes sense that their salary ranges would probably pool  higher than the rest of the marketplace.  But back to partner and channel marketing, what was crazy about this particular function, not only that it had a pretty healthy median salary range comparatively. think it actually was like second or third in the intelligence reports, but the job growth was the highest overall at 46 % year over year increase, which is just mind boggling to me. So I haven't personally seen this in the organizations that I'm working with and consulting for. However, I can totally see why this would be happening. You know, as organizations double down on partner led growth as opposed to sales led growth, marketers are obviously being hired fast and paid well for this. And I also think it's a more strategic growth strategy  than your typical sales led growth strategies. And so companies are likely hiring people with more experience than they might with just a general growth and demand background. But obviously, Partner and channel marketing is still a growth strategy at the end of the day.  Um, and so when we think about it in terms of the overall ecosystem, it, it,  definitely makes sense. This is a quiet rocket ship though. So if you're interested in partner or channel marketing, consider specializing in it.  Okay. And for the fourth top tier marketing function, this may or may not come as a surprise to you  is marketing operations and analytics. So the exit five median salary here was 140,000.

And in terms of year over year salary change, marketing ops is seeing an increase of about 5 % year over year. So a little bit less on the increase in demand year over year than some of the other roles that we've talked about. However, the compensation is really healthy. And certainly as we break into more automation strategies and lean into implementing AI across marketing functions, I don't see this function slowing down anytime soon.

Tier 2: Brand & Content Marketing Trends in 2025

totally makes sense that it would be one of the top four marketing functions that are in high demand right now.  Okay, so the next batch of marketing functions I want to cover is  I'm  calling them tier two marketing functions and there's two roles within this. Now these roles in particular are shrinking in volume, meaning there's less demand for these roles year over year. However, the compensation for these roles are still incredibly healthy and even have year over year increases. So the first one that falls into this category is brand marketing. So  brand marketing in terms of year over year demand has actually decreased by 3.7%. It's had a negative growth in the marketplace, which is a little surprising to me. However, I'll balance that with saying the year over year salary growth is incredibly healthy at 15.6%.

Now, Exit 5 has the median salary for this sitting at $135,000. And so what I make of this is that brand roles, while they're still incredibly important, especially in today's world, where noise and saturation is at its high and brand means more than it ever has before, the roles that are being filled and compensated are likely strategic, highly tenured brand leaders that are in high demand.

The second function within this tier two level of marketing functions that I wanted to call out is actually content marketing. So similar, very similar to brand marketing, content marketing job growth is pretty flat. It's about 1.4 % year over year growth. And the median salary through exit five is 130K. So still pretty healthy, but similar to brand marketing.

It looks as though organizations are not investing nearly as much in lower level content marketing roles,  which I imagine is due to AI taking over a lot of the execution of content. However, content strategists and senior content roles are still very well compensated  and looked for in the marketplace right now. So I think what will be interesting for both of these tier two areas within brand marketing and content marketing is for entry level talent breaking into these spaces that might be interested.  think in the next few years, we're going to start to have a talent shortage because  it might be harder for marketers to break into these sections.  And yet we're going to be expecting senior level expertise across these areas. So something just interesting for us to keep an eye on as marketing leaders. Okay.

Tier 3: Digital Marketing, Paid Media & Generalist Roles

The third tier of roles I'd like to cover include three marketing functions. And this tier of roles really represents either flattening growth, meaning very little year over year growth in demand for these roles, and highly commoditized roles, meaning strategy may not be a key part of these roles and therefore their salaries are not nearly as well paid as some of those initial functions we talked about.

So one of the first functions I'm grouping within this tier three category is digital marketing. Now, certainly this may surprise you, but frankly, I think what I'm even what I'm seeing in the marketplace is that  companies aren't necessarily hiring for digital marketing anymore. That feels like a pretty broad function  and rather they're either hiring for growth and demand gen  and expecting you to strategically cover demand, the demand gen engine in that way, or they're hiring experts within particular digital marketing channels. So the median salary here,  now this is according to intelligence, which is going to be a little bit lower than the exit five  surveys.  But the median salary here is about 82,000 for digital marketing. And the year over year salary growth here was actually negative. So  it went down 1.2 % as opposed to some of those other functions that were growing year over year 15 plus percent. So if you're in digital marketing, not to worry. I think you should just start thinking about  moving into either a specific area or channel of digital marketing where you can really specialize or stay broad, but pivot into something  more like growth and demand gen evolve your skillset there. Or frankly, a lot of digital marketing talent is also very technical. So you could consider marketing operations as well.

Now the second function here that I've categorized in this tier three bucket  is paid media. Now what's interesting about paid media is that the job growth year over year has been incredibly high. year over year  demand for these roles have increased by nearly 19%. However,  the median salary is lower than a lot of those other tier one and tier two functions we talked about.

So the median salary, according to Talagens is 88,000. So actually a little bit higher than digital marketing,  because it is a particular channel where you would have deep expertise. So your compensation potential is a little bit higher.  And certainly the demand remains high for this role, especially because it's a subset within growth and demand gen. But if you're here and as you think about wanting to maximize your compensation potential, just something to keep in mind when you think about how you could potentially grow your career into one of those tier one marketing functions. And last but not least for the tier three marketing functions  is this bucket of general marketing. So all of you marketing managers out there, senior marketing managers, you Swiss army knives that are doing a little bit of everything.  Unfortunately, the marketplace is not necessarily rewarding these types of roles at the moment.

So the median salary for general marketing roles is sitting at 100,000 for exit five and about 77,000 through Talagans. So certainly lower income potential than some of those areas of specialties that we talked about in tier one and tier two. Now I will say that the year over year salary increase is healthy at 7 % increase year over year but certainly not nearly as high as some of those other ones we talked about with brand marketing being 15 % change in salary year over year, or partner and channel marketing being 16 % year over year change. So you definitely have some healthy compensation movement, but there's not as much potential here career wise than there are with some of those other areas. Now the last category I've bucketed in tier four marketing functions, and there's really just two functions that are included in here.

Tier 4: Declining Roles in PR, Comms & Field Marketing

And these are really like declining roles. So it's a combination  of not only are they falling in terms of job demand year over year, but they're also seeing flat pay. So not really seeing your healthy year over year compensation increases.  And the market would suggest that these areas will have limited growth unless they reposition talents elsewhere.

So the first bucket here is communications and PR. Now I will say that the median salary through exit five is still healthy.  It's 125,000. However, the median salary through the intelligence reports is 73,000. So quite a wide variant there. However,  you know, I think what's really critical to understand about PR and communications is that the year over year job growth is one of the lowest across all marketing functions. So there's actually a decline of 7.3 % year over year in terms of job demand for this area. And you know, unfortunately, I'm seeing this in the marketplace. We're not seeing people necessarily invest in traditional PR anymore. Certainly there's a level of digital PR, but people are really leveraging social as their primary PR channel.

And so while this is still a decently compensated role comparatively, again, this is one of those areas where I think it'll be hard for entry level people to break into this function. And so while senior PR leaders can still earn well, this function is definitely shrinking across to most organizations right now. And I think we're also seeing communications is being rolled into brand in a lot of ways. And so if you're in PR, you have a highly valuable skill set.  I will be the first to say that as someone who has owned PR as a part of my function, but never been the expert in that area, but something to consider in terms of expanding into integrated communications or corporate storytelling or even brand strategy. I think your skills are highly transferable into some of these other areas. And the last declining role, the second role within tier four, but the last declining role we'll cover here today is field marketing. So Field marketing is notably one of the lowest paid roles across all marketing functions. The median salary for Talagens is $50,000. Now, through Exit 5, the median salary is $115,000. So again, quite a wide variant here. However, the year-over-year salary growth is completely flat at 0%, and the job growth is also flat at 0%. So while most of the functions we've covered today have grown at least somewhat across either compensation year over year  or demand year over year, field marketing has been completely flat across both of those areas. Now I came up in field marketing and events and I really believe in this type of role. And I think it has a lot of potential, especially in a marketplace where  we need to be getting out in front of our prospects and customers in person more and more.

with all of this noise and saturation, but something to think about. It may be that you need to reposition yourself towards ABM or to an integrated go-to-market strategy role, right? Field marketing can really roll up into growth and demand gen. So just something to think about in terms of how you position yourself. Okay. So I know we walked through a lot of data there. Hopefully I didn't lose you, but just to recap product marketing, growth and demand gen, partner and channel marketing and marketing ops are the healthiest functions within marketing right now  in terms of high compensation,  high year over year increase in compensation, as well as pretty high demand in the marketplace for those roles. And then subsequently,  anything that rolls up into growth and demand gen is also pretty stable and performing well. So just something to keep in mind. Now I did want to take a moment here to talk a little bit about.

Executive & Leadership Marketing Roles Are Booming

How does the marketplace look as it relates to levels of roles? Now we've touched on it a bit with some of these functions really looking like they're prioritizing senior level strategic roles.  And I think what you'll find is that the data overall shows that across marketing as a whole. So first and foremost, executive roles are totally booming right now, both in the demand for the roles and in compensation. So as an example, C level roles. So all those CMOs out there saw a 30.8 % year over year salary increase and job postings were up by 22 % year over year. So by far one of the most healthy roles. And I think really telling because I've seen a lot of people on LinkedIn, myself included, feeling like CMO roles are getting subordinated.

Um, they're definitely declining in the marketplace. There seems to be a less of a strategic CMO seat at the table, but this data seemed really positive to me. think it was a really strong indicator that organizations might be realizing that they need to invest in strategic talent. I'd also say that within executive roles, executive directors and SVPs are up as well. So job postings for these roles are up 32 % year over year, which is wild.

And then also a healthy compensation increase at 10 % year-over-year salary bumps. So overall executive roles are definitely incredibly healthy right now. Now, second to that, leadership roles are still holding steady. So whether they've had healthy comp increases or demand increases, we're typically seeing one or the other. So VP and senior director roles, while they haven't increased year-over-year in salary,

The job postings and demand is up 31 % year over year. Now, director level is a little bit healthier than the VP and senior director level. So at the director level, job postings have gone up by 17.6 % year over year. So not as high as VP and senior directors. However, the compensation has gone up by 5.6 % year over year. So as you can see, there's sort of a trade-off in terms of comp and increase in roles, but

Generally speaking, leadership roles are holding pretty steady in both of those areas and are pretty healthy right now. Unfortunately, what seems to be taking the hardest hit is early career roles. So  most of the early career roles, including entry level, associate, senior associate, they're seeing a completely flat  and or negative market change in both compensation and  in terms of demand roles.

The AI Effect on Early Career Roles

So I think this is where AI is really impacting the marketing function the most.  We, lot of people are outsourcing either offshoring or replacing with AI a lot of their junior level marketing tasks and roles, and instead investing in their leadership and executive roles. So while I don't have a solution for this today, I think it's a really fascinating thing for us as marketing leaders to be aware of because in the next few years,

We will likely have a pretty large talent gap.  We'll be expecting senior level talent, but have a marketplace who we've never actually given a chance on building those skills and those areas of expertise. Just another indicator to point to the fact that upskilling and reskilling is going to be a major  conversation, not just for marketing, but across all functions in the next few years, frankly. Okay. So I wanted to leave everybody with four strategies to either pivot.

4 Strategies to Future-Proof Your Marketing Career

and or make more in the role that you're currently in based on today's information. If you heard that you are in a flattening or declining marketing function and you're a little worried right now,  don't worry. We're going to go over some strategies on how you can make yourself more marketable and make sure that you are positioning yourself in the lucrative market that is out there and exists. So strategy number one, move up in company size or into the right industry. So according to exit five, salaries go up as the company size goes up, up until the point that you hit a thousand employees or more. Once you hit a thousand employees or more, the salaries actually start to normalize and come back down.  But the sweet spot around highest paid marketing roles is actually in companies that have anywhere from 500 to a thousand people in their company. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Now, certainly startups and VC backed companies do tend to pay well, especially series A or series B, but they are actually not making as much as the 500 to a thousand company level on average. So something to consider if you're at a small company, certainly moving up in size would open up your compensation potential. The second thing to consider is the industry that you're in. So as you heard live here today, the Talagens report showed consistently lower salaries for marketing on average than Exit 5. Now, if you know of Exit 5, Exit 5 is really targeted to B2B marketing specifically.  And while they do say that they are for B2B marketers across all industries, they do lean heavily towards B2B SaaS. So your VC backed, your high growth tech companies,  and those are likely the people who made up the survey results.

in terms of submitting their salaries.  So I think it just goes to show that depending on the industry that you focus on,  that can really, really have a major effect and impact on the salary potential that you have. So  strategy number one, review the company size and the right industry. And if you're interested  in making some of these changes or just how you might even approach the market, I would really encourage you to check out episode four.

I'll link it in the show notes here, but  I walk through a bunch of different variables  that I've personally thought about and used as I looked for my next role in the marketplace. And as I tried to set myself up for success strategy, number two is to specialize. So if you are a generalist, think about moving into a specific area of marketing, ideally one of the high performing areas within growth and demand gen product marketing, or even marketing operations.

And frankly, even brand marketing, content marketing and paid media are all great examples as well. I think back to episode five, which was the CMO playbook with Scott Todaro, a five-time CMO.  And he shared with us in that episode that the three marketing hires that he always makes as soon as he walks into a function or always ensures he has  is product marketing, demand gen and marketing ops.

Those are pretty large buckets and include a lot of different talents across those buckets.  So just encourage you to think about specializing or rolling up into one of those functions so that you can stay competitive in this market. The third strategy here to consider is to be open to in-office roles. Now I feel a little bit like a hypocrite here because  I am a diehard for remote work.  However, According to the exit five report, salaries are higher for hybrid roles or a hundred percent in office roles as opposed to fully remote. So just something to consider  is, are you willing to take a hit on your compensation package in order to ensure flexibility in a fully remote environment? For me, being remote is well worth the trade-offs,  but it may not be for you. So that's something to consider.

And then strategy number four is to maximize your total compensation package. Now, a lot of the numbers we were throwing out today are base salaries, but exit five does share a huge slew of benefits and perks that a lot of B2B marketing leaders are receiving as a part of their overall compensation package. so, I mean, certainly 401k over 75 % of B2B marketers receive a 401k.

So if you don't, something to consider, that's pretty baseline. But the other two that I thought was interesting is number one, cash bonuses. Nearly 60 % of B2B marketers are making cash bonuses of some sort. And then nearly 45 % of B2B marketers are offered equity or stock options as a part of their total compensation package. So definitely something to consider.

Final Takeaways & Career Resources

You know, you don't just have to look at compensation in terms of your base pay. There's a lot of other ways that companies can make the role worthwhile. And so just be aware of that. Now, I know I threw out a ton of data in today's conversation.  I will link to both reports in the show notes, as well as a recap that will be housed on my blog that will have data charts and tables to help visualize some of this. But I hope today's episode.

gave you clarity and maybe a little confidence for navigating the marketing job market right now. Whether you're in a thriving current role or feel like it might be time for a shift, the takeaway is this, the market is changing and fast. And the marketers who will stay in demand are the ones who align themselves to growth, revenue and strategic impact, not just output. If you're in a role that's feeling flat or undervalued, now's the time to upskill, specialize or explore new ways of working.

Whether that means pivoting into a new function, moving into a new industry, or even going fractional, you have lots of options. If you're curious about making a career move, like I mentioned, check out episode four for guidance on finding the right next step. And if you're considering stepping into a contract or consulting work, episode 15 breaks down everything you need to know about the world of fractional leadership. Thanks so much for listening to Growth Activated. If this episode resonated, subscribe.

Share it with someone who's navigating similar questions and drop me a note. I'd love to hear what you're seeing in the market too.  And until next time,  keep activating growth for yourself and your company.  See you later.