Search marketing budgets rising, with many over $200,000, SEMPO says
One third of in-house managers of search engine marketing programs at retailers and other companies are managing annual search marketing budgets of more than $200,000, opening an opportunity for managers to earn salaries from $100,000 to $200,000, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization reports from a survey of its members.
“We anticipated a lower ceiling of monthly spend closer to the $100,000 range so we were pleasantly surprised,” says Duane Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO’s In-House SEM Committee and Lead SEO program manager with Microsoft Corp. “The $200K monthly spend is a healthy barometer of the search marketing industry and it syncs up with SEMPO’s current trend projections that SEM spending will double by 2011, to more than $18 billion.”
The survey report was based on responses from 656 search marketing managers last fall. Reflecting the newness of the search marketing industry, 64% of respondents had five or fewer years of experience in search marketing.
The largest pool of respondents, 26%, were managers with salaries ranging from $60,000 to $90,000. More than half of this group, however, did not have staffs to manage, SEMPO says.
Senior managers accounted for 20% of respondents, with salaries ranging from $70,000 to $100,000. Another 18% were directors with five to seven years of experience; about a quarter of directors reported having salaries ranging from $100,000 to $120,000. 44% of directors said they managed annual budgets of more than $200,000.
Less than 4% of respondents were vice presidents. Of this group, 20% reported salaries ranging from $100,000 to $120,000.
Overall, salaries ranged from a low of $30,000 for entry-level search marketing personnel to $250,000+ for executives with five or more years of experience.
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