SEMPO Releases Second Annual In-House Salary Survey Results

Want to make a recession-resistant career move? Consider going to work as an in-house search marketer. According to the second annual SEMPO in-house salary survey, compensation for search marketers working on behalf of a single organization actually increased during the past year, despite a turbulent economy that took a toll on many other types of online marketing.

“With the economy in the longest recession of decades, it’s heartening for our annual in-house salary survey to substantiate that search engine marketing is the employment bright spot in sales and marketing,” said SEMPO President Sara Holoubek.

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional’s Organization, surveyed more than 600 in-house SEO professionals during the second quarter of this year. Among the key findings:

2009 yearly salaries for an individual contributor with 1-3 years relevant experience range from $40,000 to $80,000; senior manager salaries range $70,000 to $120,000; and vice presidents with responsibilities for large SEM campaigns or a team of specialists earn from $160,000 to $250,000.

In-house SEM budgets are mostly below $50K or above $250K with few in the in-between area.

The majority of respondents are working to maintain or increase the ROI from search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns with flat or restrained budgets for the remainder of 2009.

Practitioners also are responsible for a broadening spectrum of online marketing activities including: organic SEO and SEM programs, social media campaigns, email marketing, graphical ad campaigns, paid inclusion programs, vertical search engine targeting, affiliate marketing programs, and shopping engines.

Another interesting finding is that search marketing is now clearly perceived as a marketing function rather than as an IT/programming function:

For a summary of the in-house salary survey, visit the SEMPO learning center.