Find out what 857 PPC marketers from around the world make in our 2020 report. We had people from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Australia & New Zealand fill it out this year.

Demographics User Data

Salary Survey for Top Ten USA States

Not surprisingly, California is the State we see leading the pack for the top ten States we get responses from. However, what is surprising is that Texas, and more specifically Austin as a city, is punching above their weight as second place.

Texas offers a few benefits from a low cost of living (COL), great food, and pretty amazing weather year round. Add in amazing pay and you can see why many would call it home.

Austin is a hot spot that gets over looked for San Francisco, LA, or New York City, yet tons of offices are based there for technology and advertising. Brands like Google, Facebook, and a few holding company outfits all have offices in Austin.

Salary Survey Responses by Place of Work

Speaking of places people work, agencies and people who work in-house make up the majority of people who submitted a response for the salary survey. We always see agencies make up a large number of responses. This was no different in 2019 and 2018, which might be because agencies are not known for paying well.

This can be especially true if you are not male. We will touch on the gender pay gap, which is not shocking if you have been paying attention. The one challenge at these times has been getting anyone is who is not male to submit what they to do. Having that data is the backbone of getting everyone to make more money.

Salary Survey Responses by Gender

USA Salaries 2020

People are making less money… Or are they? The big difference between 2016 to 2020 is we have almost 2.5X as many responses and this growth has been more data to work with.

Even though we are using the median salary for both years, I wonder if more data has shown that people aren’t making as much as we think. I don’t have the data to back up either path but it does seems some people could be making less on the higher end of the experience scale.

Salary Survey Responses 2016 vs 2020

As I mentioned earlier, there is a gender pay gap between males and everyone else. One of the big reasons I launched this salary survey 5 years ago was to make sure no one was leaving money on the table. Beyond transparency in salaries, I am not certain what else we can do to get company’s to pay everyone the same salary regardless of who they are.

Salary Survey Responses male vs female

It does look like if you have 15+ years of experience, you might start to cap out on what you can make in this industry. This could mean looking to up skill and take on a bigger remit to make sure you are not just seen as a PPC marketer. This becomes even more true if you want to work for yourself or go in-house and work on a cool brands and not spend your life working at an agency (of any kind).

Salary Survey Responses for Agencies
Salary Survey Responses for Freelancers

You can see the full salary survey and what 857 respondents makes from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Australia & New Zealand.