Survey: Search marketers less happy with their jobs vs. last year

Search marketers are less satisfied with their jobs than they were a year ago, according to a new Search Engine Land survey.

Why we care. Search marketing continues to be a rewarding career. However, any job comes with a variety of challenges and responsibilities that were beyond the scope of the 2024 Search Engine Land Career and Salary survey. But what is clear from our data is that job unhappiness increased.

Job satisfaction decline. While 67% of search marketers are extremely or somewhat satisfied with their job, this number is down from 76% a year ago.

• 19% are extremely satisfied (down from 25% in 2023).
• 48% are somewhat satisfied (down from 51% in 2023).

Job dissatisfaction also increased to 20%, up from 13% a year ago. 

• 13% are somewhat unsatisfied (up from 12% in 2023).
• 7% are not satisfied (up from 1% in 2023).

Search marketing challenges. The most frequently cited challenge is securing sufficient resources – time, talent and money – according to 54% of respondents.

• Demonstrating and proving a positive business impact was a significant challenge for 43% of respondents.
• Cross-departmental collaboration was a challenge for 41% of respondents.

Most rewarding aspects of search marketing. For 55% of respondents, demonstrating and proving a positive business impact was the most rewarding aspect of their job.

• 52% of respondents found supporting colleagues to leverage technology rewarding. 
• 42% found keeping up with industry changes in marketing and martech innovations and trends rewarding.

Career priorities. What do search marketers want? Growing their income was the highest priority for 69%. Unsurprisingly, 97% rated “grow my income” as either a high or moderate priority.

Three other personal career high priorities were:

• Decreasing work-related stress: 49%.
• Being more productive at work: 47%.
• Earning a promotion: 46%.

Key responsibilities of search marketers. At the director-level and higher positions (i.e., director, senior director, VP, SVP, C-suite), 81% said researching and recommending new marketing technology products was their top responsibility. 

The top responsibility for 67% of managers/staff was designing and managing internal workflows and processes. 

Other responsibilities that fell to the majority of search marketers of all levels were:

• Training and supporting marketing staff on using marketing technology products.
• Designing, running and optimizing/testing marketing campaigns.
• Operating marketing technology products as an administrator.
• Integrating marketing technology products with each other.
• Monitoring data quality within marketing technology products.

Here’s the full list of responsibilities we asked about:

High usage of spreadsheets. A significant majority of directors+ (71%) and managers/staff (75%) spend at least 10 hours a week working in spreadsheets (e.g., Excel, Google Sheets, Airtable). As was the case a year ago, spreadsheets continue to be a fundamental tool for search marketers.

Also of note:

• Project management tools (e.g., Workfront, Asana, Jira, Wrike, Basecamp) are used consistently by directors+ (60%) and managers/staff (57%).
• Directors+ and Managers/staff reported equal usage (60%) of marketing automation and campaign management tools.

Methodology. Our survey results are based on responses from 291 individuals in North America (79%) and Western Europe (21%). Due to the limited number of respondents, other regions were excluded. We used the “median” results for salaries to filter out values that might skew the results. 

The 2024 Search Engine Land Salary and Career Survey was conducted between December and February. Invitations to take the survey were amplified on and by Search Engine Land. The survey included more than 20 questions related to career roles, salary, technology, job satisfaction and challenges/frustrations. Respondents were also asked to reveal their age and gender.