What is the income I should expect?

October 6, 2005 4:15 PM

How much income would you expect to make if you were in charge of all the advertising revenue for a company and said revenue was around $4.5 million a year? Current research from salary.com based on the job title, desc, and the area I am in suggests around 150k per year. We haven't started salary negotiations yet, and I want them to make an offer first, but I also don't want to be expecting 150k and then be offered 65k.
posted by thebwit to Work & Money (7 answers total)

I don't think that is the way to look at it. It technically isn't more difficult to run a $4.5 million campaign than it is a $2 million (sure there is more fiscal responsibility, but the job skills are the same).

Your salary should be based on your experience and success. If you ran a $2 million dollar campaign that was directly responsible for $50 million in revenue, then you have the cache to ask for a lot of money. If you have run campaigns that basically returned no more or no less than expected, then put yourself in the middle of the salary pack.

Also, your pay will be based in a large part to what other people at the company already make, and how much people make in competing companies, as well as anything specific that you bring to the table that they can't get anywhere else.

So, I would not try to think of this based on the budget, but rather your relative success in the industry and how much revenue your great ideas are likely to generate over and above what would be considered a given for a good campaign.
posted by qwip at 5:07 PM on October 6, 2005

qwip, I was about to answer this question based on running a $4.5 mill campaign, but it seems to me the poster is asking about a job where they're responsible for selling advertising, to the tune of $4.5 m in revenue from those ad sales. This is something I'd know nothing about.

thebwit, is that correct?
posted by agropyron at 5:31 PM on October 6, 2005

I think the answer depends upon the industry that you're applying with, the size (and scope) of the company, and your past experience and salaries (of course). I think including all this information here (salary aside) would help people give you a much better appreciation for your situation.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 5:54 PM on October 6, 2005

Huh. This is what happens when I post drunk. Let's try this again.

I think that including all this information here (salary aside, since it's personal) would help give people here a much better appreciation of your situation, and therefore could answer your question more appropriately.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 6:09 PM on October 6, 2005

agropyron, yeah, I may have misread that. Thanks for the heads-up.

I would still think that my advice was relevant. I used to be a buyer for a major US retailer. I routinely made orders for over a million dollars a pop. It wasn't any harder or easier to manage that amount of product (as it was all one style) than it was when I managed purchases in the ten's of thousands. Sure, I was paid more for the former job, but that was because I had experience and a proven track record of turning those purchases into profit.

So, I would recommend that you base your salary level on your ability to turn Ad sales (if that's the case) into profit, or at least into growing the accounts more than would be expected by your company. If you can turn Ads into more Ads and more profit, you should command more salary. If you are just responsible for a lot of Ad dollars, that doesn't necessarily make you worth more money.

Hope that's clear.

I agree with SiezeTheDay that without industry specifics, it's hard to tell where you might fit in this scale.
posted by qwip at 8:36 PM on October 6, 2005

D'oh! and by "paid more for the former job" I mean, of course, the one stated first where I managed buys over $1 million.
posted by qwip at 8:38 PM on October 6, 2005

I'm thinking any job's salary is more dependent on your qualifications and experience than on the revenue the position generates. Unless you are a government administrator appointed by George W. Of course there may be bonuses involved if there is more revenue based on your performance. It should be relatively easy to find an industry standard for salary from trade magazines or organizations with which you belong.
posted by JJ86 at 12:31 AM on October 7, 2005