Web Analytics Salaries 2007: Insights and Observations

A lot has been written recently on the hot job market for web analytics positions. Perhaps because there is such a profound gap between the number of open positions and the number of experienced practitioners looking for jobs, web analytics salaries run pretty high. We collected a bunch of data on salaries earlier this year and our report on the subject is available now.

Some of the key insights:

The average U.S. web analytics practitioner, across all job types (end-users, vendors, consultants, agencies) is reported to be earning $86,883 annually in salary and bonus
Those of us working for vendors are the best paid, with the average vendor practitioner earning $105,192 in salary and bonus
Unless you’re working for a very large company (5000+ employees), the difference in average salary is negligable
There appear to be three “tenure groups” for salary, which may be as much a function that people get raises by switching jobs as they do waiting patiently for a substantial salary increase
As we’ve published previously, companies relying on defined business processes are paying far better than those relying on employees or those lacking any formal approach towards web analytics
There may be hope on the horizon for those companies actively seeking experienced practitioners

Because I’m trying to write shorter reports, I’ve also created a companion web page that will allow readers to examine all of the salary data we used to produce this report, segmented over 30 different ways. Hopefully everyone will find this data interesting, regardless of whether you’re looking to hire or looking for a raise. The report and companion data are available here:

Web Analytics Salaries 2007: Insights and Observations (PDF format)
Web Analytics Salary Data

I welcome your feedback on this research — your reaction to the data as well as your opinion about the value of our publishing this research on an annual basis. I have to admit I rather enjoy being able to publish this research so hopefully everyone out there is finding it valuable.

UPDATE: I am lame for forgetting to thank June Dershewitz, James Gardner, and Dylan Lewis for spending the time to review this report prior to its publication. Thanks June, James, and Dylan!

Posted Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 | 15 responses | Share, Save or Email

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http://www.midtowninteractive.com Aaron

Outstanding work Eric!

I like the idea that we’re growing up a bit as a discipline. Some folks may fret at published salary numbers–especially if their salary is much higher.

I’m not fretting, though I’m above the curve. I think it’s all about the individual, the job duties, and the value provided. Having an average is a helpful “yard stick”.

-Aaron

P.S. I enjoyed the webinar yesterday!
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com eric

Aaron: Thanks for the feedback! I wondered about that but there is so much confusion in the market about what people are worth and how much these positions should offer I figured it was worth publishing the data to add insight to the conversation.

Glad you’re well compensated! And yeah, there is much more to this than our research uncovers. Hopefully next Spring we’ll be able to get more granular on the subject and ask questions like:

* How much education do you have?
* What did you study?
* How much budget are you responsible for?
* What is your title?
* How many web analytics jobs have you had?
* How long have you been in your current position?

It’s a balancing act to gather the type of data Zori and I are looking for while having a reasonably sized survey.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback on the research and the webinar!

Thanks again.
John

Eric, from the looks of the data it seems like the ranges are pretty wide, with some interesting insights, like companies with 5000+ employees. For all other size companies the salaries are heavy at the bottom end, with a possible clump in the middle sector around 100k, but for the largest companies, fully 15% are at 150k+. My initial take is that’s a function of job title (responsibilies, management, size of budget), but I’m wondering if you see anything in the data set that would give a deeper understanding to that interesting bit of data?
And, thanks for producing the survey, wonderful information.
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http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com eric

John: See my comment to Aaron above — you’re asking ** excellent ** questions but alas I don’t have the answers. It sounds like you’re saying that the largest companies are more likely to have more senior people who have more responsibility and larger budgets. Is that correct?

If so, you could be right. Next time we’ll be sure to ask folks about their titles and the amount of budget they’re working with/responsible for. It makes sense when you consider that Director/VP level folks managing web analytics are purportedly earning between $150K and $250K but smaller companies are probably less likely to have folks that senior on staff.

I’m excited that the data is prompting better and better questions. Thanks for your comment!
http://www.theartofwebanalytics.com/ Christian Vermehren

Hi Eric,
That is an interesting piece of work, and very useful if you are looking for new web analytics staff! I only wish the data were also available for Europe, and, more specifically, Scandinavia :-) Also, I was wondering, do you have any information on demographics such as age and/or gender?
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Joanne

Perfect timing! I’m in the interviewing process and this will be helpful in my negotiation. Thank you!
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com eric

Christian: Glad you find the data interesting! I just got an exciting new data analysis and visualization application called Tableau (www.tableausoftware.com) so I’ll pull in the data and see what I can tell you about Europe. Unfortunately I don’t have the granularity to the level of country in Europe but I’ll see what I can do!

Joanne: I’m glad I can help and I wish you the best of luck!
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roots

In my opinion median salary would be much more useful than average. As far as I know median values are always used for salary reporting.
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