Eric Peterson released the Web Analytics Demystified 2007 Salary Survey last month. My guys were eager to read through as there is clearly a need in our space for some sanity around compensation and our clients are always looking for guidance. So the survey was well-timed. We were a bit disappointed to find that most of the insights were kind of obvious and the comp ranges seemed to be off (based on our day-to-day experience).
Insights:
1. Very big companies pay more than smaller companies
2. The number of web analytics jobs is growing fast
3. Supply is not growing at the same pace as demand
4. The more experience you have, the more you earn
Compensation:
1. The average web analytics practitioner with under 12-months of experience is earning $78,524. From our experience it should be closer to 45-65k, depending on location.
2. The avergage comp for a practitioner with 5+ years of experience is $102,544. From our experience is should be in the 130 – 170k range based on location and vertical.
3. Web Analytics Vendors Pay the Best Salaries. There are a handful of engagement managers, executives and best practices consultant-types that make good money at vendors but everyone else is working for 40 – 80k. In general, vendors pay at or below market for everyone else.
They apparently offer more indepth analysis back home on the site and of course they sell job postings for companies that are hiring. Our very limited (1 posting) experience with the job board was not successful.
Corry,
Sorry to hear you didn’t like the salary survey! It seems like you’re struggling with the salary bands that people reports being either lower or higher than what you see in the marketplace. A few notes about your “unlikely” category:
* We asked about and reported salary and bonus which may explain some of the discrepancies you report. Other consultants have recently highlighted that bonus is an important component in web analytics practitioner salary.
* The distribution for U.S. salaries was very broad and we used weighted averages. I have included the link to those raw distributions below.
* The only people we were surveying at the vendors were the “best practices consultant-types” you mention … we weren’t asking these questions of engineers, sales staff, or support folks
* We don’t offer in-depth analysis of the data at Web Analytics Demystified, but yes we do sell job postings on our site.
* I’m sorry to hear you weren’t successful with your one job posting on our site, but many companies are! Perhaps it was a poorly written description that caused the lack of response?
You can read about how our job board has helped other folks in this post:
http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2007/09/how-the-web-analytics-demystified-job-board-helped-musicians-friend.html
You can look at all of the salary distributions for this self-reported data at my site:
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/research/salary_data.asp
I’m sorry the survey didn’t meet your expectations but thank you for taking the time to read it.
Sincerely,
Eric T. Peterson
Web Analytics Demystified
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com