TL;DR
- Digital agencies are people businesses, and how you compensate your people matters.
- The latest Digital Agency Salary Survey is live! Participate here: https://prometheanresearch.com/digital-agency-salary-survey/
- We’re digging deep into how agencies compensate their teams and owners.
- Participants get free access to the final salary report and an invite to the review/Q&A call.
At their core, digital agencies are about people
Unlike other industries, where the value might lie in the products, inventory, or distribution, the value in digital agencies comes from the team. The expertise of your team and the way they interact with one another and your clients builds relationships. Strong relationships lead to trust, and trust translates into client retention and referrals.
Given the overwhelming importance of a quality team, it’s critical for agencies to communicate that importance. Compensation is maybe the most significant way agencies tell their employees how much they’re valued. Compensation that drifts below market rates can inadvertently miscommunicate to your team that they aren’t valued. Conversely, I’ve seen shops overcompensate some roles. This has led to disengaged employees who ultimately pulled morale down.
This drift happens quickly. In our last survey, we saw massive increases in compensation levels across all functions.
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It’ll be interesting to see how this survey changes from our 2022 one.
| Take the survey and get the salary report |
We’re covering a lot in this salary survey
We’re diving deep into how digital agencies compensate their teams and owners. The resulting report should give you plenty of data to fully understand where your shop lands.
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We’ll be evaluating:
How agency compensation rates and packages are shifting
Raises in 2023 and expected raises in 2024
Changes in non-salary compensation (bonuses, profit sharing, etc.)
Actual salary bands for:
- 8+ Account management roles
- 8+ Business development and sales roles
- 15+ Design roles
- 15+ Dev roles
- 10+ Project management roles
- 20+ Marketing roles (both internal and client-facing)
- 10+ Agency operations roles
Billable and non-billable weekly hours by functional group
Standard PTO practices
Average benefits provided
Agency owner salaries, draws, and bonuses
The more the merrier
We’re teaming up with some amazing organizations to help digital shops better understand how various roles are compensated within the industry. Like last time, this survey/report is a joint project between us and the Bureau of Digital. Parallax has generously sponsored this research, and Upsourced Accounting has joined as a promo partner!
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Fair comp communicates value
Fair compensation not only attracts and retains top talent but also reinforces the value the agency places on its people. One of the most effective ways to gauge appropriate compensation is through salary benchmarks. By referencing industry-specific surveys, agencies can align their salary structures with market rates, ensuring they remain competitive and demonstrate a commitment to their staff.
This is why we go through all the effort to do these salary surveys. They take a lot of work to do well, but it’s such a critical component to get right that I view it as a necessary part of our work.
I hope you’ll be able to participate!
-Nick
| Take the survey and get the salary report |
