tml Partners conducted research among marketing leaders earlier this year to understand more about the level and importance of bonuses within the top marketing positions.
Bonuses are increasingly an important part of the remuneration package for marketing leaders. The position of marketing within most organisations is elevating and we are seeing more and more companies bring a marketing professional onto their board with the hire of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). As marketing leaders take P&L responsibility and their activities feed straight into the bottom line, appropriate rewards are being expected in addition to basic salary.
Respondents to our survey were senior marketing level: Head of Marketing, Marketing Director, CMO or equivalent.
Simon Bassett, Managing Director of tml Partners, comments “over the 20 years I’ve been working in the industry there’s no doubt at all that I’ve seen a huge uplift in the level of bonuses marketers are rewarded. Certainly, bonus inflation has significantly outstripped basic salary inflation over this time and become a much more meaningful part of a marketer’s compensation and expectations. As our results highlight, bonus reward and potential is now a fundamental driver for many job hunters.”
“Bonus reward and potential is now a
fundamental driver for many job hunters”
78% of respondents received a bonus of up to 30% of salary. As little as ten years ago bonuses were not to be expected for even the highest level of marketing professionals, but that trend has shifted. To see that 10% of respondents received a bonus of above 60% of their salary is highly indicative of the raised profile and importance of marketing professionals.
Bassett continues “the impact of “bonus season” used to only be a feature of banking and City institutions, but increasingly we’re seeing this impact the timing of movements in the senior marketing community. As our results show, 15-30% is the common expectation but there are more and more examples of the best Marketing Directors and CMOs being rewarded with 50-80% bonuses in a good years.”
What was of particular interest in our results was the impact that a bonus has on a person’s decision to stay with their current firm, or move into a new position. 75% of respondents said their bonus affects whether they will stay in their current position and 80% of respondents said the bonus being offered in a new role will impact their decision to take that role.
In 2017, 37% of respondents expected their bonus to increase, while 10% predicted a decrease and 35% stay the same. We have previously seen an upward trend in bonus size so this balance between increasing and decreasing/staying the same could be down to market caution in relation to Brexit.
Bassett concludes “bonuses are now a firm feature of the overall compensation for marketers and for the majority they are as important as basic salary, and certainly higher up the agenda than pensions or holiday allowance.
“Bonuses are…higher up the agenda
than pensions or holiday allowance”
“We predict all these trends to continue. As marketing becomes more complex, more specialist and higher up the boardroom agenda, alongside being more performance focused and directly aligned to commercial results, we’ll continue to see bonus inflation outstrip growth in basic salaries. Bonus expectations as well as attractive LTIPs for results-led, high impact marketing leaders will only grow and increasingly we’ll see poor bonus rewards as a primary motivator for someone to leave. It’s a great time to be in marketing.”
tml Partners – specialists in marketing recruitment.
