Career guide
Marketing Manager Job Description: Template and What the Job Involves
A marketing manager plans and runs marketing programs, such as campaigns, channels or a product line, and is accountable for their results. They set the plan against a goal and budget, coordinate the people who deliver it, track what's working and report to leadership. Below is a job description template you can adapt and a plain account of the work behind it.
Key takeaways
- A marketing manager plans and runs marketing programs, such as campaigns, channels or a product line, and is accountable for their results.
- Marketing managers set a plan against a goal and budget, coordinate the people who deliver it, and report results to leadership.
- Marketing manager roles vary by type, from brand and product marketing to digital, content and field marketing.
- A marketing manager is usually measured on the business results of their programs, not on the volume of work shipped.
- Reading a marketing manager job description closely tells you which experience to lead with on your resume and in interviews.
What does a marketing manager do?
A marketing manager owns a piece of a company’s marketing and the results it produces. That piece might be a channel (email, events, paid media), a product line, a region, a customer segment, or at a small company, everything.
What makes it a manager role is ownership. A coordinator or specialist executes tasks; a marketing manager decides what the plan should be, makes sure it gets done and answers for the numbers.
Most marketing managers spend their time on five things:
- Planning. Turning a business goal into a marketing plan: audience, message, channels, timing, budget and how success will be measured.
- Running programs. Launching campaigns, managing the calendar and keeping work moving across writers, designers, agencies and other teams.
- Working across the business. Agreeing priorities with sales, product, finance and leadership, and getting their input on launches and messaging.
- Measuring. Reading results, deciding what to change and reporting what happened in plain language.
- Managing people. Often one or two coordinators or specialists, an agency or freelancers.
Marketing manager job description template
Copy this and replace the [brackets]. Cut any responsibility that doesn’t apply; a shorter, accurate posting attracts better candidates than a long generic one.
Job title: Marketing Manager, [Area: e.g. Lifecycle / Product Line / Region] About [Company] [Two sentences: what the company sells, to whom, and where it is now: growing, launching, entering a new market.] About the role We're hiring a Marketing Manager to own [the channel, product line or program] and grow [the main metric: e.g. qualified leads / repeat purchases / sign-ups]. You'll report to [title] and work closely with [sales / product / creative / the agency]. In your first six months you'll [one concrete goal, e.g. relaunch the onboarding email program]. What you'll do - Build and run the quarterly marketing plan for [area], including audience, message, channels, budget and targets. - Plan and launch campaigns across [channels: e.g. email, paid social, events, content]. - Manage a budget of [range or "a budget"] and [agency / freelancers / X direct reports]. - Write briefs for creative and media partners and review their work. - Work with [sales / product] on launches, messaging and [lead handoff / promotions]. - Track performance in [tools: e.g. GA4, HubSpot, Looker], report results to [audience] and recommend what to change. - Run tests on [subject lines / landing pages / audiences / offers] and share what we learn. What you'll bring - [X]+ years of marketing experience, including owning a [channel / program] end to end. - A record of campaigns you planned and measured, with results you can explain. - Hands-on experience with [the two or three tools the team really uses]. - Clear writing: briefs, emails and short reports leaders can act on. - Comfort with budgets and spreadsheets. - Experience managing an agency, freelancers or a direct report. Nice to have - Experience in [industry or customer type]. - [A specific skill: e.g. marketing automation, retail media, B2B demand generation]. How we'll measure success - [Metric 1: e.g. pipeline from marketing-sourced leads] - [Metric 2: e.g. cost per acquisition on paid social] - [Metric 3: e.g. on-time launches across the calendar] Pay and benefits [Salary range], [benefits], [location / hybrid / remote].
A few notes for hiring managers using it:
- Name the area in the title. “Marketing Manager, Lifecycle” tells candidates what the job is; “Marketing Manager” alone doesn’t.
- Say how success is measured. It’s the line strong candidates look for first.
- List real tools. A wish list of every platform puts good people off.
- Include the pay range. Some US states and cities require one in job postings, so check the rules where you’re hiring.
What does a marketing manager do day to day?
Day to day, a marketing manager moves between planning, reviewing and checking results. A typical week might look like this:
| When | What’s happening |
|---|---|
| Monday | Review last week’s numbers, update the dashboard, agree priorities with the team |
| Tuesday | Write a brief for next month’s campaign; review agency creative |
| Wednesday | Meeting with sales on lead quality; launch an email test |
| Thursday | Budget check-in with finance; one-to-one with a coordinator |
| Friday | Write the weekly update for leadership; plan next week |
The proportions shift with the company. At a startup you’ll write the emails and build the landing pages yourself. At a large company you’ll spend more time in meetings, approvals and agency management.
What are the main types of marketing manager?
The title covers several quite different jobs. Reading which one a posting means is the first step in deciding whether it fits you.
| Type | What it owns | Common at |
|---|---|---|
| Generalist marketing manager | Most or all marketing for a small business or a business unit | Startups, small and mid-sized companies |
| Channel marketing manager | One channel, such as email, events, paid media or partner marketing | Mid-sized and large companies |
| Product or category marketing manager | Marketing for one product line or category | Consumer brands, retail, tech |
| Regional or field marketing manager | Marketing in one region or for one sales territory | B2B companies, franchises, multinationals |
| Demand generation manager | Pipeline and leads for a sales team | B2B and software |
| Lifecycle or CRM manager | Retention, repeat purchases and customer communications | E-commerce, subscriptions, apps |
Related roles with their own pages: brand manager, social media manager and product marketing manager (how to become one).
What skills does a marketing manager need?
A marketing manager needs to plan, get work done through other people and explain results. The specific channel skills depend on the role; these show up in almost every posting.
- Planning and prioritizing. Choosing the few things that will move the goal, and saying no to the rest.
- Writing. Briefs, emails, plans and updates that people can act on.
- Analytics. Reading a dashboard, setting up a test, spotting when a number looks wrong.
- Budget management. Planning spend, tracking it and explaining where it went.
- Project management. Keeping several launches on schedule without dropping details.
- Working with others. Agreeing priorities with sales and product, giving creative feedback, managing an agency.
- Channel depth. Real hands-on knowledge of at least one channel.
Our marketing skills page covers how to show each of these on a resume.
Who does a marketing manager report to?
Usually a marketing director, a senior marketing manager or, at a small company, the VP of marketing, CMO or the founder. Marketing managers often have one or two direct reports, an agency or freelancers. The marketing job titles page shows where the role sits in the hierarchy.
How is a marketing manager measured?
On the results of the programs they own. The metrics depend on the role, and a good posting names them.
- Demand generation: leads, pipeline, cost per lead, conversion to opportunity.
- E-commerce or lifecycle: revenue from the channel, repeat purchase rate, retention.
- Product or category marketing: sales, share, launch targets.
- Brand or awareness programs: reach, awareness and consideration measures, share of search.
- Every role: on-time delivery and staying within budget.
If you’re interviewing, ask how success will be measured in the first year. It’s a question hiring managers like hearing, and the answer tells you what the job really is. More questions like that are in questions to ask the hiring manager.
How do you use a job description when applying?
Treat the posting as the brief for your resume. Pull out the three or four responsibilities it stresses most, and make sure your resume shows a result for each, using the posting’s own words where they’re accurate.
- Highlight the “what you’ll do” lines that appear first or more than once. Those are the priorities.
- Match each one to something you’ve done, with a result.
- Rewrite the top of your resume so those matches are visible in the first few lines.
- Prepare a story for each for the interview. The marketing manager interview questions page shows what you’ll be asked. Know your stories well enough to tell them naturally, in your own words, rather than reciting them; they’re hiring the person, not the script.
Start with step 1 now: highlighting the priorities takes ten minutes and makes everything after it easier.
Recon can do the matching for you: paste the posting and your resume, and it suggests line-by-line rewrites that use only facts already on your resume.
FAQ
What’s the difference between a marketing manager and a marketing director?
A marketing manager runs programs and is measured on their results. A marketing director sets the plan for a broader area, owns its budget and manages the managers. See how to become a marketing director.
What qualifications does a marketing manager need?
Postings commonly ask for a bachelor’s degree and several years of marketing experience, including owning a channel or program. Evidence of results matters more than the degree subject. See how to become a marketing manager for the usual path.
What does a marketing manager earn?
It varies with location, industry and company size. Our marketing manager salary page has US government figures by percentile and state.
Is marketing manager an entry-level job?
Rarely. It usually takes a few years as a coordinator or specialist first, and that time is where you build the results a manager role asks for. Small companies sometimes hire less experienced generalists with the title, but the scope is usually narrower than it sounds.
What should a marketing manager resume include?
The programs you owned, the budget and team you managed, and the results, with numbers. Lead with the experience closest to the posting. Our marketing resume guide has examples.
What does a senior marketing manager do differently?
A senior marketing manager owns a larger program, budget or product line, plans across channels rather than running one, and often manages a coordinator, specialist or agency. They’re measured on business results like pipeline, revenue or growth, and they present plans and results to directors and other departments.
How do marketing manager job descriptions differ by specialty?
The core stays the same: plan, run and measure marketing for a product or audience. What changes is the channel and the metrics. A digital marketing manager job description stresses paid, search and analytics; a content marketing manager stresses editorial and SEO; a product marketing manager stresses positioning and launches; and a growth marketing manager stresses experiments and the funnel. Our role guides, like digital marketing manager and product marketing manager, have each version.