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5 Email Marketing Roles and How to Get Started

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

Discover five email marketing roles, their requirements, and how to begin your career as an email marketer.

[Featured Image]: A person uses a laptop in their work as an email marketing specialist, demonstrating one of various email marketing roles.

Key takeaways

  • Email marketing roles typically include email marketing specialists, content strategists, campaign coordinators, marketing managers, and copywriters.

  • Email marketing roles and responsibilities often involve planning, strategizing, researching, and scheduling email campaigns.

  • Email marketing jobs typically require prior marketing experience, a formal education, and specific skills such as storytelling and customer segmentation.

An email marketing manager supervises other team members, works alongside them to analyze the performance of email marketing campaigns, and develops strategies to improve future campaigns. Learn more about email marketing, including roles you may pursue, their salaries, and how to qualify for them.

Afterward, if you want to start building your digital marketing skills, consider enrolling in the Google Digital Marketing & E-Commerce Professional Certificate. In as little as six months, you can learn how to attract and engage customers through digital marketing channels, measure marketing performance through analytics, grow customer loyalty, and more.

5 email marketing roles

When you work in email marketing, your role may include writing copy for emails or strategizing on a new marketing campaign. Email marketing is a strategy used by marketing professionals to connect with customers through targeted email campaigns that encourage them to visit a company's website or purchase a product or service. Explore five potential email marketing roles and learn how they differ from one another to determine which role is best for you and your career.

*All salary information represents the median total pay from Glassdoor as of August 2026. These figures include base salary and additional pay, which may represent profit-sharing, commissions, bonuses, or other compensation.

1. Email marketing specialist

Median total annual salary: $75,000 [1]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree

As an email marketing specialist, your role typically involves compiling an email list for an email campaign to reach, assisting in creating emails, and operating email software. Your other responsibilities may include sending follow-up emails to customers, discarding email addresses that no longer fit your target audience or don’t engage with your brand, and proofing emails before they’re sent out.

2. Content strategist

Median total annual salary: $109,000 [2]

Requirements: Experience in marketing and communications

Content strategists are marketing experts who rely on research and strategy to create strong campaigns. After a campaign deploys, you then analyze its performance and note how you could improve in the future, whether that includes targeting a more specific audience or tweaking language within the content.

3. Email campaign coordinator

Median total annual salary: $63,000 [3]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field; experience

As an email campaign coordinator, you typically schedule and plan email marketing campaigns and manage the team producing the campaign. With the help of your team, you develop campaign ideas. You then rely on copywriters to write the content for an email and artists to meet your design vision. Once the email is complete, part of your role is to pick a time for the email, or multiple emails, to deploy and to track how the emails perform.

4. Email copywriter

Median total annual salary: $78,000 [4]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in English, marketing, or a related field of study

Email copywriters write the copy that appears in an email, and the subject line and headline that captivate the intended audience. As an email copywriter, your objective is to create compelling copy that is free of errors and drives traffic to a brand’s website. In this role, your work may go through many revisions before you and the brand or client determine the perfect way to craft a marketing email.

5. Email marketing manager

Median total salary: $103,000 [5]

Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field

As an email marketing manager, your primary responsibility typically involves overseeing an email marketing campaign. You help develop the campaign and oversee other members of your team to ensure they fulfill their own responsibilities in developing and implementing it.

Additionally, you analyze performance metrics and data to determine if a campaign performed well or not, and strategize with your colleagues on future email campaigns.

What is an email marketing role?

An email marketing role typically involves creating, designing, and scheduling emails for a brand or company. You may manage campaigns, tailor your content to meet audience needs, and analyze the performance of previous campaigns.

How to get started in email marketing

To begin a career in email marketing, consider majoring in marketing, business, or communications. Many email marketing roles require some experience and/or a bachelor’s degree. Additionally, you may stand out to employers by earning certifications that demonstrate your email marketing skills.

1. Gain the right education and training.

Similar to other marketing roles, email marketers typically need a bachelor’s degree in a subject related to marketing or communications. Some jobs may hire you without a formal degree, but it may help boost your chances if you’ve completed some education.

Employers may also look for specific skills in an email marketer. These can include performing A/B testing, understanding hypertext markup language (HTML), paying close attention to detail, and having excellent communication skills. Additional skills you should focus on building include:

  • Customer segmentation

  • Writing

  • Analytics and optimization

  • Content strategy

  • Storytelling

2. Consider obtaining an email marketing certification.

Many certifications are available for aspiring email and digital marketing professionals. Consider the following for your resume:

  • Email Marketing Certification course: This certification, offered by HubSpot Academy, focuses on crafting copy that engages readers and prompts them to click through to any links within your email. It also teaches you to better understand how performance analytics work to set you up for success with future campaigns.

  • Certified Marketing Management Professional (CMMP): The International Institute of Marketing Professionals (IIMP) offers four Certified Marketing Management Professional designations, including Associate CMMP, Manager CMMP, Executive CMMP, and Chartered CMMP. You may gain a deeper, more advanced understanding of marketing at each level.

  • Professional Certified Marketer (PCM): This certification, offered by the American Marketing Association (AMA), aims to help you build your marketing skills to grow professionally.

Read more: 14 Key Marketing Skills to Boost Your Resume

3. Gain experience.

You may consider entry-level marketing positions to gain experience in an email marketing role. Entry-level marketing roles may have some overlap with email marketing jobs you want to advance to, and can be a good place to start your career. Explore entry-level roles that involve email marketing, digital marketing, and social marketing for you to gain experience:

  • Marketing assistant: $55,000

  • Marketing coordinator: $66,000

  • Junior marketing associate: $64,000

  • Social media assistant: $45,000

  • Digital marketing specialist: $73,000

  • Junior copywriter: $73,000

  • Media planner: $124,000

  • Account coordinator: $62,000

*All annual total salary data is sourced from Glassdoor as of August 2026 and includes additional pay, such as commission and benefits.

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Article sources

1

Glassdoor. “Email Marketing Specialist Salaries, https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/email-marketing-specialist-salary-SRCH_KO0,26.htm.” Accessed August 5, 2026.

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