How To Become An Account Planner: What It Is and Career Path

What is an account planner and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

An account planner is an individual that helps clients achieve their goals by helping them improve their accounts, marketing strategies, and sales techniques. Specifically, they develop and maintain client accounts to help increase sales and profit in general.

On a typical week, an account planner's duties revolve around conducting market research, assisting clients with goal-setting, generating creative concepts for marketing, working with account executives regarding business development opportunities, and conducting competitive analysis. They work in regular offices and may be expected to travel for business on occasion to attend business meetings, seminars, and conferences.

Most account planners have at least a bachelor's degree in advertising, business, marketing, or a similar field. They also typically have extensive experience in the ad and marketing industry and may have worked a supervisory role. Moreover, successful account planners have high-level skill sets in communication, marketing, collaboration, market analysis, and creativity.

The average salary of an account planner is $64,000 per year. The bulk of job opportunities can be found in media, technology, advertising, and telecommunications companies.

ScoreAccount PlannerUS Average

Salary

5.6

Avg. Salary $71,823

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.9

Growth rate 19%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.13%

Asian 13.19%

Black or African American 5.02%

Hispanic or Latino 11.97%

Unknown 4.96%

White 64.72%

Gender

female 61.38%

male 38.62%

Age - 34

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34

Stress level

4.9

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.2

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.6

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an account planner

Explore account planner education requirements

Most common account planner degrees

Bachelor's

81.9 %

Master's

9.4 %

Associate

5.7 %

Start to develop specific account planner skills

Skills	Percentages
Digital Marketing	26.57%
Media Sales	10.94%
Nielsen	8.95%
Account Executives	8.54%
PowerPoint	4.29%

Complete relevant account planner training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New account planners learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an account planner based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real account planner resumes.

Research account planner duties and responsibilities

Guide production planning activities ranging from developing and revising production schedules, forecasting trends and customer demand, and managing logistics.
Direct inbound or outbound logistics operations, such as transportation or warehouse activities, safety performance, or logistics quality management.
Coordinate the quality control for clients' letters and mailings as well as ran data pulls and file selects for clients.

Prepare your account planner resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your account planner resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an account planner resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable account planner resume templates

Build a professional account planner resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your account planner resume.