How To Become An Advertising Executive: What It Is and Career Path

What is an advertising executive and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an advertising executive. For example, did you know that they make an average of $27.95 an hour? That's $58,126 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -8% and produce -8,000 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreAdvertising ExecutiveUS Average

Salary

4.5

Avg. Salary $58,126

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.2

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.39%

Asian 4.60%

Black or African American 6.08%

Hispanic or Latino 13.57%

Unknown 4.12%

White 71.24%

Gender

female 58.55%

male 41.45%

Age - 43

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 - 43

Stress level

8.2

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.0

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an advertising executive

Explore advertising executive education requirements

Most common advertising executive degrees

Bachelor's

74.1 %

Associate

13.4 %

Master's

5.1 %

Start to develop specific advertising executive skills

Skills	Percentages
Sales Presentations	6.93%
Real Estate	6.72%
Cold Calls	6.24%
SEO	5.17%
Search Engine	3.67%

Complete relevant advertising executive training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New advertising executives 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 advertising executive based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real advertising executive resumes.

Research advertising executive duties and responsibilities

Manage digital campaigns' life cycle, optimize programs to increase advertiser's ROI.
Manage and creaat multiple PPC advertising campaigns, generating conversions for companies selling everything from gumballs, cleaning services to motorhomes.
Develop creative strategies to support corporate print/ web campaigns and optimize ROI.
Proofread and input data from customer contracts and advertising artwork into system.

Get advertising executive experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become an advertising executive. The most common roles before becoming an advertising executive include account executive, sales representative team lead and sales associate.

Prepare your advertising executive resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your advertising executive 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 advertising executive resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable advertising executive resume templates

Build a professional advertising executive 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 advertising executive resume.