How To Become A Digital Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is a digital director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Yash Egami,

Dr. Veronica Radeva Dawson Ph.D.

Digital Directors promote a company's products and services by developing, managing, and executing various marketing campaigns. They manage the activities of a company's websites, social media, e-commerce, and many more. They conduct research techniques to guide the marketing strategy, earning an average sum of $134,000 per year or $64 per hour.

Digital Directors oversee digital projects and ensure the smooth operation of all digital tools and applications. They generate innovative ideas to increase web traffic and collaborate with internal teams to ensure brand consistency. They also suggest new optimization methods to improve customer experience and address advertising needs.

Digital Directors typically hold a bachelor's degree in marketing, digital technologies, or a relevant field. To succeed as a Digital Director, you must have proven work experience to understand how digital channels work. Employers also prefer to hire candidates with familiarity with google analytics and hands-on experience with SEO/SEM and CRM software.

What general advice would you give to a digital director?

Yash Egami

VP, The One Club

A recent Forrester report says that the ad industry will lose 50,000 jobs through 2021, with 35,000 of them already lost since the pandemic. The traditional ad agency model was already in trouble, with many brands hiring away talent and creating their own in-house agencies. Add to that the recent reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement, and what we're seeing is an industry that is being forced to go through monumental change in order to survive.

While traditional roles like art director or copywriter are on the decline, the good news is that, in an effort to reinvent themselves, agencies are seeking creatives with digital skills like UX design and programming. The rise of in-house creative departments has also meant more opportunities for job seekers within brands rather than agencies. And because of the demand for more diversity from clients and those within advertising, recruiters are making more of an effort to hire multicultural talent.

At The One Club for Creativity, we've been at the forefront of change in the industry through our diversity and inclusion, professional development and gender equality programs. We recently hosted our annual multicultural career fair, "Where Are All the Black People?" that brought together thousands of diverse talent with 40 agencies and companies looking to hire. We launched One School, a free online program for Black creatives who want to get into the industry but don't have a portfolio or the economic means to afford to go to ad school. And we're working on upskilling courses for professionals who want to reinvent themselves or keep up with the changing demands of our industry.

So if you're a recent graduate who specializes in art direction, our advice would be to keep an open mind about what kind of company you want to work for and think about expanding your skillset to include digital skills so that you can future-proof your career. Where you are isn't as important because, since the pandemic, agencies have become more comfortable with working remotely and they are more open to having a workforce not centered on the traditional agency hubs, like New York or Los Angeles.

ScoreDigital DirectorUS Average

Salary

8.4

Avg. Salary $129,557

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 31.20%

male 68.80%

Age - 38

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 - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a digital director

Explore digital director education requirements

Most common digital director degrees

Bachelor's

75.4 %

Master's

15.7 %

Associate

6.0 %

Start to develop specific digital director skills

Skills	Percentages
Digital Marketing	14.03%
Digital Transformation	12.97%
Digital Strategy	4.35%
Project Management	4.12%
Digital Content	3.45%

Complete relevant digital director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New digital directors 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 a digital director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real digital director resumes.

Research digital director duties and responsibilities

Manage the planning, development, and delivery of email marketing channel including CRM.
Implement the use of a CRM system and processes to assign and track new leads.
Manage direct mail, email and social media projects to help clients with better response rates and ROI.
Manage marketing strategies deliver through social media, email and Facebook advertising.

Get digital director experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become a digital director. The most common roles before becoming a digital director include account executive, director team lead and creative director.

Prepare your digital director resume

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

Choose from 10+ customizable digital director resume templates

Build a professional digital director 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 digital director resume.