How to hire a marketing designer

How to hire a marketing designer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step marketing designer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a marketing designer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new marketing designer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a marketing designer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your marketing designer job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a marketing designer for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A marketing designer's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, marketing designers from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents marketing designer salaries for various positions.

   Type of Marketing Designer	Description	Hourly rate
   Marketing Designer	Graphic designers create visual concepts, using computer software or by hand, to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, and captivate consumers. They develop the overall layout and production design for various applications such as advertisements, brochures, magazines, and corporate reports.	$17-42
   Graphic Designer, Marketing	A graphic designer of marketing specializes in developing creative imagery as part of a company's marketing efforts. Their responsibilities typically revolve around coordinating with the marketing team to share insights and strategies, conceptualizing designs in adherence to objectives and deadlines, and preparing presentations... Show more	$16-33
   Graphic Designer Internship	In a graphic design internship, one of the primary responsibilities is to accomplish tasks while under the supervision of more experienced colleagues. An aspiring graphic designer may use this opportunity to observe and participate in designing for various industries, handle different clients, participate in creative meetings, and learn strategies from experts... Show more	$12-22

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Sketch
   • Graphic Design
   • Digital Marketing
   • CSS
   • Adobe Creative Suite
   • HTML
   • Marketing Campaigns
   • Email Marketing
   • Email Campaigns
   • Animation
   • PowerPoint
   • WordPress
   • Design Projects
   • Facebook

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Administer company website using PHP coding and manage Instagram/Facebook profiles.
   • Maintain and redevelop restaurant websites utilizing HTML, CSS, and Wordpress.
   • Create promotional advertisements for social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TV, etc.
   • Collaborate with groups across the company to design and build UI, HTML and CSS components for online user services.
   • Design marketing collateral materials including iPhone application graphics, direct mail, flyers, business cards and presentation materials.
   • Coordinate with customers to design concept sketch.

   More marketing designer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the marketing designer job description is a good way to get more applicants. A marketing designer salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a marketing designer in North Dakota may be lower than in California, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level marketing designer. Additionally, a marketing designer with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average marketing designer salary

   $56,958yearly

   $27.38 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level marketing designer salary

   $36,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 20, 2025

   Average marketing designer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$94,333	$45
   2	Washington	$73,452	$35
   3	New York	$70,637	$34
   4	Massachusetts	$65,014	$31
   5	Nevada	$60,665	$29
   6	Virginia	$59,655	$29
   7	New Jersey	$59,469	$29
   8	Connecticut	$58,521	$28
   9	Maryland	$58,085	$28
   10	Illinois	$57,250	$28
   11	Arizona	$55,112	$27
   12	Florida	$53,985	$26
   13	Texas	$53,146	$26
   14	Colorado	$51,232	$25
   15	North Carolina	$47,650	$23
   16	Minnesota	$47,183	$23
   17	Wisconsin	$46,950	$23
   18	Georgia	$46,417	$22
   19	Missouri	$45,786	$22
   20	Indiana	$44,003	$21

   Average marketing designer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Morgan Stanley	$116,591	$56.05	7
   2	Eventbrite	$113,625	$54.63
   3	The New York Times Company	$106,403	$51.16	6
   4	Western Digital	$102,658	$49.35	5
   5	The Boston Globe	$94,428	$45.40
   6	Telenav	$93,455	$44.93
   7	Glooko	$92,049	$44.25
   8	Tally	$91,414	$43.95
   9	Salsa Labs	$87,008	$41.83
   10	Amazon	$83,622	$40.20	458
   11	Ramsey	$75,410	$36.25	12
   12	FT Partners	$74,781	$35.95
   13	Celtra	$72,036	$34.63
   14	Riskified	$71,316	$34.29
   15	Pioneer Valley Hospital	$70,922	$34.10
   16	Informa Plc	$69,873	$33.59	14
   17	Recruit	$69,589	$33.46	4
   18	TEKsystems	$68,246	$32.81	18
   19	Hoffmaster	$67,066	$32.24
   20	Complex	$66,583	$32.01	6

4. Writing a marketing designer job description

   A good marketing designer job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a marketing designer job description:

   Marketing designer job description example

   Looking for a full-time, digital-focused Growth Designer to join our new and expanding “ User Growth & Adoption” team in San Mateo, California.
   
   Candidates should have strong design experience and skills, an interest in Growth marketing, a passion for creative testing, and more generally an appreciation for the aesthetic.
   
   This position reports to our Head of Design and will work closely with our product growth team, so this individual must be comfortable both taking direction and contributing to rigorous design discussions with multiple collaborators. He/She should be able to work within established brand guidelines, while also helping us to refine and advance our brand expression across various media.
   What you’ ll be doing
   Design and prototyping for a partner brand’ s growth channels — from ongoing improvements to designing new digital experiences from scratch. Design campaign creative for digital marketing (online ads, landing pages, emails, web graphics, etc.) Drive results: As a Growth Marketing Designer, you will work closely with user growth team and cross-functional leadership to drive scalable & sustainable user growth across key products and to meet/exceed acquisition, engagement, and retention goals Be nimble. You will be working to model problems with customer journey maps, while simultaneously designing and iterating against those needs and behaviors. Velocity and iteration are core to your being. Approach problems holistically. Be an influential design stakeholder, helping your cross-functional peers define strategy, requirements, and experiments to optimize multiple touch points in the customer journey Collaborate with product designers to share time and resources between various concurrent projects Drive designs from concept to launch. In addition to design skills, you also have some development know-how to help you implement your designs. You are confident steering a project from the earliest ideation phases all the way through final delivery. Uncover opportunities to decrease friction and enable new pathways by talking to and listening to users about their frustrations and goals.
   
   What you’ ll need
   The ability to give and receive constructive feedback. You gather feedback judiciously but know when to adjust your designs and when to follow your initial vision. Capable of balancing a growth hacking mindset, ambiguity, and design quality standards Ability to manage your time and deadlines, as well as being comfortable designing in an iterative way to learn and adapt. Ability to work quickly, independently and pragmatically; can handle multiple design projects concurrently while shifting priorities as required to meet deadlines A constant commitment to stay up-to-date with the latest industry news and developments. Bachelor’ s Degree in Graphic Design or related field 3+ years designing user-facing digital experiences across multiple platforms such as responsive web, iOS and Android as well as a wide range of screen sizes Strength in visual design with an ability to prototype designs in lo-fidelity and hi-fidelity as required Excellent skills of digital prototyping and animation Portfolio of sample projects highlighting design for web-based applications, mobile applications and consumer-facing websites and/or applications.
   
   What would be good to have
   Able to define and execute A/B tests and multivariate experiment designs, flowcharts, prototypes, UI mockups, technical specs, and production assets. Hands-on skills in HTML, CSS, and front-end JavaScript (e.g. jQuery) Keen understanding of the ever-changing landscape of performance marketing assets (Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snap, etc) and channel communications (Email, rich media mobile push notifications, in-app notifications) Understanding of acquisition & conversion, metrics-driven design, and internationalization

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find the right marketing designer for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important sources of talent for any company is its existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and current employees and ask if they know or have worked with marketing designers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit marketing designers who meet your education requirements.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now have more than 3.5 billion users, and you can use social media to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your marketing designer job on Zippia to find and recruit marketing designer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as dribbble, authentic jobs, working not working, coroflot.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting marketing designers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new marketing designer

   Once you've found the marketing designer candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   To prepare for the new marketing designer first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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