Get people to notice, want and buy a product. A diploma or degree, a portfolio, and results you can measure.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$74,000
Coordinator
$43,000
Manager or director
$119,000
Job Bank's national median is $35.58 an hour, about $74,000 a year full time. Job Bank groups marketing with advertising and public relations specialists. Tech companies and big consumer brands pay the most; agencies and non-profits pay less.
$40,000 to $50,000
Marketing coordinator or assistant, first 2 years
Agencies start lowest but teach you fastest. In-house jobs at large companies pay more and move slower. Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal have most of the jobs.
$100,000 to $130,000+
Marketing manager or director, 8 or more years in
Specialists who can prove their campaigns made money, especially in digital and performance marketing, move up fastest. A vice-president of marketing at a large company earns well beyond this.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the free certificates from Google, HubSpot and Meta plus real campaigns you run for a small business, a club or your own project, which gives you a portfolio an employer can look at. A domain name and a small advertising budget is most of the cost. The high end is a four year university business degree with a marketing major. The cheap door is harder because you first have to find someone willing to let you run their marketing, and what you show has to be real numbers rather than coursework.
A diploma gets you in the door for most jobs. The degree matters more for large companies and management tracks.
Health and dental
Standard at companies of any size; thinner at small agencies.
Remote and hybrid work
Marketing was one of the first fields to go remote and mostly stayed there.
Bonuses
Common in-house, tied to sales or campaign targets.
Free stuff
Products, event tickets, conference trips. Small, but real.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A short program, a portfolio of real campaigns, then a first job where you learn the tools.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
English, business, media arts. Start now: run a social account for a club, a team or a family business and track what works.
Diploma or degree
2 to 4 years
A 2-year college marketing diploma or a 4-year business degree with a marketing major. Job Bank says either is usually required. Co-op programs are worth the extra time.
Internships and side projects
During school
Real campaigns with real numbers. Employers hire on the portfolio, not the transcript.
First job
After graduation
Marketing coordinator, social media coordinator, or an agency account or content role.
Specialize
Years 2 to 5
Paid ads, search, email, content, brand, analytics or product marketing. Specialists earn more than generalists.
English and writing
Marketing is words that make people act.
Business and marketing
If your school offers it.
Media arts or communications technology
Video, design and editing tools.
Data management
Modern marketing runs on numbers.
Anyone can call themselves a marketer. Job Bank lists the occupation as unregulated, and no licence exists. The Canadian Marketing Association offers the voluntary CM (Chartered Marketer) designation, which it describes as Canada's only marketing designation. What you do have to know is the law: CASL (Canada's anti-spam legislation) sets strict rules on marketing emails and texts, and privacy law governs what you can do with customer data. Breaking either is expensive for your employer.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Paid advertising
Google, Meta and TikTok ads. Managing a real budget is the fastest route to a raise.
SEO (search engine optimization) and analytics
Getting found on Google and proving it with data.
Email and marketing automation
Tools like HubSpot and Klaviyo. Under-supplied skill.
Video and short-form content
Shooting and editing yourself is now expected at many companies.
CM (Chartered Marketer)
The Canadian Marketing Association's designation, for mid-career marketers who want the credential.
A portfolio site
Three campaigns with before-and-after numbers beats any resume.
Free certifications
Google Ads, Google Analytics, HubSpot and Meta all offer them at no cost.
Basic design
Canva at minimum; Figma and Adobe tools are a plus.
Writing samples
Blog posts, product descriptions, ad copy. Show you can write tight.
Agencies serve many clients at once: faster learning, more variety, lower pay, longer hours. In-house teams market one company: deeper knowledge, better pay and benefits, slower pace. Many marketers start at an agency for 2 or 3 years, then move in-house for the money and the hours. Freelancing is a third path once you have a specialty and a client or two.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Check yesterday's numbers: ad spend, clicks, sales, email opens. A planning meeting for a product launch. Write or edit copy for an email, a landing page or a social post. Brief a designer or shoot a quick video. Adjust an ad campaign that is underperforming. Report results to a manager or client. Agency days are split across several clients; in-house days go deep on one brand. Launch weeks and big campaigns bring late nights.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
CASL (Canada's anti-spam legislation) requires consent before most marketing emails and texts, with big fines for companies that ignore it. Every marketer in Canada learns the rules in their first month.
The Canadian Marketing Association describes its CM (Chartered Marketer) designation as Canada's only marketing designation, built by marketers for marketers, with accelerated paths for people who already have experience.
A generation ago marketing meant ads and slogans. Today most of the work is running experiments and reading data: which headline, which audience, which price. Marketers who are comfortable with spreadsheets are the ones getting promoted.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.