A Guide to Every Marketing Role in 2025 (CMO to Content Strategist)

This guide breaks down the essential roles in marketing from the C-suite to specialist individual contributors. For each role you’ll find what it owns, how it collaborates, and the core measures that matter—so you can write sharper marketing job descriptions, map career paths, and understand the major types of marketing jobs that power modern teams. This guide also helps those in the marketing field choose the right path and find what best aligns with their strengths and interests.

1) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

The CMO sets brand vision, growth strategy, org design, and budget across all marketing roles. They translate corporate objectives into portfolio bets, orchestrate go-to-market, and represent marketing at the executive table. In 2025, CMOs report marketing budgets flat at 7.7% of company revenue, matching 2024’s low-water mark (Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey).

• Core KPIs: revenue growth/mix, CAC/LTV and payback, brand health/SOV, marketing efficiency.
  
• Job description: Own enterprise marketing strategy, lead senior leaders (brand, growth, product marketing, comms), allocate budget, hire/mentor talent, and ensure cross-functional alignment.
  

2) VP / Head of Marketing

This leader converts strategy into operating plans and cross-functional rhythms. They manage directors, land quarterly roadmaps, and ensure the right balance of demand creation, brand building, and enablement across types of marketing jobs.

• Core KPIs: pipeline contribution, channel performance, forecast accuracy, team capacity.
  
• Job description: Translate CMO strategy into plans, lead directors, control spend, and deliver outcomes across paid/owned/earned media and product launches.
  

3) Marketing Director / Group Marketing Manager

Directors own a domain (Brand, Growth, Product Marketing, Regional, or Category). They shape positioning, budgets, and resourcing while ensuring programs ship on time and hit goals. They’re the connective tissue between leadership and execution across marketing jobs.

• Core KPIs: initiative ROI, on-time delivery, team utilization, stakeholder satisfaction.
  
• Job description: Build multi-channel programs, manage managers, oversee forecasting, and uphold quality standards and brand governance.
  

4) Brand Marketing Manager

This role crafts positioning, messaging, and identity systems that scale. They run upper-funnel campaigns, partnerships, and PR moments to create mental availability and trust—critical roles in marketing for long-term growth.

• Core KPIs: aided/unaided awareness, Share of Voice, brand consideration, creative effectiveness.
  
• Job description: Lead brand campaigns, manage agencies, codify visual/verbal standards, and partner with comms, social, and product teams to keep the brand consistent.
  

5) Product Marketing Manager (PMM)

PMMs sit at the intersection of product, sales, and customer insight. They own segmentation, value prop, competitive intelligence, pricing/packaging, and launch orchestration—one of the most cross-functional marketing roles.

• Core KPIs: win rate, feature adoption, revenue from launches, message pull-through, sales enablement usage.
  
• Job description: Define target personas, craft positioning and narratives, build launch plans, enable sales, and maintain competitive/market intelligence.
  

6) Demand Generation / Growth Marketing Manager

Accountable for predictable pipeline, this role designs acquisition and conversion systems across paid, organic, and partnerships. They test offers, landing pages, audiences, and creative to scale efficiently.

• Core KPIs: pipeline created, MQL→SQL conversion, CAC & payback, incremental lift.
  
• Job description: Plan and operate performance channels, build experiments, partner with web/CRM, and optimize the funnel from first touch to closed-won.
  

7) Lifecycle / CRM Marketing Manager

Owns post-acquisition journeys: onboarding, nurture, expansion, and retention across email, SMS, in-app, and push. They segment audiences, personalize content, and increase LTV—pivotal marketing jobs in subscription and B2B.

• Core KPIs: activation rate, retention/churn, ARPU/LTV, feature engagement.
• Job description: Design lifecycle strategy, build multi-step automations, manage lists and deliverability, and coordinate with product and success.
• Why it matters: Companies that excel at personalization generate ~40% more revenue from those activities than average players (McKinsey, “The value of getting personalization right”).

8) Marketing Operations / Revenue Operations

The backbone of every modern team, Ops runs the tech stack (MAP/CRM), lead routing, data quality, attribution, and governance. They ensure all marketing roles are measurable and compliant.

• Core KPIs: data accuracy, funnel SLA adherence, reporting reliability, campaign velocity.
  
• Job description: Architect and administer systems, standardize processes, maintain CRM hygiene, define taxonomy, and enable attribution and budgeting.
  

9) Performance / Paid Media Manager

Buys and optimizes paid search, social, display, video, and affiliates. Owns budgets, bidding, creative rotation, and experimentation to hit growth targets.

• Core KPIs: ROAS/MER, CAC, impression share, quality score, incremental lift.
  
• Job description: Build media plans, launch/optimize campaigns, manage pixels/feeds, collaborate with creative, and report channel economics.
  

10) SEO Lead / Organic Growth Manager

Drives sustainable organic visibility via technical SEO, content architecture, and authority building. Partners with content, PR, and product to align site health with search demand.

• Core KPIs: non-brand traffic, rankings for strategic queries, organic conversions, crawl health (CWV, indexation).
• Job description: Run technical audits, keyword/topic research, on-page optimization, internal linking, and editorial collaboration for search impact.
• Pro Tip: 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile page takes longer than 3 seconds to load—make speed a core part of your media + web handshake (Think with Google).

11) Content Strategist / Editorial Lead

Sets content pillars, formats, and governance; aligns editorial with brand, SEO, and lifecycle needs. Turns insights into assets that rank, educate, and persuade across the funnel—foundational in many types of marketing jobs.

• Core KPIs: content-assisted pipeline/revenue, organic growth, engagement depth, publication cadence.
  
• Job description: Own content roadmap and guidelines, brief creators, manage calendars and distribution, and ensure consistency with brand voice.
  

12) Social Media Manager / Community Social Lead

Builds channel-native storytelling and conversation across TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and X. Balances brand building with performance, social care, and creator collaborations.

• Core KPIs: reach, watch time, engagement quality, traffic/conversions from social.
  
• Job description: Plan channel strategies, produce short-form and live content, manage communities, and align with PR and growth for real-time moments.
  

13) Communications / PR Manager

Owns earned media strategy, press relationships, executive visibility, and crisis response. Shapes narrative and credibility—an anchor among senior marketing roles.

• Core KPIs: Tier-1 coverage, Share of Voice, sentiment, message pull-through.
  
• Job description: Build PR plans, pitch media, prep spokespeople, manage announcements/issues, and integrate PR with brand and product cycles.
  

14) Creative Director / Brand Design Lead

Translates strategy into concept and craft. Oversees design systems, art direction, video, and campaign narratives to make the brand unmistakable.

• Core KPIs: brand consistency, creative quality, asset velocity, campaign performance.
  
• Job description: Lead designers/writers/producers, evolve identity systems, set creative standards, and ensure assets serve both brand and performance needs.
  

15) Copywriter / Content Writer

Writes copy that informs, persuades, and converts across ads, web, email, product UX, and long-form. Keeps voice consistent and accessible.

• Core KPIs: CTR/CVR lifts, engagement time, organic rankings, message clarity.
  
• Job description: Craft headlines, body copy, scripts, and guides; collaborate with SEO, PMM, and design; maintain tone-of-voice across marketing materials and content.
  

16) Marketing Designer / Motion Designer

Creates campaign visuals, landing pages, social templates, video/motion graphics, and maintains the design system.

• Core KPIs: asset quality, on-time delivery, brand adherence, creative testing impact.
  
• Job description: Produce high-quality visuals, optimize for channels and formats, iterate via data, and uphold accessibility and brand standards.
  

17) Web / Digital Experience Manager

Owns the website as a product: information architecture, UX/UI, personalization, A/B testing, and Core Web Vitals—central to many marketing roles.

• Core KPIs: site speed (LCP/INP/CLS), conversion rate, bounce/engagement, form completion.
  
• Job description: Prioritize roadmap, partner with SEO/growth/engineering, run experiments, and ensure the site is fast, inclusive, and converting.
• Benchmark to hit: “Good” Core Web Vitals = LCP ≤ 2.5s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1—practical thresholds your web and SEO teams should monitor each release (Google web.dev — Core Web Vitals).
  

18) Events / Field Marketing Manager

Designs field programs, trade shows, roadshows, and webinars that connect sales with target accounts. Turns in-person energy into pipeline.

• Core KPIs: sourced/influenced pipeline, meetings set, attendee quality, post-event follow-through.
  
• Job description: Plan booths/sessions, manage vendors and budgets, coordinate with sales on invites and follow-ups, and measure business impact.
  

19) Partnerships / Channel & Affiliate Manager

Builds alliances that extend reach or distribution—technology partners, marketplaces, agencies, or influencers. Structures incentives and co-marketing.

• Core KPIs: partner-sourced revenue, joint campaign ROI, partner retention/expansion.
  
• Job description: Source and evaluate partners, negotiate agreements, run co-branded programs, and integrate partner stories into marketing job descriptions and plans.
  

20) Community Manager / Advocacy Lead

Nurtures owned communities (forums, Slack/Discord, ambassador programs). Converts passionate users into advocates who generate content, reviews, and referrals.

• Core KPIs: active members, UGC volume/quality, referral traffic, retention lift.
  
• Job description: Facilitate discussions, spotlight member stories, orchestrate ambassador perks, and loop insights back to product and support.
  

21) Influencer / Creator Marketing Manager

Finds and manages creators, negotiates usage rights, and integrates UGC into paid/owned. Bridges authenticity with scale—an expanding type of marketing job in digital-first teams.

• Core KPIs: creator-driven sales/lift, cost per content, engagement quality, EMV.
  
• Job description: Vet creators, brief and approve content, manage whitelisting, coordinate with legal/brand, and fold creator assets into performance channels.
  

22) Email / Marketing Automation Specialist

Builds and optimizes triggered and lifecycle communications in the MAP/ESP. Ensures deliverability and data hygiene while personalizing at scale.

• Core KPIs: deliverability, open/click-to-open, contribution to revenue/LTV.
• ROI signal: Email continues to outperform, returning about $36 for every $1 spent on average (Litmus, State of Email 2025).
• Job description: Architect journeys, segment audiences, maintain templates, govern frequency, and run A/B tests that support the value proposition in marketing.
  

23) Customer / Advocacy Marketing Manager

Turns customer success into social proof and growth. Produces case studies, reviews, references, and referral programs that compound trust.

• Core KPIs: NPS/CSAT, review volume/quality, referenceable accounts, expansion revenue.
  
• Job description: Source and tell customer stories, run reference programs, manage review sites, and partner with sales on proof packages.
  

24) ABM (Account-Based Marketing) Manager

Partners with sales to land and expand named accounts via tailored content, ads, events, and direct mail. Hyper-targeted among marketing jobs.

• Core KPIs: target-account engagement, meetings, stage progression, deal velocity.
  
• Job description: Build 1:Many/1:Few/1:1 programs, align with SDR/AEs, customize journeys and content, and report account-level influence.
  

25) Market Research / Insights Lead

Runs qualitative and quantitative studies, competitive analysis, and market sizing. Supplies the facts that power positioning and prioritization.

• Core KPIs: study adoption by stakeholders, decision impact, speed and rigor of insights.
  
• Job description: Plan research, run surveys/interviews, synthesize findings, maintain competitor dossiers, and brief leaders across roles in marketing.
  

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26) Marketing Analyst / Attribution & Insights

Owns analytics—from dashboards to MMM/MTA and forecasting. Ensures the team can prove and improve.

• Core KPIs: data quality, reporting accuracy, forecast variance, validated lift.
  
• Job description: Build BI dashboards, maintain taxonomies, run cohort and incrementality analysis, and guide budget allocation.
  

27) Merchandising / Ecommerce Marketing Manager

Connects product, promo, and profit on digital shelves. Optimizes assortments, pricing, PDPs, search, and retail media.

• Core KPIs: revenue, AOV, conversion rate, margin, attach rate, promo ROI.
  
• Job description: Own online merchandising strategy, launch calendars, on-site storytelling, and collaborate with performance and supply chain.
  

Quick FAQ

What are the main roles in marketing?‍

They range from CMO and VPs to product marketing, brand, growth, content, SEO, social, ops, and analytics.

How do I choose between different types of marketing jobs?‍

Match your strengths—strategic, creative, analytical, or technical—to the role’s core responsibilities.

What does a CMO do?‍

A CMO sets marketing strategy, allocates budget, leads teams, and ties brand and growth to revenue.

What is in a strong marketing job description?‍

Clear mission, key responsibilities, required skills, success metrics, and collaboration partners.

How does product marketing differ from brand marketing?‍

Product marketing defines positioning and launches; brand marketing builds awareness and perception.

What skills are vital for modern marketing roles?‍

Customer insight, data literacy, storytelling, cross-functional collaboration, and experimentation.

The Role That Fits

Strong teams clarify marketing roles and write precise marketing job descriptions that link work to outcomes. Whether you’re hiring a CMO or a marketing major picking their field, use these outlines to align expectations, build career paths, and connect yourself to your role. Ultimately, your ideal marketing role depends on the problems you enjoy solving and the metrics you want to own. Don't chase the trendiest title; instead, follow your natural aptitude. If you thrive on data, testing, and predictable pipeline, pursue a Growth/Demand Generation track. If you are energized by crafting narratives and building long-term emotional connections, look into Brand and Communications. And if you love translating product features into customer value, Product Marketing is your fit. Use the core KPIs for each domain as your guide to select the path where your unique skills will generate the most impactful results and professional satisfaction.