Advertising Account Executive Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of an advertising account executive. Feel free to use our advertising account executive job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as an advertising account executive.
Who is an Advertising Account Executive?
Advertising account executives, or simply account executives, are the primary liaison between advertising agencies and their clients. This role involves both sales and business development as well as customer relationship management.
Clients meet with advertising account executives to discuss their advertising and promotional requirements, budget allocations for these activities, target audience, competition information, and any other pertinent details.
After client approval, they manage and coordinate promotional campaigns and advertising campaigns, as well as track costs and budgets to ensure projects run smoothly. They keep in touch with past clients and present proposals or pitches to other agency members.
Account executives may be assigned to one client or several clients at once. Account executives must work closely with their colleagues, such as media planners, buyers, copywriters, and designers. They report to the account manager or director.
Advertising Account Executive Job Description
Below are the advertising account executive job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write an advertising account executive job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
- Holding client meetings frequently to establish contact between the client’s creative/advertising and marketing teams.
- Developing advertising campaigns and discussing strategies with clients
- Presenting clients with creative proposals for approval.
- Resolving any problems or delays and soliciting feedback from clients
- Delivering the completed project on time to the client
- Managing the budget for multiple accounts
- Negotiating contracts and acquiring new accounts
- Regularly meeting with clients and acting as a contact between them, the creative team, and us.
- Assisting clients in the development of advertising campaigns and discussing ideas with them.
- Approving clients with creative ideas and checking them for conformance to the brand guidelines.
- Managing the advertising budgets that clients allocate.
- Collaborating with the creative team to create creative campaigns for the client.
- Assisting the creative team in completing all projects within budget and on time.
- Resolving problems and delays.
- Coordinating with clients to arrange promotional events that are in line with the marketing campaign’s goals.
- Negotiating contracts and sourcing new clients
- Keeping in touch with your clients
- Listening to your client’s wishes and needs
- Assessing the industry and business activities of clients and recommending appropriate solutions
- Organizing promotions events for clients
- Designing campaigns or other activities for clients
- Utilizing networking techniques to attract potential clients
- Negotiating deadlines and budgets
- Making presentations and reports
- Keeping client records
- Organizing meetings with clients and keeping in touch to learn their needs
- Subjecting all work submitted to clients to quality control
- Transmitting campaign details to the client and team members
- Monitoring all stages of campaigns to ensure smooth operation
- Writing status reports throughout the project’s duration to keep clients and peers informed
- Ensuring that the budget is kept within the project’s reach
- Offering creative ideas to account managers to help them develop campaigns and encourage creativity in clients’ projects,
- Assisting clients with their advertising needs by working in conjunction with the creative team.
- Executing advertising plans in accordance with agreed-upon budgets, channels, and other parameters.
- Managing several accounts, deadlines, ideas, and other information simultaneously.
- Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), develops and implements them to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Then applies these data to determine the appropriate next steps for future and current campaigns.
Other important tasks include:
Budgets and timelines are created by advertising account executives. They can design bespoke packages and apply their business strategies to solve problems for organizations and achieve revenue and development goals.
- Device marketing campaigns
This job description includes understanding and meeting the needs of clients. They will be able to create a campaign that fits the client’s needs and budget.
- Providing clients’ needs
Advertising account executives negotiate with clients and address challenges to reach agreements. They are available to clients regularly and work to meet their needs to build relationships.
- Set quotas
An advertising account executive also has the responsibility of setting sales quotas and working with other sales professionals to develop effective sales strategies. Supervisors meet with account executives to discuss the project goals, progress, and results.
- Manage client communications
Advertising account executives communicate at all stages with clients and offer ideas.
- Lead a team
They organize and coordinate teams to achieve project milestones. They can manage multiple sales teams and meet with members to discuss progress and provide training to help them improve their performance.
Qualifications
These skills and education experience are required for many advertising account executive jobs:
Education
A bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or communications is required for most account executive positions. The following are some of the most popular majors for account executives:
- Business Administration
A Bachelor of Business Administration degree can give you a solid foundation in business and help you to apply these principles in real life. This degree is offered by many universities with specialties in marketing or management so that you have more experience while you pursue a career as an advertising account executive.
- Communications
A Bachelor of Arts degree in communication will allow you to communicate messages clearly and ethically. Communications degrees are focused on media, marketing, and advertising. This will allow you to become an expert in everything, from technical writing to public relations.
- Marketing
You will learn about marketing fundamentals, consumer behavior, market research, and selling techniques when you earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing. You can expect to learn concepts such as copywriting, business development, and advertising management once you have completed your degree.
Training
Advertising account executives learn more from their experience than through formal training programs.
These entry-level positions can help you learn the basics of customer service and sales as you plan your career.
- Market research analyst
Analysts assess the market, predict sales trends, and monitor the results of marketing programs. They work primarily with data and use software to create models, display numbers on charts and graphs that convey their recommendations.
- Sales representative
They help clients find new customers and create product packages. They work closely with advertising account executives to increase customer loyalty.
- Customer support representative
They answer customer queries and provide useful information about the services and products. These specialists use their interpersonal and communication skills to help customers and support the company’s business development goals.
Certificates
Some advertising account executives choose to become Certified Professional Sales Leaders from the National Association of Sales Professionals to improve their sales skills and stand out among the rest. Account executives must complete a training program and take a certification exam to earn this certificate.
Essential Skills
Successful advertising account executives have a good combination of specialist knowledge and soft skills to be able to carry out their function well and to keep customers enthusiastic about the company. Some examples of key accounting executive competencies are:
- Listening and interpersonal skills
Advertising account executives should have interpersonal skills and active listening skills to be able to approach customers with empathy and understanding. This allows them to be empathetic to customers and make them feel that their needs and feedback are valued. This helps them better understand customer needs so they can present their products and services in a way that customers can see value in them. To do this, you need to be able to change perspective and put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
- Leadership skills
Advertising account executives are often responsible for customer accounts. This means they are responsible for maintaining a good relationship with each customer. They should do this, using their acquired leadership skills with the confidence to give clear directions to departments and ensure that the needs of customers are at the forefront. They must also use these leadership qualities to earn the respect of both their employees and customers and to be recognized for their role.
- Written and verbal communication skills
Advertising account executives are expected to communicate with customers daily person, over the phone, or via email. They should have excellent communication skills to give clear and comprehensive messages to their customers and employees. It is therefore important to express yourself well and to communicate information appropriately and professionally. These communication skills can also be used to interact with stakeholders or other levels of the organization to update them regularly on the status of their relationships with customers and recently completed assignments. After all, customer advisors are not only in contact with external parties but also form an interface to numerous other functions of the company and should therefore share information appropriately.
- Relationship building skills
As an advertising account executive, it is important to develop a strong connection with customers so that they develop trust in the company, which can lead to long-term relationships. Advertising account executives should be good at interacting with different types of personalities and should always know how a person likes to be addressed. Those who are good with customers on a human level will find it easier to be successful as an advertising account executive.
- Negotiation skills
When advertising account executives work with clients to close or renew their contracts, they need to have great negotiating skills to persuade clients to buy specific company products or services. One of their main goals is to use their negotiation skills to make larger sales that benefit both the customers and the company. In this respect, this competence is essential in their role.
- Organization Skills
Advertising account executives are responsible for the relationship with customers. This requires good structuring and organization of one’s work since customers often have to be approached proactively. As such, they must have good organizational skills to ensure they invest adequate time in communicating with clients regularly and completing their assigned tasks.
How to Become an Advertising Account Executive
- Earn a bachelor’s degree
Although you can be an advertising account executive with only a high school diploma, many employers prefer applicants with an undergraduate degree. You can choose to study business administration, marketing, or communications. These programs prepare future advertising account executives for business management and data analysis. They also teach them how to analyze market trends and develop business and management skills.
- Gain professional sales experience
Prospective account executives may be able to achieve their goals if they have a little bit of experience in client-facing sales roles. Examples of relevant work experience are:
Sales representative: This employee works with a team to identify potential clients and introduce them to the company’s products or services. This is a great way to prepare for your next career step. Sales representatives often work under account executives.
Market research analyst: This profession involves gathering and analyzing data about potential clients and competitors. This position might be for you if your goal is to improve your data analysis skills and use that data to understand the needs of consumers.
Customer service representative: This professional processes customer orders and provides information about a company’s products or services. You can prepare for an account executive position by maintaining long-lasting customer relationships and cataloging customers’ needs.
- Develop relevant skills
By focusing on your career goals, you can prepare for the challenges that advertising account executives face. You might consider asking for additional responsibilities at work.
- Seek professional development opportunities
Consider joining a professional association or attending seminars on topics such as management and sales to help you grow professionally. For professionals looking to improve their skills, some organizations offer training sessions. These events can be used to build professional connections and expand your professional network. These professionals may be able to offer advice or tell you about an employer looking for an account executive. This can help you speed up your job search.
Where to Work
Advertising account executives work full-time and may work overtime when there are major deadlines approaching. They work in offices but may also travel to meet clients or conduct business in other locations.
Advertising account executives can also work in large companies, in advertising agencies, or in media. Advertising vacancies in specialist publications include Campaign, Marketing, The Drum, and Media Week.
Advertising Account Executive Salary Scale
Many advertising account executives work full-time. Salary for account executives depends on education, work experience, and the industry and company location.
The average salary in the U.S. is $67,443 per annum
Also, the salary of this professional can fall between the range of $14,000 and $179,000 annually depending on the factors highlighted above.