Ad sales compensation survey; is the pay gap narrowing for women in ad sales? How does your salary compare to what your peers earn? And more

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct, 1989 by Robert M. Steed

Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. The life of an ad sales professional is filled with numbers. And, in commenting on their biggest ad sales challenge, many of those professionals also say that challenge is-you guessed it-numbers.

Of course, how that challenge presents itself varies widely, depending on how the magazine is positioned and what the numbers say about it. For instance, one ad sales professional says, "My greatest sales challenge is getting prospects to buy by the numbers - i. e , evaluating media based on the data, rather than buying based on relationships only." Another says, "It's tough selling . . . to agency media buyers/planners who are typically right out of school and handle media on a 'numbers only' basis because of inexperience." Which only serves to prove that the beauty of numbers is in the eye of the beholder.

Another set of numbers is also vital to advertising sales professionals: their own earnings. The results of Folio's fourth annual survey of ad sales compensation indicate that the income potential of this segment of the publishing staff is very high indeed, especially when one looks at total compensation salary plus bonus/commission.

For ad sales professionals who hit the numbers in their sales plans, the payoff can be very handsome. For example, the average bonus/commission for the top one-third of ad directors was almost $72,000; and for the top onethird of ad sales persons it was $46,600. Not hitting the numbers, on the other hand, causes a problem. The average bonus/commissio for the lowest paid ad directors and ad sales persons was about $7,700 and $7,100, respectively. (These results are also affected, of course, by size of magazine and demographic characteristics.)

General findings

This survey, which gives the complete run-down on salaries and total compensation for ad sales directors, managers and salespeople, yields some other important overall conclusions:

* The size of the magazine, measured by ad revenue, ad pages or circulation, correlates directly with compensation for all job categories.

* Baby boomers from 30 to 39 are the largest age group, by far, in each job category in this sample. And, in a few instances, they outearn their counterparts who are 40 to 49.

* Pay of those on consumer magazines is generally higher than pay for those on business magazines in every category except ad sales person, where the tables are turned slightly.

* Overall, women earn 10 percent to 25 percent less than men in three out of the four categories. But there are some faint signals that the gap may be narrowing. For branch/regional/category managers, salaries are equal and women's total compensation is higher; and the same is true for ad sales managers on consumer publications.

* The pay of ad sales professionals is highly leveraged. Almost 92 percent of the sample receives both salary and bonus; and the average total compensation in each category is roughly 60 percent more than the average salary.

Ad sales directors

Ad sales direct6rs earn $60,647 in salary, and their total compensation jumps by roughly $36,000 to $96,565. Those on consumer magazines earn about 10 percent more than their business magazine counterparts in both salary and total compensation.

Compensation differential is especially dramatic among directors. The salary of the highest paid one-third of directors is $97,788, which is 3.27 times that of the lowest paid one-third" and their total compensation is $153,162, triple the $51,797 received by the lowest paid one-third,

The Northeast is clearly the place to be for directors, with salaries and total compensation averaging 30 percent to 60 percent more than in other areas of the country.

Experience also pays off. There is a clear and stead correlation between salary and years in the business, with those who have been around more than 20 years earning $87,533 in salary and $140,073 in total compensation-2.7 and 2.5 times, respectively, what their most junior counterparts take home.

One might expect the same results when the data are examined by age cohorts . Not so. Directors over 50 earn less than double those under 30; the salary of directors in the 30-39 cohort is $10,000 more than for those who are 40-49, while their total compensation is $2,000 higher.

The salary of women ad directors is 73 percent that of men. Their salary plus bonus is 77 percent of men's, indicating that, as a percentage of salary, incentive compensation payments for women are somewhat better than men's.

The clearest and best indicator of salary is magazine size, no matter how that is measured:

* Where ad revenue is $12 million or more, salary averages $110,667 and total compensation is $177,265-in each case almost triple that of magazines with ad revenues under $1 minion. The differences in each interim size bracket are equally dramatic.

* When analyzed in terms of both pages and circulation, the same pattern emerges, although the differences in pay between the biggest and smallest magazines are not as great.