Eastward Partners characterized the firms as largely growth-stage companies, or companies in the digital space that have taken external private equity or venture capital funding. The compensation data examines median total compensation, which includes base salary and bonus. Within those companies, CMOs’ median total compensation in August 2022 was 9.64% higher than a year earlier. That was a sharper rise than seen for other roles, such as CEOs, whose compensation grew 7.45%, or CFOs, whose compensation rose 1.96%, according to Eastward Partners’ data. And that’s actually impacting business performance, because they can’t find the savvy, smart digital marketing people to fill those gaps,” Mr. Neale-May said.

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