Email marketing specialist job description: duties, skills and a sample

An email marketing specialist job description tells candidates what the role owns: planning, building and sending email campaigns, keeping the list healthy, and proving results with data. A good one names the platforms, the programs, the metrics, and the compliance rules the person will work with, so the right people apply and the wrong ones self-select out.

TL;DR

• An email marketing specialist plans, executes, tests, and measures email campaigns and automated journeys.
• Key responsibilities include campaign management, segmentation, automation, A/B testing, deliverability, compliance, and reporting.
• Essential skills include email copywriting, marketing automation platforms, analytics, and list management.
• Responsibilities vary by experience level, from campaign execution for junior specialists to lifecycle strategy for senior specialists.
• A strong job description should specify the platform, role expectations, performance metrics, experience level, and salary range.
• Use the provided job description template to create a clear, role-specific posting.
• Assess candidates with skills tests, practical work samples, and structured interviews rather than relying on resumes alone.

What does an email marketing specialist do?

An email marketing specialist plans, builds, sends, and measures a company's email campaigns. The day-to-day work covers newsletters and promotions, automated journeys such as welcome and win-back series, list segmentation, A/B testing, and reporting on opens, clicks, conversions, and revenue, while keeping every send compliant and out of the spam folder.

The scope depends on company size. In a small team, the specialist often writes the copy, builds the template, and reports the numbers alone. In a larger team, the specialist sits between content, design, CRM, and analytics and owns the email platform and the send calendar. If you are new, the email marketing glossary entry explains the basics.

What should an email marketing specialist job description include?

An email marketing specialist job description should include seven parts: a short role summary, the programs the person will own, responsibilities, required skills and tools, nice-to-have skills, the metrics that define success, and the practical details (level, reporting line, location, and salary range). Most templates stop at responsibilities and skills, which is why so many postings read the same.

Two parts do most of the filtering. Naming the programs ("a 6-email onboarding series, weekly newsletter, cart recovery") tells candidates what the work really is. Naming the metrics ("click rate, revenue per send, list growth, spam complaints") tells them how they will be judged. For the general structure of any posting, see the job description glossary entry.

What are the key email marketing specialist responsibilities?

Email marketing specialist responsibilities fall into six groups: campaign planning and execution, automation, list and data management, testing, deliverability and compliance, and reporting. List the groups that match your team and cut the rest, because a posting that asks for everything signals that nobody has decided what the role is.

• Campaign execution: Plan, build, QA, and schedule promotional emails and newsletters against a shared calendar.
• Automation: Build and maintain triggered journeys: welcome, onboarding, nurture, cart or browse abandonment, re-engagement, and post-purchase.
• List and data management: Grow the list with clean opt-ins, segment by behavior and lifecycle stage, and remove hard bounces and inactive contacts.
• Testing: Run A/B tests on subject lines, offers, layouts, calls to action, and send times, and record what each test taught the team.
• Deliverability and compliance: Monitor inbox placement, spam complaints, and authentication, and keep every send within the email law that applies to your audience.
• Reporting: Report opens, clicks, conversions, revenue, and unsubscribes, and turn the numbers into next steps rather than a monthly screenshot.

Across the teams we work with, the clearest postings also say who the specialist works with: content writers, designers, the CRM or marketing ops owner, and sales or customer success.

What skills and qualifications should you list?

The skills to list for an email marketing specialist are copywriting for email, hands-on experience with an email or marketing automation platform, segmentation and A/B testing, basic HTML and CSS for email templates, analytics, and working knowledge of deliverability and email law. Qualifications should be experience-based, such as two years running campaigns, rather than a fixed degree.

Degrees matter less than proof of work for this role. LinkedIn's Economic Graph research on skills-based hiring found in its March 2025 note that a skills-based approach could expand talent pools by 6.1x globally, so "bachelor's degree or equivalent experience" is the safer line. Our guide to skills-based hiring covers the wider case.

How is an email marketing specialist different from an email marketing manager?

An email marketing specialist executes and improves the email program, while an email marketing manager owns the email strategy, budget, and team. Specialists build campaigns, run tests, and report results. Managers set goals, choose platforms, decide the roadmap, and answer marketing leadership for revenue from the channel.

If the role you are hiring owns the strategy, start from the email marketing manager job description template instead. If email is one channel among SEO, paid, and social, the digital marketing specialist job description template fits better.

How do responsibilities change by experience level?

Email marketing specialist responsibilities grow from execution to ownership as the level rises. A junior specialist builds and sends campaigns from a brief. A mid-level specialist owns programs, segments, and tests. A senior specialist owns the lifecycle strategy for a product or region, sets the testing roadmap, and coaches others.

• Junior (0 to 2 years): Builds emails in the platform, proofreads, runs QA and render checks, and schedules sends and pulls standard reports.
• Mid-level (2 to 5 years): Owns the newsletter and two or three automated journeys, designs segments, runs a monthly testing plan, and presents results.
• Senior (5+ years): Owns lifecycle strategy and deliverability, picks what to test next, works with data and product teams, and mentors junior marketers.

Pro tip: Write the level into the title and the first line of the summary. "Email marketing specialist (mid-level, Klaviyo)" filters better than any requirements list.

Which deliverability and compliance duties belong in a 2026 job description?

Deliverability and compliance duties that belong in a 2026 email marketing specialist job description are domain authentication, keeping spam complaints low, honoring unsubscribes fast and following the email laws for your audience. Mailbox providers and regulators have tightened the rules, and a specialist who ignores them can push the whole domain into spam.

• Mailbox provider rules: According to Google's email sender guidelines, anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts must set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe, and keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.30%, with 0.10% as the goal. The email authentication glossary entry explains the three records.
• US law: The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide requires honest headers and subject lines, a valid postal address, and a working opt-out honored within 10 business days, with penalties of up to $53,088 per email that breaks the rules.
• EU and UK audiences: Marketing email to people in the EU and UK needs a lawful basis, usually consent, under GDPR and the UK's electronic marketing rules. Say in the JD if the specialist will manage consent records.

One line in the JD is enough: "Owns deliverability and compliance for all sends (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, CAN-SPAM, GDPR)." That single line tells strong candidates this is a serious program.

What salary should you put in an email marketing specialist job description?

Salary in an email marketing specialist job description should be a range based on level and location, checked against current local data. The closest official benchmark in the US groups email specialists with other marketing specialists, and many US states and cities now require a pay range in the posting itself.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the 2025 median pay for market research analysts and marketing specialists at $78,760 a year, with 952,700 jobs and 7% projected growth from 2025 to 2035. Treat that as a midpoint for a mid-level US hire, then adjust for seniority, platform depth (Salesforce Marketing Cloud skills usually cost more), and location.

What does a sample email marketing specialist job description look like?

A sample email marketing specialist job description is below, written for a mid-level hire at a growing e-commerce or SaaS company. Swap the bracketed parts, delete any program you do not run, and keep the metrics line, because that is the part most postings leave out.

Job title: Email marketing specialist (mid-level)
About the role: [Company] sends [X] emails a month to [Y] subscribers. You will own our newsletter and lifecycle journeys in [platform], working with content, design and marketing ops, and reporting to the [head of lifecycle or marketing manager].
What you will do:

• Plan, build, QA and send weekly campaigns from a shared calendar
• Own our welcome, onboarding, cart recovery and win-back journeys
• Build segments by behavior, purchase history and lifecycle stage
• Run at least two A/B tests a month and share what we learned
• Keep deliverability healthy: authentication, list hygiene, spam complaints under 0.1%
• Keep every send within CAN-SPAM and GDPR
• Report click rate, conversions, revenue per send and list growth every month

What you bring:

• 2+ years running email campaigns in [platform] or a similar tool
• Short, clear copy and a feel for subject lines that get opened
• Experience building automated journeys and segments
• Comfort with analytics and A/B testing
• Basic HTML and CSS for email (a plus)
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

How we measure success in year one: [example: click rate up 15%, two new journeys live, spam complaints below 0.1%].
Details: [Location or remote], [salary range], [benefits].

If you would rather start from a draft, the Testlify job description generator writes one from a job title that you can then edit with the sections above.

What mistakes make an email marketing job description attract the wrong people?

Email marketing job descriptions attract the wrong people when they list every channel, skip the platform, hide the level or describe traits instead of outcomes. The result is a pile of generalist marketers, career changers who have never run a send, and senior candidates who drop out at the salary stage.

1. Listing SEO, paid, social and email as equal duties: That is a digital marketing role. Pick one.
2. Leaving out the platform: A Klaviyo specialist and a Salesforce Marketing Cloud specialist have very different skills.
3. "Results-driven" with no results named: Give the metrics you will judge.
4. No word on volume: Sending 50,000 emails a month and 5 million a month are different jobs.
5. Asking for design, development, copy and strategy from one junior hire: Split the role or raise the level.

Key takeaway: The best email marketing specialist job description names the programs, the platform, the level and the metrics. Everything else is a supporting detail.

How do you check the skills listed in the job description?

Checking the skills listed in an email marketing specialist job description works best with a short skills test before the interview, then a work sample and a structured interview. Resumes show which platforms a person has touched, not whether they can write a subject line, set up a test or explain why a campaign landed in spam.

1. Skills test: Send the email marketing specialist test to every applicant who meets the basics, and add a platform test such as Mailchimp or Salesforce Marketing Cloud if your team uses it.
2. Work sample: Ask shortlisted candidates to rewrite one of your real emails or outline a welcome series for a segment you describe.
3. Structured interview: Use the same questions for every candidate. Our list of email marketing specialist interview questions is a good start, and these tips to evaluate email marketing skills help you score the answers.

Testlify lets you build that first step from the job description itself: pick from 3,500+ tests, add custom questions from 25+ question types, such as a short copywriting task or a file upload of a past campaign, and run it with 20+ proctoring checks. We have seen that the skills test is where most mismatched applicants drop out, which leaves hiring managers more time for the candidates who can do the work.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)