Marketing Specialist salary in Cedar Rapids, IA

Pay in Cedar Rapids against Iowa and the US

The middle half of marketing specialists in Cedar Rapids earns $50,010–$82,530. Pay is tightly grouped: the top tenth starts at $122,910, only 3.1 times the bottom tenth, against 3.6 times across the US, so the going rate is easier to read. The mean ($71,930) is 13% over the median, so a group of high earners pulls the average up; price a typical hire from the median. From the 25th to the 75th percentile, the local range is only $32,520 wide, against $35,670 across Iowa and $49,960 nationally: employers in Cedar Rapids pay within a narrower band.

What to budget for a marketing specialist here

An offer at the 75th percentile instead of the median adds $18,900 a year in pay and about $24,387 in employer cost. Going down to the 25th percentile saves $13,620 in pay. These percentiles describe what people in the job earn locally, not experience levels, so place your offer by the tasks and seniority you need.

For scale, the US median of $78,760 falls between the median and the 75th percentile in Cedar Rapids, and the Iowa statewide median of $66,390 falls there too.

What a hire really costs in Cedar Rapids

At the $63,630 median, a local hire costs about $82,103 a year: benefits and payroll taxes other than paid leave are 22.5% of total compensation in US private industry², about $18,473 here. Recruiting, equipment and office space come on top. Benefit levels vary by employer, so treat this as an estimate.

We place executive assistants, customer support and e-commerce staff today; for marketing specialists we answer within one business day whether we can help. Enter the monthly pay you have in mind to compare it with a local hire. The fee field shows our standard fee³; Deel's contractor plan is the default payroll tool⁴.

Other roles in Cedar Rapids

Of the 17 roles we track in Cedar Rapids, this one ranks #5 by median pay, between office managers ($63,730) and recruiters ($63,070). Project Coordinator is the highest at $93,760.

Measured against the US median, marketing specialists rank #16 of the 17 roles we track in Cedar Rapids (-19.2%), between recruiters (-16.9%) and executive assistants (-24.9%). The typical role here is at -8.3%, so, measured against the US, marketing specialists cost less in Cedar Rapids than the area's general pay level would suggest. Marketing specialists hold 7.1% of the jobs in these 17 roles in Cedar Rapids, 6.5% across Iowa and 5.7% nationally. The job is a bigger part of the local workforce in these roles than it is nationally.

Other areas in Iowa

Across the 12 areas of Iowa with data for this job, the median runs from $56,230 in Sioux City to $76,580 in Des Moines-West Des Moines, a gap of $20,350 a year. All 2 areas in Iowa with more marketing specialists than Cedar Rapids also pay more, among them Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA ($76,580) and Davenport-Moline, IA-IL ($71,590).

Cedar Rapids against other US metro areas

By number of jobs, Cedar Rapids is #105 of 514 US areas for this job. It is one of the larger markets for this job, with pay near the middle of the US range. Outside Iowa, Grand Junction and Terre Haute pay just above Cedar Rapids and Bangor and Cheyenne just below. All four are within $80 a year of the median in Cedar Rapids. Of the three markets with about as many marketing specialists, two pay more.

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Sources

How these pages are built: methodology and data sources. Last updated 2026-11-12.