Marketing Specialist salary in Knoxville, TN

Pay in Knoxville against Tennessee and the US

The middle half of marketing specialists in Knoxville earns $47,070–$82,170. Pay is tightly grouped: the top tenth starts at $104,200, only 2.8 times the bottom tenth, against 3.6 times across the US, so the going rate is easier to read. The mean ($68,150) is 8% 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 $35,100 wide, against $44,700 across Tennessee and $49,960 nationally: employers in Knoxville pay within a narrower band.

What to budget for a marketing specialist here

An offer at the 75th percentile instead of the median adds $19,280 a year in pay and about $24,877 in employer cost. Going down to the 25th percentile saves $15,820 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 Knoxville, and the Tennessee statewide median of $69,790 falls there too.

What a hire really costs in Knoxville

At the $62,890 median, a local hire costs about $81,148 a year: benefits and payroll taxes other than paid leave are 22.5% of total compensation in US private industry², about $18,258 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 Knoxville

Of the 17 roles we track in Knoxville, this one ranks #6 by median pay, between office managers ($63,580) and sales development representatives ($59,400). Project Coordinator is the highest at $91,690.

Measured against the US median, marketing specialists rank #16 of the 17 roles we track in Knoxville (-20.1%), between medical administrative assistants (-16.4%) and paralegals (-20.8%). The typical role here is at -11.0%, so, measured against the US, marketing specialists cost less in Knoxville than the area's general pay level would suggest. Marketing specialists hold 3.7% of the jobs in these 17 roles in Knoxville, 3.6% across Tennessee and 5.7% nationally. The job is a smaller part of the local workforce in these roles than it is nationally.

Other areas in Tennessee

Across the 14 areas of Tennessee with data for this job, the median runs from $53,560 in the East Tennessee nonmetro area to $77,240 in Nashville-Murfreesboro, a gap of $23,680 a year. All 2 areas in Tennessee with more marketing specialists than Knoxville also pay more, among them Nashville-Murfreesboro, TN ($77,240) and Memphis, TN-MS ($71,600).

Knoxville against other US metro areas

By number of jobs, Knoxville is #67 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 Tennessee, Toledo and Provo-Orem pay just above Knoxville and Fresno and Blacksburg-Christiansburg just below. All four are within $100 a year of the median in Knoxville. Of the three markets with about as many marketing specialists, all three pay more.

Questions

Sources

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