Business trends including changes in salaries and benefits can make or break an agency’s profitability from one year to the next. That’s why we conduct a comprehensive annual salary and benefits survey and we’ve just wrapped up our 2015 edition (you can buy the 40-page final report here). The results are quite insightful.   First a few facts about the respondents: 1,537 respondents Agency size ranged from 1 employee to over 150 employees All regions of the US and Canada were represented although there were not enough Canadian responses for statistical validity Salary Observations: Most salaries either held steady or rose in the 2015 results. One area that that saw its salary range decline or at best, hold steady was the CEOs salary. As agency salaries increase and the ability to increase billable rates or project pricing has not – it appears as though some CEOs are robbing from themselves to increase the pay of their key employees. The media department also took a hit in some cases. This may suggest that as agencies buy less traditional media (it seems like agencies are either specializing in this or hiring it out more and more) they are trimming some of their more expensive employees and keeping those middle-income team members. Copywriters and content writers also saw a healthy increase in salaries, ranging from 5-10%. Interestingly art directors and graphic designers did not see that same kind of increase; in fact in most categories they stayed steady with their 2014 salaries. The most significant increases came in the digital departments, with programmers leading the way. The average increase in this department was 10+% over the 2014 salaries. Benefits Observations: Clearly, agencies value their employees and try very [...]