Best States for Advertising and Promotions Managers: New York, California, and Texas Stand Out for Scale and Pay

Across the data LaborCove tracks, the best states for advertising and promotions managers show very different combinations of pay, employment size, and Geography Scores. New York tops the LaborCove rankings, California combines a high score with one of the largest supplied employment counts, and Texas illustrates that a state can rank highly overall without matching the national median salary. Several top‑ranked states have median pay well above the national benchmark of $133,660, while a few sit below that level. For career planning, the key takeaway is that LaborCove’s rankings highlight distinct trade‑offs between geography score, salary, and employment size rather than pointing to a single "best" state for everyone.

LaborCove’s national data for advertising and promotions managers provides a baseline for comparing the states. National median annual salary for this occupation is $133,660, with national employment at 21,470 positions. The occupation’s national projected employment growth is -2.2%, indicating a projected decline at the national level. This projection is not broken out by state or metro in the supplied evidence, so it should be interpreted as context for the occupation across the country rather than as a forecast for any specific geography. Against this backdrop, the top‑ranked states differ in how their median salaries relate to the $133,660 national benchmark, and how their employment counts, where supplied, relate to the national total of 21,470 roles.

New York holds LaborCove’s #1 state ranking for advertising and promotions managers, with a Geography Score of 85.41. Its median annual salary of $173,700 is higher than the national median of $133,660, and its employment count of 3,550 represents a sizable share of the 21,470 roles nationally. California ranks #2 with a Geography Score of 80.52. Its median annual salary of $167,230 is also above the national median of $133,660, and its employment count of 3,080 is lower than New York’s 3,550 but still represents one of the larger supplied state‑level employment counts among the top‑ranked states. The comparison between these two states shows that New York has a higher Geography Score and a higher median salary than California, along with a larger supplied employment count. Both states, however, sit above the national median salary while occupying the top two positions in LaborCove’s state rankings.

Texas is ranked #3 in LaborCove’s results, with a Geography Score of 62.18. Its median annual salary is $104,170, which is lower than the national median of $133,660 and also lower than New York’s $173,700 and California’s $167,230. Where Texas stands out in the supplied data is employment: at 3,670 roles, it has the largest state employment count among the listed top geographies. Texas’s 3,670 jobs exceed New York’s 3,550 and California’s 3,080, and each of these three states accounts for a notable portion of the 21,470 positions nationally. This combination—ranking third overall by Geography Score while having the largest supplied employment count and a median salary below the national benchmark—illustrates that LaborCove’s rankings reflect more than just pay levels.

Several states in the LaborCove top 10 pair high median salaries with smaller supplied employment counts. New Jersey ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 56.04, a median salary of $165,390, and an employment count of 470. Washington is #6 with a Geography Score of 55.55, a median salary of $163,380, and employment of 530. Massachusetts and Colorado also show this pattern. Massachusetts holds the #7 rank with a Geography Score of 55.19, a median salary of $163,090, and employment of 300. Colorado ranks #8, with a Geography Score of 53.07, a median salary of $164,990, and employment of 180. All four of these states—New Jersey at $165,390, Washington at $163,380, Massachusetts at $163,090, and Colorado at $164,990—have median salaries above the national median of $133,660. At the same time, each has a smaller supplied employment count than Texas’s 3,670, New York’s 3,550, and California’s 3,080.

South Carolina is ranked #4 with a LaborCove Geography Score of 59.47 and a median annual salary of $156,300, which is above the national median of $133,660. Employment data for South Carolina is not supplied, so no comparison can be made on that metric. North Carolina, ranked #9, has a Geography Score of 50.84 and a median salary of $121,730. This figure is below the national median of $133,660. Illinois rounds out the top 10 at rank #10 with a Geography Score of 50.66, a median salary of $167,330, and an employment count of 160. Illinois’s median salary of $167,330 is higher than the national median and also higher than California’s $167,230 by a small margin. Taken together, the presence of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Illinois in the top 10 underscores that both above‑ and below‑national salaries can appear among highly ranked states, and that the LaborCove Geography Score incorporates more than a single salary threshold.

LaborCove’s rankings for advertising and promotions managers use authoritative labor‑market data for the occupation (OEWS reference month May 2025) combined with LaborCove’s own Geography Score methodology. For this article, we use the supplied national median annual salary, national employment, and a national projected employment growth rate of -2.2% as context for the occupation overall. The growth figure is a national projection only and is not applied to individual states. At the state level, LaborCove relies on the provided rankings, median salaries, employment counts where available, and Geography Scores. The Geography Score reflects LaborCove’s composite assessment of a location, but the exact weighting of salary, employment, and other factors is internal to the scoring system and not broken out in this article. Rankings are one input into a career or relocation decision rather than a prescription. Individual preferences, such as desired industries, non‑work priorities, and tolerance for relocation, should be considered alongside these data‑driven comparisons.