What Are the Math Requirements for a Marketing Major?

When people think of marketing, they often think of advertising, social media posts, and similar activities.

What they might not think of nearly as quickly is math.

Even though marketing is most often associated with creativity, most marketing degree programs have math-based requirements.

Why Is Math Required for A Marketing Major?

It's easy to wonder why math would be required for a marketing degree, especially for the more creative aspects such as graphic design and copywriting.

Marketing as a career is much more than just a creative output, though, and having a basic understanding of math is very beneficial.

Some applications of math in marketing include:

• Data and metric analysis
• Marketing strategy projections
• Calculating return on Investment and other Key Performance Indicators

Most modern marketers use tools to perform most of these calculations for them.

Ranging from Google-made programs to various third-party applications, marketers have no shortage of tools to help them.

Even if you're not doing the math personally, understanding what goes into these calculations can help you interpret the data for your team and clients.

Math Requirements for Marketing Degrees

Students can pursue a marketing degree in any of the four main types of degrees. Each degree level will come with different course requirements, especially for math.

The math requirements for each degree level vary because the degrees are often used for different careers post-graduation.

Graduates with a master's level marketing degree are more likely to find a career in high-level management or even as a chief executive.

The math requirements for marketing majors will reflect the potential post-graduation careers.

Your school's curriculum is another variable that impacts how much math is required to complete a marketing degree.

Not all accredited universities have the same required classes for a degree.

Associate's Degree

A marketing associate degree program takes about 2 to 3 years to complete. This is the lowest level of degree and comes with the fewest requirements.

Most colleges require only basic math for an associate degree, such as Accounting I or a 100-level Business Math.

Bachelor's Degree

A bachelor's is one of the more common degrees that marketing majors pursue.

Designed to be completed in about 4 years, these degrees open graduates to various marketing careers.

Because a marketing major pursuing a bachelor's will likely be involved in data analysis and metric tracking when they enter their career, there is usually a larger math requirement.

An average bachelor's degree can see a student taking math classes such as Accounting I and II, higher level Business Math classes, and more traditional math-based classes such as Algebra, Statistics, Trigonometry, and even Calculus.

Even if math won't be a part of your day-to-day responsibilities, having the skills to understand larger parts of the business is advantageous to a future marketer.

Master's Degree

Master's degrees aren't required to hold management and executive positions in companies, but they are often a big benefit.

Mirroring the expectation of higher-level corporate work, this degree range will feature more advanced business-related math classes.

However, master's degrees are usually earned after a student graduates from their bachelor's program or, in some cases, concurrently with a bachelor's.

This means that most of the math requirements for a bachelor's will be included in the larger master's path, even if it is not expressly detailed in the curriculum.

Doctorate Degree

Although less common than bachelor's or even master's degrees, you can earn a doctoral marketing degree.

Much like a master's level degree, this is completed after earning previous degrees, so any math requirements that a school has for the lower degrees will carry over to the long-term path of earning a Ph.D. or DBA (Doctor of Business Administration).

It's important to note, though, that doctoral-level degrees are often more focused on the theoretical aspects of marketing.

A curriculum for a doctoral degree might not list all of the math classes required for the degree earned before it.

Can I Earn a Marketing Degree Without Math Classes?

No, all accredited schools will have some form of math requirements for marketing majors.

In most cases, these requirements are business-related math classes, such as business math, accounting, finance, and statistics.

Some schools include algebra, calculus, and trigonometry in their curriculums because of their applications to business functions, but these are often considered as non-business-related classes in the early years of a program.

Find The Right Marketing Degree for You

Both online and in-person colleges have math requirements for marketing majors.

No matter which level of marketing degree you choose to pursue, Learn.org can help you find the right curriculum and school to achieve your goal.

Our database provides access to many of the top schools, regardless of program, to help you figure out what you need to do to earn your dream degree.