Advertising sales is an established trade here: 730 agents in the Portland metro, median pay $76,570. This page lays out the role, the pay model, and the local numbers behind the territory.
The work is local business development. You prospect in the Portland metro, pitch the YelloPost service line, sign accounts and maintain them; the campaigns themselves are built and run by the fulfillment team. You do not have to live in Portland. The territory is the metro, the work is mostly phone, video and email, and some reps meet business owners in person because it helps them close.
How the money works: 18% of every dollar of ad spend your accounts run, paid monthly for as long as they run and you maintain them. No base salary, no hourly, no draw, no ceiling.
The reps who do well here self-direct, prospect daily and think in terms of a book of business rather than a quota. The ones who struggle need a salary, assigned leads or a manager checking in daily. Sign an account spending $3,000 a month and you earn $540 a month on it, automatically; twenty accounts at that average is $10,800 a month before you close another deal.
Employment in the occupation: 730 advertising sales agents across Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA, or 0.6 per 1,000 jobs. Put in national context, a location quotient of 1 puts the occupation at about its national concentration, neither crowded nor empty. A median of $76,570 and a mean of $80,970 for the occupation locally, 18 percent above the national median of $64,820. Treat the BLS wage as the local benchmark for the skill. A rep on the 18% residual model is building an asset, so the useful question is how many accounts the market can support, not the median wage.
| Occupation (SOC) | Jobs | Mean annual | Median annual | vs US median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising sales agents 41-3011 | 730 | $80,970 | $76,570 | 18 percent above |
| Web developers 15-1254 | 850 | $88,210 | $73,920 | 20 percent below |
| Market research analysts and marketing specialists 13-1161 | 8,130 | $97,230 | $85,350 | 8 percent above |
| Wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives 41-4012 | 10,670 | $85,920 | $77,900 | 8 percent above |
The city of Portland itself has 641,165 residents. The median household earns $90,919 a year, 7 percent below the metro-wide figure, and the median home is valued at $581,500, 4 percent above the metro median; 52% of homes are owner-occupied. The city accounts for 25.4% of the metro population of 2.52 million. The civilian labor force is 387,826 people, 22,674 of them unemployed (5.8%). Residents have a median age of 38.8. Of 289,705 households, 150,646 are owners and 139,059 are renters. Among adults 25 and over, 262,078 (53.8%) finished a bachelor's degree or higher. See also: Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA and Oregon.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, metropolitan area Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA (SOC 41-3011, 13-1161, 15-1254, 41-4012, 13-1011). US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates for Portland city and the Portland metro. County Business Patterns 2023. National comparisons use the same BLS and Census series. Pay terms for the YelloPost role are YelloPost's own.
The territory holds 72,943 employer businesses, 28.9 per 1,000 residents, 16 percent above the national figure. Among the trades that buy local advertising most often, the largest here are restaurants (5,355), law firms (1,490) and personal care services (1,462). Home-services contractors (plumbing and HVAC, electrical, roofing, concrete, specialty trades, landscaping) number 3,167, a 4.3% share of all establishments, about the same as the US share; those trades are the steadiest buyers of search advertising. The clearest over-index is child care centers, at 1.4 times the US share of establishments. Crowded categories buy advertising because they have to. See the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA market page for the complete table.
A resume and a short note is enough to start. If the background fits, you get a call within 48 hours.
careers@yellopost.com · (916) 260-2570