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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →There is no universal marketing-spend percentage that fits every business. Gartner’s 2025 benchmark is 7.7% of overall company revenue, but its survey respondents were predominantly from companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue—so treat that figure as a comparison point, not a prescribed target for your business. The CMO Survey’s Spring 2025 results also vary substantially by business type, reporting marketing revenue shares from 6.0% to 15.5% across four B2B and B2C product and service categories.
What do the marketing budget benchmarks show?
Benchmarks are useful only when you know who was surveyed and what the percentage measures. The figures below measure marketing spending as a share of company revenue; they come from separate surveys and should not be combined as if they were one dataset.
| Source and period | Reported marketing spend as a share of revenue | Who or what it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Gartner, 2025 | 7.7% | 402 CMOs and other marketing leaders in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe, surveyed in February–March 2025. Respondents came from multiple industries and company sizes, but the vast majority reported annual revenue above $1 billion. Gartner’s 2025 release. |
| Gartner, 2024 | 7.7% | 395 CMOs and marketing leaders surveyed in February–March 2024 across North America and Northern and Western Europe; most reported median annual revenue above $5.3 billion. Gartner also reported 9.1% for 2023, but the survey populations and wording should be checked before interpreting the figures as a directly comparable trend. Gartner’s 2024 release. |
| The CMO Survey, Spring 2025 | 6.4% B2B products; 9.0% B2B services; 15.5% B2C products; 6.0% B2C services; 9.4% overall | A separate survey’s reported averages, published in the Spring 2025 Highlights and Insights Report. The hosted copy is on SlideShare; verify detailed figures against the publisher’s original report before using them for a high-stakes comparison. |
The CMO Survey report also gives markedly different sector figures: 27.4% for communications/media and 26.0% for consumer packaged goods, versus 1.0% for energy and 1.5% for mining/construction. These are reported sector values, not reliable targets for an individual firm; check the original report and its sample details before treating an extreme average as typical.
Why 7.7% is not automatically the right target
The Gartner figure describes its surveyed companies, not a rule for all businesses. In particular, its 2025 respondent base was weighted toward very large organizations. A small local firm, a startup, a B2B software company, and a consumer-products brand may have different growth goals, sales cycles, margins, and marketing needs.
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Business model alone can change the relevant comparison. In The CMO Survey’s Spring 2025 figures, the reported share ranges from 6.0% for B2C services to 15.5% for B2C products. Those percentages come from that survey’s population and should not be read as a guaranteed range or as a recommendation for every company.
Keep the metric straight, too. Marketing as a share of revenue is not the same as marketing as a share of the company’s total budget. Nor is the total marketing budget the same as advertising or paid media spending.
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How to decide what your business should spend
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Define the percentage before choosing it
Specify the denominator—actual or projected revenue, for example—the costs included in “marketing,” and the period covered. Distinguish a recurring annual budget from a temporary growth initiative. Without these definitions, comparisons can look precise while measuring different things.
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Choose the closest available peers
Compare your proposed budget with businesses that resemble yours in B2B or B2C model, products or services, sector, company scale, geography, and survey year. If no close peer group is available, call the comparison approximate rather than implying it is an exact benchmark. Gartner’s 2025 and 2024 surveys and The CMO Survey’s Spring 2025 report cover different populations, so do not silently blend their results.
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Build the budget around your objectives and economics
Start with what the business is trying to accomplish and what its finances can support. Consider the expected role of marketing in those objectives and assess planned investment alongside business results and constraints. A survey average can inform that discussion, but it cannot establish what your company can afford or what spend will produce.
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Separate total marketing from paid media
In Gartner’s 2025 survey, paid media represented 30.6% of marketing budgets, equivalent to 2.4% of company revenue for the surveyed population. These are reported allocations, not a recommended channel mix or a separate universal advertising target. Do not use the paid-media figure as if it were the company’s full marketing-spend percentage. Gartner’s release provides the survey context.
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Revisit the target when goals or conditions change
Use the percentage as one planning measure alongside the company’s objectives, results, and constraints. Gartner reported that 59% of surveyed CMOs said their budgets were insufficient to execute their 2025 strategy. That is a finding about those respondents’ views, not proof that every business should increase its budget.
What the newer Gartner update does—and does not—tell you
Gartner’s June 8, 2026 release discusses channel mix and marketing labor share, but it does not publish an updated overall marketing-budget-to-revenue percentage. Its allocation findings therefore cannot be used to infer a newer total-spend benchmark. See Gartner’s 2026 release for that channel context.
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