The average company now spends 7.8% of its revenue on marketing, according to Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey. Global ad spending is on track to cross $1 trillion for the first time this year. These marketing statistics cover budgets, digital ad spend, content marketing, email, and social media, with every number taken from the organization that published it.
Marketing Statistics
- 7.8% — Average marketing budget as a share of company revenue in 2026, per Gartner.
- $1 trillion+ — Global advertising spend forecast to cross this mark for the first time in 2026, per Dentsu.
- 97% — B2B marketers who say they run from a documented content strategy, per Content Marketing Institute.
- $36–$42 — Average return for every $1 spent on email marketing, per Litmus.
- 11.3% — Share of marketing budgets US CMOs allocate to social media, per The CMO Survey.
- 15.3% — Share of marketing budgets CMOs now allocate to AI, per Gartner’s 2026 survey.
How Much Do Companies Spend On Marketing?
Marketing budgets have stayed close to flat for three years running. Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey of 401 marketing leaders puts the average budget at 7.8% of company revenue, up only slightly from 7.7% in 2025 and 2024.
That average hides a wide spread. Half of CMOs report budgets of 6% or less, while consumer packaged goods companies often spend closer to 18% and energy companies spend around 3%.
A separate survey tells a different story. The CMO Survey, run by Deloitte, Duke University, and the American Marketing Association, found marketing budgets at 9.0% of revenue in its Spring 2026 edition. The gap comes from different samples: Gartner surveys mostly large companies above $1 billion in revenue, while The CMO Survey covers a broader mix of company sizes.
| Survey | Marketing budget (% of revenue) | Sample |
| Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey | 7.8% | 401 CMOs, mostly $1B+ revenue |
| The CMO Survey, Spring 2026 | 9.0% | Broader mix of US company sizes |
| Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey | 7.7% | 402 CMOs |
Source: Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey; The CMO Survey, Spring 2026 edition.
If your company sits well below these ranges, that is not automatically a problem. It depends on your growth stage and how well you can measure returns. Startups and challenger brands often need to spend more, since they lack the brand recognition that lets bigger players spend less to get noticed.
Company type changes the number more than the averages suggest. B2C product companies tend to spend around 2.5 times more of their revenue on marketing than B2B product companies, based on benchmarking data compiled from SBA guidance and industry surveys. Startups in their first two years often run at 12% to 20% of revenue, since they are building recognition from zero rather than defending an existing position.
Spending through a downturn tends to pay off later. Research cited by Harvard Business Review found that companies which held or increased marketing spend during past recessions grew about 17% faster than competitors once the recession ended. Cutting the budget saves money now, but it can cost market share later.
Digital Ad Spend Is Driving Ad Spend Growth
Global advertising spend is forecast to grow 5.1% in 2026, according to Dentsu’s Global Ad Spend Forecast, pushing the total past $1 trillion for the first time. Digital channels will account for close to 69% of that spend, data from Statista shows.
Retail media is the fastest-growing digital category, expanding faster than search or social as retailers turn their websites and apps into ad platforms. Connected TV and online video are also growing quickly, while spending on print and other traditional formats is flat or declining.
AI-related ad spending, including sponsored placements inside AI search results, will reach about $32 billion in the US in 2026, according to Forbes, with most of that running through paid search listings next to AI Overviews rather than ads inside chatbots.
- The Americas region is expected to grow ad spend around 5.2% in 2026, with the US benefiting from World Cup and midterm election spending.
This growth outpaces the wider global economy, which the IMF expects to grow around 3% in 2026. Advertising is expanding faster than GDP mainly because digital formats keep opening new places to put an ad: retail apps, streaming platforms, and now AI search results.
Content Marketing Statistics And AI Adoption
Content marketing has near-universal adoption among B2B teams, but execution still lags. The Content Marketing Institute’s 2026 B2B Benchmarks survey of 1,015 marketers found 97% operate from some kind of content strategy, the highest rate in the survey’s 16-year history.
Effectiveness is a separate question. Only 59% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing as somewhat or highly effective, and just 12% call it highly effective. The gap between having a strategy and running one well is the biggest theme in this year’s data.
AI use has jumped fast. CMI found 95% of B2B marketers now use AI-powered marketing tools, up sharply from prior years. Despite that, only 9% of B2B marketers plan to grow their human-resources investment in 2026, which points to AI replacing headcount growth rather than adding to it.
- 97% of B2B marketers run from a documented or informal content strategy.
- 59% rate their content marketing as somewhat or highly effective; 12% call it highly effective.
- 95% use AI-powered marketing applications, and AI tops the list of planned 2026 investments.
- 65% of marketers who call their content effective credit content relevance and quality as the top reason.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends 2026 (fielded June–August 2025, n=1,015).
Distribution is spreading across more channels than a few years ago. CMI’s data shows in-person events (52%), webinars (51%), social media (42%), and company blogs (41%) as the most effective distribution channels for B2B teams in 2025. Events and webinars now outperform blogs, a shift from the blog-first playbook most teams built their strategy around.
Video is pulling budget away from text. Wyzowl’s 2026 research found 92% of businesses plan to keep or increase video marketing spend compared with 2025, and 91% now use video as a marketing tool in some form. Video is no longer a separate line item for most teams; it is folded into the standard content mix.
The pattern here matters for planning. Adding AI tools without a documented strategy behind them tends to produce more content, not better results. CMI’s data shows quality and relevance beat volume as the driver of effectiveness.
CMOs Are Pouring Budget Into AI
AI has moved from a side project to a line item. Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey found marketing budgets allocated to AI climbed to 15.3% of the total marketing budget this year.
Ambition is running ahead of readiness. Seventy percent of CMOs told Gartner that becoming an AI leader is a critical goal for 2026, but only 30% say their organization is actually ready to scale AI capabilities. That 40-point gap between goal and readiness is the clearest tension in this year’s data.
The prior year’s survey showed why CMOs keep investing anyway. Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey found GenAI investments were already paying off on productivity: 49% of CMOs reported improved time efficiency, 40% reported improved cost efficiency, and 27% reported a greater capacity to produce content or handle more business without adding headcount.
- 15.3% — Share of marketing budget CMOs allocate to AI in 2026.
- 70% — CMOs who call becoming an AI leader a critical 2026 goal.
- 30% — CMOs who say they are ready to scale AI capabilities.
- 49% — CMOs who saw improved time efficiency from GenAI investment in 2025.
Source: Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey; Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey.
This gap explains a pattern from the content marketing numbers above: 95% of B2B marketers use AI tools, yet only 9% plan to grow their human-resources investment. Budgets are moving toward AI tools faster than teams are building the skills and workflows to use them well.
Does Email Marketing Still Deliver The Best ROI?
Yes. Email marketing returns $36 to $42 for every $1 spent on average, according to Litmus, the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel tracked. That compares with roughly $2 for paid search and $2.80 for social advertising.
Returns vary by industry and by how automated the program is. Retail and ecommerce brands average around $45 per $1 spent, and the top 18% of companies clear $70 or more. Automated, behavior-triggered emails account for 37% of all email-generated sales despite making up only 2% of total sends.
| Channel | Average ROI per $1 spent |
| Email marketing | $36–$42 |
| Social advertising | $2.80 |
| Paid search | $2.00 |
| Display ads | $1.35 |
Source: Litmus State of Email 2026; DMA; Omnisend.
Measurement is the weak point industry-wide. Only about 12.5% of companies say they measure email ROI accurately, and brands that use dedicated email analytics tools see 43% higher reported ROI than those that don’t. If your email numbers look mediocre, checking whether you are tracking revenue correctly is often the first fix, not changing the campaigns themselves.
Social Media Marketing Budgets Are Shifting
US marketing leaders allocate an average of 11.3% of their budgets to social media, according to The CMO Survey’s spring 2026 edition, down slightly from 12.1% in fall 2024. That drop follows a pullback in TikTok investment, while Meta’s share of social budgets recovered to about 60%.
Despite the smaller budget share, most marketers say social delivers results. Sprout Social and other trackers report that a majority of marketing leaders plan to shift budget toward social from other channels this year, and most expect their paid social spend to increase.
- 11.3% — Average share of US marketing budgets going to social media, spring 2026.
- ~60% — Share of social ad budgets going to Meta platforms.
- 71% — Marketers who say social media delivers measurable ROI, up from 63% in 2023.
Source: The CMO Survey, 35th edition; Keen Decision Systems 2026 Marketing Benchmarks Report.
Reach keeps growing even as budget share shrinks. Global social media user identities reached 5.66 billion as of October 2025, close to 69% of everyone on Earth, and the average person now spends 18 hours and 36 minutes on social platforms every week, according to data compiled by DataReportal and cited across recent industry benchmark reports. That is more than one full waking day, spread across close to seven different platforms a month.
Budget share and effectiveness are not moving in the same direction here. Social’s slice of the pie has shrunk slightly even as more marketers report it working, which suggests some of that growth is coming from efficiency gains rather than new money.
Conclusion
A few patterns run through this year’s marketing statistics. Budgets are essentially flat, holding near 7.7% to 9% of revenue depending on the survey. Digital spend keeps taking share from every other format, on track to push total ad spend past $1 trillion. AI adoption has moved from experiment to default, with 95% of B2B marketers now using AI tools and 15.3% of budgets flowing to AI, even though only 30% of CMOs say they are actually ready to scale it.
For planning purposes, treat averages as a starting point, not a target. Company size, industry, and growth stage all move these numbers more than the averages suggest, and different surveys use different samples, so a 2-point gap between two sources is normal rather than a red flag. The bigger risk is using stale figures: several of these numbers, especially ad spend forecasts and AI budget shares, get revised within six months as new surveys come out.
FAQ
What percentage of revenue should a company spend on marketing?
Most established companies spend between 7% and 9% of revenue on marketing, based on Gartner’s 2026 figure of 7.8% and The CMO Survey’s 9.0%. Startups and newer brands often need more, sometimes 12% to 20%, since they lack existing brand recognition.
How big is the global advertising market in 2026?
Global ad spending is forecast to cross $1 trillion for the first time in 2026, growing about 5.1% year over year according to Dentsu. Digital channels will make up close to 69% of that total.
What is the average ROI of email marketing?
Email marketing returns $36 to $42 for every $1 spent on average, according to Litmus, making it the highest-ROI digital channel tracked. Retail and ecommerce brands tend to do better than average, closer to $45 per $1.
Reddit threads keep saying content marketing budgets are shrinking. Is that true?
No, the data shows the opposite trend for 2026. Nearly half of B2B marketers (46%) expect their content budget to increase this year, and only 8% expect a decrease, per the Content Marketing Institute.
Reddit users often ask whether social media ad spend is worth it anymore given rising costs. What do the numbers say?
Most marketers still say yes. 71% report that social media delivers measurable ROI, up from 63% in 2023, and brands allocating more than 20% of their budget to social report meaningfully higher ROI than those spending less.
Sources
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-05-11-gartner-2026-cmo-spend-survey-finds-cmos-allocate-15-point-3-percent-of-marketing-budgets-to-ai-but-only-30-percent-are-ready-to-scale-ai-capabilities https://whitehat-seo.co.uk/blog/how-much-should-i-spend-on-marketing https://www.dentsu.com/news-releases/global-ad-spend-set-to-surpass-one-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-2026-as-the-algorithmic-era-redefines-growth https://www.statista.com/outlook/amo/advertising/worldwide/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielalinzainescu/2026/07/14/ai-ad-spending-will-reach-32-billion-in-2026-and-paid-search-teams-are-already-running-it/ https://peakdigital.online/reports/b2b-content-marketing-2026-cmi-benchmarks/ https://www.omnisend.com/blog/email-marketing-roi/ https://christopholivierconsulting.com/social-media-marketing-statistics/