Industry surveyThe CMO Survey, 2026

Marketing takes 9.6% of the overall budget and 8.9% of revenue at the average US company

Channel mix & planning

9.6%

of overall budget and company revenues go to marketing on average (2026 survey of US companies)

Reader Note:: These are two separate questions with two different bases: the budget share was answered by 146 people, under half the panel, and the revenue share by 154. Both means sit above their medians of 7% and 5%, so the typical company spends less than the average suggests, and the budget figure ranges from 0% to 27% across respondents.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: Low
Sample:: Online survey of 308 marketing leaders at U.S. for-profit companies drawn from a sample of 2,111; 14.6% response rate; 97% were VP level or above.

Good for

A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

Not for

Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.

Paid media overtook martech as the largest slice of the marketing budget between 2018 and 2025, rising from 23.2% to 30.6% while martech fell from 29.2% to 22.4%

Change in marketing budget allocation by resource, 2018 to 2025
Resource	Change 2018 to 2025 (percentage points)
Paid media	7.4
Labor	-2.6
Agencies	-2.3
Martech	-6.8

33.8%

of US Fashion site visits now come from paid channels (Search + Social + Display), overtaking Direct traffic's 27.8% share for the first time in three years (Jul 2023–Jul 2026).

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Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

Fixing your influencer marketing campaign: How to get into the top 10% of advertisers

53.9% of US marketing leaders say marketing keeps influencing a customer for a year or longer, though the most common single answer is several months at 24.4% and the report's median is six months

Marketing Performance: Perceived marketing influence duration on customers, as reported by US CMOs in 2026
Duration	Percent (%)
An hour	0.6%
12 hours	0.6%
A day	1.3%
A week	2.6%
A month	6.4%
Several months	24.4%
6 months	10.3%
1 year	21.8%
2 years	18.6%
5 years	9%
7 years	0%
10 years or more	4.5%

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39%

of CMOs plan to reduce their agency budget in 2025, and the same share plan to reduce labour

SEO, social, email, retail media and influencer all rank higher on impact than on the budget they receive

Marketing budgets ranged from 5.8% to 9.7% of company revenue across industries in 2025, with consumer products highest and IT and business services lowest

Marketing budget as a percent of total revenue by industry, 2025
Industry	2025 (%)
Consumer products	9.7%
Manufacturing	9.5%
Pharma	9%
Media	8%
Insurance	7.5%
Financial services	7.2%
Retail	7.1%
Tech services and products companies with over $250M revenue	7.1%
Travel and hospitality	6.7%
Healthcare	5.9%
IT and business services	5.8%

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Marketing takes 9.6% of the overall budget and 8.9% of revenue at the average US company

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