Contents9
“How much should we spend on marketing?” The question comes back every autumn, at budget time, and the most quoted answer is a percentage of revenue. That percentage exists, and surveys measure it every year. But it describes what others do, not what your company needs.
This article gives the benchmarks published in 2026, explains why they mislead when applied as they are, and suggests a way to build the budget from the sales you are aiming for. It complements our guide to marketing automation for SMEs and the marketing plan of a 50-person company, of which the budget is the translation into money.
In short
2026 surveys put the marketing budget between 7 and 10% of revenue, with wide gaps depending on business model and size.
These averages mostly come from American companies or large groups: they are a benchmark, not a target.
The right budget starts from target sales, works back to the number of contacts needed, then to the cost of each channel.
A line that cannot say what it brought in is justified or cut, and a share for experiments is set in advance.
What the 2026 surveys say
Two surveys are the usual reference. The CMO Survey, run by Duke University, Deloitte and the American Marketing Association among 308 marketing leaders of US companies in January 2026, gives an average budget of 9.0% of revenue, the lowest in several years. It breaks that figure down by business model:
Marketing budget as a share of revenue, by business model
The second, Gartner’s annual survey of marketing leaders’ spending, asks 401 marketing leaders in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe: it measures a budget of 7.8% of revenue in 2026, against 7.7% the year before.
Why the average misleads
These figures are serious, but they do not describe your company, for three reasons.
- The sample. The CMO Survey asks US companies; at Gartner, most respondents work for companies with more than a billion dollars in revenue. An 80-person European company sells neither in the same market nor with the same brand awareness.
- Size. The CMO Survey report itself notes that budgets are higher in small companies: when you are little known, every sale takes more effort.
- Scope. Depending on the company, the marketing budget does or does not include the team’s salaries, the website, the tools, the trade shows. Two companies “at 8%” can spend amounts that have nothing in common.
The percentage remains useful for one thing: checking that you are not very far from your peers. A budget at 1% of revenue in a market where competitors invest much more deserves an explanation; so does a budget at 20%.
Key takeaway
A published average tells you where others stand. It tells you neither what sells for you nor what winning a customer costs in your market.
Building the budget from target sales
The most solid method starts from the sales objective and works back up the chain, with your own conversion rates rather than another sector’s.
From target revenue to budget
- Target sales
The new revenue to go after, and the average value of a signed deal.
- Deals needed
How many proposals, then meetings, to sign that number of deals.
- Qualified contacts
How many enquiries you need, with last year’s measured pass-through rate.
- Cost per channel
What a qualified contact costs on each channel, from your own figures.
Each step needs a figure you may already have. The real cost of winning a customer is calculated all the way to the signed sale, as our article on customer acquisition cost explains. The pass-through rate between marketing and sales assumes a written rule for handing a contact to sales. And the cost per channel only makes sense if you know which channel really sold.
In the first year, these figures are imperfect. That is no reason to go back to the percentage: a rough calculation on your own data improves from one year to the next, a published average never improves for you.
The lines of a B2B marketing budget
Once the total is estimated, it is split into lines, each with a measurable objective. Here are the ones most often found in a company of 20 to 500 people:
- Content that attracts. Articles, customer case studies, webinars, short video. AI lowers the production cost, provided you review, source and sign what goes out.
- Channels that distribute. The company LinkedIn page and the leader’s profile, and advertising, whose first euro depends on your market.
- The conversation with contacts. The newsletter, content offered in exchange for an email address, campaigns sent following our method for running an email campaign, with checked deliverability.
- Tools and measurement. The CRM, the sending tool, and reporting that ties each spend to its sales.
- People. The in-house team, an agency, freelancers, or a mix of the three: the calculation is in marketing agency or in-house team, and what AI changes in that split in AI and digital marketing: what changes for agencies.
- New markets. If you are opening a country, its budget is decided after choosing the market, as our international SEO guide shows.
Some lines cost little in tools and a lot in time. Our own posts on X, for example, cost about 3 dollars a month in API fees for one post a day, according to our October 2026 figures; what costs is the hour spent writing and reviewing. A budget that only counts invoices almost always underestimates the “cheapest” channels.
Acquisition and retention: a frequent imbalance
The CMO Survey points to a gap found in many budgets: in 2026, spending on winning new customers is 26% higher than spending on retention, even though, according to the same report, retention delivers better results. Selling again to an existing customer rarely costs as much as convincing a new one, and sending fewer, better-targeted messages takes more method than budget.
From the field
A line that had brought nothing in for years
On an online plush toy store we are putting back on its feet, the audit found 972 subscriber addresses that had agreed to receive emails and had never been contacted, while only 3.2% of customers came back to buy again. A paid email suite was nonetheless installed: the client learned the hard way that it had not been credited with a single sale since late 2023, and it was cancelled. The budget was there; measurement was missing.
Keeping a share for experiments
A budget entirely spread over last year’s channels never discovers anything. Set aside a share, fixed in advance, to test a new channel or format, with a duration and a stop criterion written before you start. An experiment that fails within that frame cost what was planned; an experiment without a stop criterion often ends up as a permanent line nobody dares to cut.
Reviewing the budget every quarter
The annual budget sets an envelope; the quarterly review moves it towards what sells. Three questions are enough:
- What did each line bring in, in qualified contacts, deals, sales?
- What cost more than planned, in money or in time?
- Where should the next euro go, and what should be removed to fund it?
We apply this discipline to our own content engine: a register of tracked searches, fed every day with Search Console data and reviewed every week, says which topics to produce and which to drop.
Where to start
Write down the new revenue you are aiming for next year, then work back up the chain with last year’s rates, even approximate ones. Compare the resulting budget with the published benchmarks: if it is very far from them, find out why before correcting it. To tie each budget line to the sales it produces, our digital marketing offer tracks every contact with its source, from the first click to the signed sale.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of revenue should a B2B company spend on marketing?
2026 surveys put the average between 7 and 10%: 7.0% for B2B companies selling products and 10.1% for those selling services according to The CMO Survey, 7.8% across all sectors according to Gartner. Use these as a benchmark, then calculate your own budget from the sales you are aiming for and the real cost of winning a customer.
Does the marketing budget include the team’s salaries?
It depends on the company, and it is the first thing to check before comparing yourself with an average. For steering, the clearest approach is to count everything: salaries, contractors, tools, advertising and events. You then see the full cost of a channel, time included, and can compare an in-house team and an agency on the same basis.
Should you cut the marketing budget when sales slow down?
It is the most common reflex: according to The CMO Survey 2026, when profits disappoint, marketing spending is cut ahead of other expenses 45.4% of the time. Cutting lines that bring in nothing is healthy; cutting blindly also removes the ones feeding the following quarters’ sales. A line-by-line review lets you choose.
How should the budget be split between channels?
Starting from what each channel has brought in, measured all the way to the signed sale, not from what it brings in for others. Keep the largest share for channels that have proven themselves, a share fixed in advance for experiments, and review the split every quarter with the figures for the period.
Sources
- The CMO Survey, 2026 results (new tab)cmosurvey.org
- Gartner, CMO Spend Survey 2026 (new tab)gartner.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
Also in digital marketing
Practical guide8 min
Marketing plan for a 50-person company: what goes in it
A useful marketing plan fits in a few pages: where your customers come from, who you target, what marketing must bring to sales, two or three channels, a budget, a calendar and a review every quarter. What it contains, and what it lets you turn down.
Understand7 min
Marketing attribution: which channel really sold
A B2B sale goes through several channels over several weeks, and every tool claims it. Marketing attribution shares the credit between them; in B2B, it holds when each contact's source is recorded in the CRM and tied to the signed sale.
Choose and price7 min
Marketing agency or in-house team: doing the maths
An in-house marketing team knows the trade and reacts fast; an agency brings specialist skills and absorbs peaks. The honest calculation compares full costs for the same volume of work, and most companies end up combining the two.