The CMO Survey: Are you spending enough on marketing?

We frequently receive questions from our B2B and life science clients about how much other companies are spending on marketing. While this data is difficult to find, the annual CMO Survey offers a glimpse into marketers’ present approaches to budgeting and organization. The study queried almost 300 U.S. marketing leaders about their spending, trends, and plans for 2022 and beyond.

The following are the most important findings for B2B companies:

• The Covid pandemic’s acceleration of digital investment has pushed marketing spending as a percent of company budgets up to the highest level in the survey’s history. The study reported 10.4% growth in 2022 marketing budgets over 2021. However, CMOs predicted this growth rate will decrease in 2023, declining to the pre-Covid level of 5.8% growth.
• B2B marketing expenses in 2022 will climb to 6% to 8% of a company’s total revenue.
• Of the total marketing spend, 56% will go towards digital programs. The digital budget was split between paid media (36%), owned media (34%), earned media (14%), and other digital (16%).
• About 13% of the B2B marketing budget went for social media.
• About 9% of the B2B marketing budget will be spent on analytics (primarily marketing mix analysis and pricing strategy).

Other issues explored by the survey included inflationary impact, organizational issues, and optimism for the economy.

• B2B companies’ top responses to inflationary pressures are higher prices (65%) and stronger value propositions (40%).
• About half of the respondents’ employees are working from home full time, and CMOs believe they are generating the same or greater productivity. However, the marketing leaders think this trend is weakening company culture and eroding inclusion.
• Marketers are using a larger number of channels (65%) to reach customers. About 40% are using social channels to sell their products and services. About half of the respondents report their companies are returning to or opening up face-to-face sales channels.
• About 8% said they are using AI or machine learning to optimize and automate their marketing operations.
• Optimism for the U.S. economy hit 60 (out of 100) at B2B companies in Sept 2022 — up slightly from 50.9 at the height of the pandemic in June 2020, but down significantly since August 2021.

One final note: almost 40% of B2B companies surveyed said they can quantitatively show the revenue impact of their short-term marketing spend on the company’s business. In addition, 57% of the B2B leaders said the importance of marketing has increased in their organizations. It’s clear, the more marketers can measure the impact of their work in terms of revenue and profitability, the more stature their departments will achieve in their organizations.

To read the full survey, go to cmosurvey.org/results.

Reference: The CMO Survey: Marketing in a Post-Covid Era: Deloitte, Duke-Fuqua, & American Marketing Association; September 2022.