top of page

Research Contributors

Carilu Dietrich.png

Carilu Dietrich

CMO, Hypergrowth Advisor

Jon Miller.png

Jon Miller

Co Founder

Marketo and Engagio

BILL MACAITIS.png

Bill Macaitis

SaaS CMO Pro

Ray Circle Headshot w_ DarkBlue (1).png

Ray Rike

Benchmarkit​

Filter benchmarks by your company profile below

Marketing Budgets

01

Marketing Budgets as Percent of Revenue are Increasing in ‘25

Percentage of Revenue Allocated to Marketing in 2024 vs 2025
By Total Population

Findings

  • Median marketing budgets up 9%->10% highlights growing confidence or slight increase in the focus on growth

​

  • 75th percentile up 16% -> 20% highlights confidence and/or the commitment to growth at top quartile companies

Marketing Expense as % Revenue 2024 v 2025.png

Budget Increases Driven by <$20M and $100-$250M Segments

Percent of Rev Allocated to MKTG 2024 v 2025 By ARR.png

Percentage of Revenue Allocated to Marketing (2024 vs 2025)

By Annual Revenue

Findings

  • As companies scale, their Marketing budget decreases from a median of 14% of revenue (below $5M) in revenue to 4% at median at companies greater than $150M

​

  • Ownership of a BDR/SDR organization creates wider variance in budget

Demand Gen and Events Take 50%+ of Marketing Budgets

Marketing Budget (%) Allocated to Programs - Average
By Annual Revenue

Findings

  • Demand Generation is the top budget category

​

  • As companies begin to meaningfully scale (> $5M) the percentage of budget increase to the 34% - 38% range

​

  • Once companies hit $100M in revenue they begin to decrease the budget allocation to Demand Generation (29% - 30%) and increase budget allocations to events, communications, channel marketing and Marketing Operations

Marketing Budget (%) Allocated to Programs - Average By Annual Revenue.png

Marketing gets 1/3rd of the Total Sales and Marketing Budget, Less at high ACV

Marketing Budget as % Total Sales and Marketing Budget

By Average Contract Value

Findings

  • As annual contract value increases the percentage of the total Sales and Marketing budget allocated to Marketing decreases

​

  • It is interesting to note that in the $10K - $25K ACV segment the % allocation of Marketing is right at median, while companies with ACV in the $25K - $100K range are in the 35% - 37% range at median

Growth Rates

02

Faster Growing Companies Have Bigger Marketing Allocations

Percentage of Revenue Allocated to Marketing in 2025

By Planned Company Growth Rate

Findings

  • There is a direct correlation between growth rates and marketing budget allocation

​

  • The data cannot answer is which is “cause” and which is “effect”

​

  • In the 30% and above growth rate segment top quartile allocation is much higher

Percentage of Revenue Allocated to Marketing in 2025 By Planned Company Growth Rate.png

PLG Budgets

03

PLG Companies Have Bigger Marketing Allocations

Percentage of Revenue Allocated to Marketing in 2025

By Go-To-Market Motion

Findings

  • Product-Led growth companies are investing a larger percentage of revenue in Marketing than other models (Possibly getting more of the traditional sales allocation)

​

  • Both Product-Led and Sales-Led are increasing Marketing budgets in ‘25 

​

  • Hybrid GTM motion companies are keeping their Marketing budgets level

​

  • Founder-Led models are common for >$5M segment. 

PLG Companies Allocate More to Programs

Marketing Budget Allocation (Mean)

Findings

  • Product-Led GTM motions spend much more on Programs (52%),  a smaller % on people (32%) (Though they may have a higher total budget and thus have a similar size team for the company)  

​

  • Founder-Led Marketing has a much higher percentage of the Marketing budget allocated to technology - though this is also reflective of Founder-Led Marketing typically being a model used in companies < $1M

People
Program
Tech
Allocation

04

Tech Allocations Increasing vs. Historical Norms
-> Will AI Take from People or Programs?

People-Product-Technology-Mean-ByARR.png

Marketing Budget Allocation: People, Product, Technology (Mean)

By Annual Revenue

Findings

  • As companies scale beyond the first stage of growth, the percent of Marketing budget increases in programs while the investment in people and technology both decrease (as a percentage of revenue).

​

  • Recent AI in Marketing research by Jasper AI highlights the following increases in AI spend

​

  • 23% of companies investing 16% - 20% of budget to AI in '25​. Up from 11% in ‘24

​

  • 9% of companies investing >20% of Marketing budget on AI. Up from 4% in ‘24

Attribution

05

Attribution Models Are Improving as Companies Scale
-> Still surprisingly fractured

Attribution Model

By Company Size

*Category “other” not shown

Attribution Model by company size.png

Inbound 
Leads

06

Inbound Leads Less Correlated to Growth Rate than Expected

Percentage of New Bookings from Inbound Leads (2025)

By 2024 Growth Rate

Findings

  • Not surprising but companies growing faster also have higher percentage of new bookings from inbound leads

​

  • Variation is surprising: some of the highest growing companies having lower inbound, possibly a result of small companies with large enterprise deals

​

  • Inbound leads - defined as hand-raisers who ask for a meeting with Sales typically close at a higher rate, have shorter sales cycles and higher average ACV

Inbound Leads Highest for Lower Size Deals
-> Deal size most closely correlated

2025 Target New Bookings Generated by Inbound Leads

By Average Contract Value

Findings

  • Similar to when companies scale in size, as ACV increases to >$50K the reliance upon inbound leads also decreases (swipe interactive chart left to view)

​

  • Finding ways to maintain or even increase the percentage of new bookings from inbound hand-raisers is a critical variable to decreasing customer acquisition costs and increase revenue growth efficiency

GTM Efficiency Metrics

07

Customer Acquisition Efficiency Not a Top Three Measurement for Marketing
-> Pipeline, ARR and MQLs Still the Focus

What are the Top 3 Marketing Top Performance Metrics You Measure?

By Total Population

Findings

  • The top three Marketing Metric reported are Pipeline Generated (62%), Opportunities Generated (51%) and New ARR Bookings (36%)

​

  • What was surprising is how few Marketing organizations view Marketing efficiency metrics as a top three metric such as Cost per Opportunity (18%), Marketing CAC Ratio (15%) and Pipeline Conversion (16%)

​

Marketers are Measuring Costs to Pipeline Instead of Revenue

What Marketing Efficiency Metrics Do You Measure?

By Total Population

Findings

  • In an era of “efficient growth” it is surprising to see that only 52% of Marketing teams measure Marketing cost per $ pipeline and 46% as Marketing cost per dollar of new logo ARR

​​

  • Chief Marketing Officers would benefit greatly by better understanding how a dollar of Marketing investment converts into a dollar of new ARR or dollar of qualified pipeline

​​

  • CFOs are more likely to approve more Marketing budget when the ROI is measured and predictable

Marketing Investment per $ New ARR decreases as companies scale

Marketing Expenses per ($) of New Logo Revenue/ARR

By Annual Revenue

Findings

  • We had to collapse the number of revenue based segments for this metric to increase statistical significance

​

  • Though it is interesting to see that Marketing expenses per dollar of New Logo ARR does decrease as companies scale - it is concerning that only about 10% of research participants were able to provide this performance metric

bottom of page