Marketing Budgets Made Up Only 6.4% of Total Revenue in 2021

As marketers reflect on how their budgets have changed over the past year, new research indicates that the global Covid-19 pandemic may have had a larger impact than previously thought.

Gartner recently published “The State of Marketing Budgets 2021” report, and research shows that marketing budgets made up 6.4% of total revenue in 2021. This is a decrease from the 11% recorded in 2020. Since 2014, marketing budgets have made up at least 10.2% of total revenue, meaning this decline is the lowest ever recorded by the researchers.

“For many, there’s not been a single, joltingly precipitous drop in budget, but rather a steady erosion of marketing’s funds,” wrote the authors of the report. “And so far, the enterprise has proved to be slow in replenishing marketing’s depleted coffers.”

Investing in Martech for the Future

As marketing budgets continue to fall, previous research indicates that marketers are honing in on specific products to help them sustain their bottom line.

The CMO Council, in conjunction with Televerde, conducted the “Rising Above the Fray” report, which showed that most marketers (69%) intend on boosting their martech spend in the coming months. Their main martech priorities include marketing analytics and performance attribution (50%), content marketing (41%), and audience/marketing data and data enhancement (37%).

“As business rebounds, marketers need analytics and attribution software to connect the dots between marketing actions and revenue,” wrote the researchers behind the report. “They want martech that helps them leverage data and customer intelligence to grow revenue.”