Survey: Marketers’ Budgets Expected to Grow Within the Next 12 Months

As marketers look ahead to 2020, new research suggests that they will have large budgets at their disposal to achieve their top objectives.

The CMO Survey, recently published in partnership with Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association, found that marketing budget growth is expected to remain strong with an 8.7% growth rate over the next 12 months. This is compared to a 7.5% growth rate just one year ago.

Marketing budgets as a percentage of firm revenues has risen as a result. This year, marketing expenses accounted for 9.8% of marketing firm revenues. This was compared to just 7.3% last year and 6.9% the year before.

As of this year, marketing currently accounts for 12% of firms’ overall budgets. In 2018, this percentage was closer to 10.8%.

Budget as a Marketing Obstacle

In the past, research suggested that budget remained a top obstacle for marketers looking to accomplish their primary objectives.

The CMO Council published a report titled, “Reshaping Global Engagement Operations,” and statistics suggested that most marketers (43%) were “fairly confident” that they would reach their strategic goals for this year. However, the majority of them (59%) said that budget limitations were still holding them back.

This was followed by senior leadership shifting priorities and goals (30%) and inconsistent alignment and collaboration across teams (29%). As a result of these struggles, most marketers (73%) stated that they were only “partially” able to meet the needs of the modern customer.