Marketing budget allocation – chart of the week

In an outside view marketing often equals advertising. Corporations need to perform a lot more activities within marketing however, which are necessary to plan and support advertising or are spent on other activities. This is reflected in the marketing budget allocation shares of the total spend according to a new study from salesforce.com. Only 22% of the total marketing budgets is allocated to advertising. Considerable shares are invested into technology and people – which includes salary, training and other personnel costs. Event and sponsorship rank high on the budget list as well, demonstrating how companies still spend considerable amounts on shows, events and sponsorship activities (which might support events as well).

There are changes expected in the channels as well. Marketers expect an increase in virtual events for their events & sponsorship budgets. However, the shift is a bit more gradual than expected (with a few % gains for virtual events) and in-person or hybrid events still play a big role in the future.

Data from B2B companies on their marketing budget allocation is not fundamentally different. B2B marketers spend a bit less on advertising (17%). In any case, of the large pie of marketing budgets small and large companies have, only a small portion is actually spent on advertising. As the corporate trend towards insourcing of advertising activities is still going strong, we will rather see advertising share shrinking than expanding. This will create business opportunities outside pure advertising spend on support and accompanying activities.

Salesforce.com surveyed over 8,200 marketing leaders for the study. The survey was conducted in May and June 2021. Besides the marketing budget allocation, the study gives insight into marketing changes during the pandemic, priorities, requirements and trends in marketing.