Because of COVID-19, marketing budgets hit record lows in 2021. Now, we see 2022 marketing budgets back on the upswing. Thankfully!
As we noted last year, “For several years, Gartner has conducted an annual CMO spending survey. Unfortunately, the 2021 results were not promising from a marketing perspective.
On to the good news. 🙂
From Gartner: 2022 Marketing Budgets Back on the Upswing
According to Gartner’s 2022 in-depth report:
Following record lows in 2021, how have marketing budgets recovered? And how are CMOs allocating their budgets. While enterprises focus on growth amid financial and geopolitical uncertainty? Gartner’s annual survey captures the state of marketing in 2022.
Key Data
- This year’s survey reports that budgets have recovered somewhat. With the average across industries increasing from 6.4% of company revenue to 9.5%. While this represents a significant climb-back, budgets still lag behind pre-pandemic levels. The average budget between 2018 and 2020 was 10.9%.
- While eight out of the nine industries surveyed reported budget increases, spending for CMOs in consumer goods firms stagnated. Moving from 8.3% in 2021 to 8.0% in 2022. This means that consumer goods fell from the highest reported budget across industries in last year’s survey to the lowest this year.
- In the face of a barrage of bad news, CMOs hold on to a belief that their own economic outlook is strong. For example, the majority of CMOs surveyed thought inflationary pressures hitting their business and their customers will have a positive impact on their strategy and investment in the year ahead.
- When CMOs were asked to report the proportion of their 2022 budget allocated to online and offline channels, online channels took the largest share (56%). However, offline channels account for almost half the total available budget. A more equitable split than in recent years.
- Starting with digital channels, when we look at budget allocations across paid, owned and earned channels, paid digital media accounts for more than 60% of total digital spend.
- The flight to digital over the last two years has often resulted in media plans mismatched with campaign goals and channel realities. Offline fightback illustrates the need for marketing budgets to support a range of objectives across multiple channels.
- How are CMOs tweaking their resource mix to account for unprecedented talent challenges and significant capability gaps? The answer is that little changed year over year.
Sample Charts from Gartner Report
