Sometimes no news is good news.
According to Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey, the average marketing budget represents 7.7% of total company revenue in 2025, which is the exact same share as last year.
This year’s flatline comes after two years of declines in marketing budgets as a percentage of company revenue, but the majority of CMOs still expressed concerns about their budgets, and are making some cuts as they look to save money and boost efficiency, according to Gartner.
Same as it ever was? Marketing budgets took a dive in 2021 and have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, the Gartner surveys show. The 2025 survey was conducted in February and March among about 400 CMOs and other marketing execs across North America, the UK, and Europe, largely from companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue.
The fact that the average budget percentage didn’t change from 2024 to 2025 is potentially both good and bad, Gartner analysts wrote in their report on the survey. While it represents an end to the trend of post-pandemic budget decreases, the budgets as of recent years seem “insufficient to meet the needs” of many CMOs, the analysts wrote.
“For CMOs, this may be as good as it gets for 2025, as lingering volatility significantly increases the likelihood of in-year budget cuts,” they wrote.
CMOs from companies in the consumer products, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical industries on average reported the largest marketing budgets as a share of their revenue, while healthcare, travel and hospitality, and IT and business services companies reported the smallest.
Chopping block: In order to save money, CMOs are cutting back their spending on key resources like agencies and labor, per the report.
- Gartner found that 39% of CMOs are planning reductions to their agency budgets.
- The top actions CMOs are taking in order to do so include cutting “underperforming agency relationships” and renegotiating agency contracts.
- Additionally, 39% of CMOs are planning labor reductions.
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Get paid (media): CMOs continue to allocate larger portions of their marketing budgets to paid media, in keeping with a trend from the 2024 survey. The share of spend on paid media is 31% this year, up 11% year over year from about 28% last year. The average percentage of marketing budgets spent on martech (22%), labor (22%), and agencies ( 21%), meanwhile, all declined compared to 2024.
“Protecting media budgets in a time of heightened volatility makes sense,” according to the report. “Buying cycles extend as consumers and customers linger over major purchase decisions and brands struggle to maintain relevance and share of voice in a turbulent news and media environment.”
But Gartner also points out that with ad prices increasing and concerns about ROI persisting, “CMOs are getting less for each media dollar they spend.”