Table of Contents
Introduction
There is a well-documented negativity bias in news coverage. Virtually every layoff or quarterly earnings miss is shouted in large type, while falling unemployment is covered, not as good news for people who need jobs, but as bad news for consumers; meanwhile, large hiring sprees and better-than-expected growth are largely ignored by press.
And all that can make it surprising to read, as you will in this report, that a majority of B2B marketers tell us that their companies grew last year, and that their budgets increased for the present year.
Not only did marketers in this study submit positive reports, our recent BDR Benchmark Report also found that most BDR teams report either growing (58%) or maintaining their size (21%), while also achieving increased quotas.
As we will see, marketers report that the outlook for business conditions in 2025 is positive. In this study, however, what we are primarily interested in is whether budgets were moving up or down, and how they are being distributed, or re-distributed, within marketing organizations.
That includes looking at how teams are approaching artificial intelligence (AI). The rise of AI has sparked excitement and concern in equal measure. So, we set out to gauge both how organizations are budgeting for AI and how confident they are in AI’s ability to contribute to their 2025 goals.
About the Report
Based on survey responses from 392 B2B marketers, this report is structured around four key areas:
- Company Performance – How organizations performed in 2024.
- Marketing Budget Trends – Changes in B2B marketing budgets for 2025.
- Pipeline Goals and Budget Alignment – The relationship between budget allocations and revenue targets.
- AI Budgeting and Investment – How AI investments are being funded and prioritized.
We also have a separate report dedicated solely to AI adoption, budgeting, and use cases, offering a deeper dive into how B2B marketers are approaching AI. You can access that report for free here.
The last section of the current report discusses implications of our findings for B2B marketers in the coming year. To fast forward to that section, click here.
Executive Summary
- Surprisingly Strong Self-Reported Revenue Growth: An overwhelming 96% of respondents reported revenue growth in 2024, with many citing high double-digit increases.
- Marketing Budgets Rise—But Do Not Track Revenue Growth: Just over half (52.3%) of B2B firms increased their marketing budgets for 2025, with a median increase of 5%. However, many respondents reported more dramatic changes (some outliers exceeding 100%), skewing the overall average increase to 22%. These outliers highlight variability and potential overstatement in self-reported data.
- Short-Term Wins Drive Budget Allocations: Demand Generation and Digital Marketing showed the strongest shifts toward increased investment in 2025—meaning more respondents reported raising, rather than reducing, budget in these areas. These functions are often tied to immediate, measurable outcomes, which may explain the prioritization. Brand, ABM, Product, and Customer Marketing also saw more increases than decreases, pointing to continued long-term strategic investment. Analyst Relations was the only function where budget cuts outpaced increases, potentially reflecting skepticism around less directly attributable influence efforts.
- Budget Increases Mostly Support Pipeline Growth—But Not Always: Despite the common notion that most B2B organizations are being asked to “do more with less,” our study finds that the majority of marketers with increased pipeline goals are receiving additional budget to support them. Still, nearly one-third (29%) won’t see an increase in funds—23% are expected to deliver more with the same budget, and 6% are being asked to do more with less budget. The results suggest that while efficiency pressures persist, they are not universal.
- People, Process, and Tech: A Subtle Prioritization Shift: When ranking 2025 investment focus areas, marketers showed a slight but statistically reliable preference for process over technology. Company size, ownership structure, and revenue growth, didn’t meaningfully shift these priorities, suggesting a broad consensus that operational improvement is more urgent than tech adoption alone.
- Widespread Project Delays Despite Growth: Over half (55%) of organizations delayed or canceled projects in 2024, most commonly due to economic uncertainty. Notably, this occurred even among firms reporting strong revenue performance, suggesting that macroeconomic narratives may be influencing operational decisions regardless of company health.
- AI Budgeting: Over half of organizations have allocated dedicated AI budgets for 2025, primarily for content creation, predictive modeling, and process automation. About half of marketers say this funding is new (not reallocated from other areas of marketing). However, belief in AI’s near-term impact still lags actual investment for many use cases—except content, where investment outpaces belief.
Company Performance: Surprising (?) Revenue Growth
When we asked marketers how their companies’ revenue had changed over the past 12 months, responses ranged widely—from companies whose revenue was halved to those that more than doubled. Still, growth was the norm: 96% reported revenue increases, while just 4% saw decreases.
That said, many of the reported growth rates appeared unusually high. To put these numbers in context, we reviewed a range of independent sources on B2B company performance—including survey data, public financial filings, and proprietary data from privately held technology firms.
While the sources differ in scope and methodology, growth was a consistent theme across all of them. However, the growth rates reported by our participants were generally higher—sometimes meaningfully so—than those observed in other datasets.
For a full comparison of our findings to external benchmarks, see the appendix.
The State of Marketing Budgets for 2025
Marketing Spend as a Percentage of Revenue
Looking at marketing spend as a share of total revenue helps us understand the priority it’s being afforded. Across all companies in our sample, the average allocation is 12.5%. However, the modal (most common) answer was 10%, indicating that a substantial number of companies operate marketing on budgets that are a few percentage points under the sample average.
Below, we look at how marketing investment relative to revenue varies by ownership structure, organization size, and industry.
Marketing Budgets Increase But Do Not Track Revenue Growth
Just over half (52.3%) of B2B organizations increased their marketing budgets for 2025; 39.2% reported no change, and only 8.4% made cuts. Interestingly, even though 96% of companies saw revenue growth—however modest—nearly half still didn’t increase their marketing budgets. In our study, revenue performance for 2024 was a reliable but weak predictor of marketing budget movement for 2025.
Organizations in the services sector were about 15 percentage points more likely to hold steady and 10 percentage points less likely to increase spend than their counterparts in tech and manufacturing. Still, like the other sectors, very few services organizations reported cutting their marketing budgets.
Marketers Report Larger Budget Increases Than Industry Benchmarks Suggest
As with revenue growth, the magnitude of budget increases and decreases that marketers reported in our survey exceeded external benchmarks. According to The CMO Survey – Fall 2024, marketers reported an average increase in overall marketing spend of 5.8% in 2024, with expectations for an 8.6% rise in 2025. For reference, the highest average increase reported by The CMO Survey since 2021 was 10.4%, recorded in early 2022 during the peak of post-pandemic recovery. While the median increase reported by marketers in our sample landed close to the CMO Survey’s current-year benchmark at 5%, the range of responses varied dramatically.
The middle 50% of responses—those between the 25th and 75th percentiles—ranged from no change in budget (0%) to a 28% increase. The largest reported cut was –40%, and 69% was the highest increase reported. Several outlier responses exceeded even that, pulling the overall average across all respondents up to 22%—well above what external benchmarks suggest.
The median increase of 5% is likely a more accurate reflection of what most marketing organizations are experiencing. Still, the wide spread and presence of extreme values suggest these figures should be interpreted with caution.
People, Process, & Technology: A Balanced Focus for 2025
We asked marketers to priority-rank investment in People, Process, and Technology for 2025. Marketers consistently prioritized Process over Technology (p = .014), but the difference was slight (See Figure 7 below). Company size (measured by revenue or number of employees), revenue growth, industry, and the type of company ownership (public, private, etc.) had no clear impact on how organizations prioritized their goals.
Most Marketing Budget Gains Are Going to Short-Term, Pipeline-Driven Functions
Even among companies that increased their marketing budgets substantially for 2025, most organizations shifted investments between functions, reducing in some areas and adding in others.
Figure 8 shows the net percentage of organizations that reported increasing versus reducing budget for each function. A value of 0% means an equal number of organizations increased and reduced budget in that area. Positive values indicate more increases than reductions; negative values indicate the opposite.
- Demand Generation (+11.7%) and Digital Marketing (11.4%) were most likely to gain budget.
- Brand (+7.9%), ABM/X (6.3%), Product (7.9%) and Customer Marketing (5.2%) were also net gainers.
- Analyst Relations (-4.4%) was more likely to lose than to gain budget.
The concentration of budget gains in demand generation and digital marketing suggests that marketers are doubling down on short-term, measurable, pipeline-producing activities. In a climate where chatter of economic uncertainty lingers, marketing teams appear to be under pressure to prove value quickly.
At the same time, modest gains in brand, ABM/X, product, and customer marketing point to a more strategic layer of planning. Organizations seem to be balancing the need to impact the early stages of buying journeys with long-term plays aimed at improving market perception, targeting high-fit accounts, differentiating offerings, and driving expansion from existing customers.
The fact that analyst relations is the only function with a clear net reduction may reflect a shift away from more traditional or indirect influence strategies — or it could signal tighter scrutiny over functions that are harder to tie to direct pipeline outcomes. However, our Buyer Experience Study finding that 77% of B2B buyers engage with consultants and analysts to help with the buying process, suggests that cutting back on analyst relations may prove costly down the road.
Vertical-Specific Budgeting Trends Across Marketing Functions
- Manufacturing: Most functions remained relatively flat, with no functions having more than a 3% likelihood of gaining budget.
- Technology: In Tech, several functions were more likely to be net gainers, including Customer Marketing (4.9%), Demand Generation (4.9%), ABM/X (3.8%), Product Marketing (3.5%). Analyst relations was most likely to lose budget (3.5%).
- Services: Digital Marketing (4.9%), Demand Generation (5.4%), Brand (4.1%) were net gainers. Customer Marketing was more likely to decrease than increase within Services (-1.9%).
Across sectors, investment in senior leadership roles was relatively balanced, with Tech and Services showing a very slight lean toward increases, and Manufacturing slightly more likely to report cuts. Marketing operations and analytics showed a similar pattern, with small, mixed shifts and no clear directional trend.
Investment in Brand Lags Investment In Demand & Digital
Despite research (Binet & Field) advocating a 60:40 brand versus demand split, our survey finds the real-world ratio is closer to 30:70 in favor of demand. This ratio holds steady regardless of industry or ownership structure—whether the organization is public, private equity–backed, or venture-funded.
Figure 10 below shows how the proportion of budget allocated to brand compared to demand fluctuates (or doesn’t) based on whether marketing budgets are increasing, decreasing, or staying the same in 2025. Teams facing budget cuts are the least likely to prioritize Brand, allocating just 20% to it and 80% to Demand.
Budgeting and Pipeline Expectations: ‘More With More,’ Not ‘More With Less’
A slim majority of marketers (57%) said their pipeline goals are increasing for 2025, while 36% are holding steady and just 7% are decreasing. But as with revenue and budget growth, the magnitude of changes in pipeline goals reported by our study participants varied widely.
At the extremes, a few organizations reported cuts of more than 50% or increases exceeding 100%—figures that fall well outside the range of most responses and are considered outliers in this sample. The middle 50% of responses—those between the 25th and 75th percentiles—ranged from a 0% (no change in pipeline goals) to a 25% increase. Given the variability and the presence of extreme values, the median increase of 6% is likely the best estimate of what the “typical” organization is aiming for in 2025.
Mixed Support for Higher Pipeline Targets
The refrain that marketers are being asked to “do more with less” is common — but largely not supported by the data. In our sample, 57% of organizations reported higher pipeline goals for 2025. Of those, nearly three-quarters (73%) received a corresponding budget increase, suggesting many companies are aiming to resource teams appropriately. Still, a meaningful share are expected to stretch: 23% face higher targets with the same budget they received last year, and 6% are being asked to deliver more with less. While not the majority, this group reflects the ongoing tension between ambition and investment — and highlights where efficiency pressures remain very real.
Just Over Half of Organizations Delayed or Canceled Projects in 2024
It’s not uncommon for planned initiatives to be delayed or canceled—business priorities shift, budgets tighten, and external conditions change. Postponements can reflect everything from strategic pivots to resource constraints, and they’re a routine part of how organizations adapt to evolving circumstances.
More than half (55%) of the respondents in our study said they had delayed or canceled the start of planned investments or projects in calendar year 2024.
As indicated in Figure 14 below, delays were much more common than outright cancellations. Only 16.3% indicated that some projects were fully canceled. The most common outcomes were projects being pushed into 2025 or postponed by a few weeks or months.
Despite much of our sample reporting stable or strong financial performance, more than half of the organizations that experienced delays or cancellations pointed to economic uncertainty and budget constraints as the reason. This raises the possibility that broader economic narratives may be influencing decision-making, even among companies with healthy performance indicators.
AI in Marketing Budgets
Artificial Intelligence Adoption and Investment Trends
One area of particular interest in 2025 planning is AI. Just over half of organizations (52%) report dedicated AI investments in their 2025 marketing budgets. Among those investing, just over half are using net-new funding, while the rest are reallocating from existing budgets.
Which Organizations Are Budgeting for AI
While adoption rates vary by sector within our sample, with services organizations leading at 59% and tech companies trailing at 49%, these differences are not statistically reliable and thus, do not generalize to the broader population of B2B marketers. This suggests that industry sector is not yet a key factor in determining whether a marketing organization has dedicated budget for AI in 2025.
In this sample, the likelihood of having a dedicated AI budget tended to increase with company size. Companies earning between $251M and $750M had the highest adoption rate at 66%, followed by those in the $750M+ and $51M–$250M ranges (both at 56%). Notably, 61% of the smallest companies—those earning $500,000 or less—also reported having a dedicated AI budget, outpacing several mid-market groups. However, these differences were not statistically reliable, meaning we cannot confidently generalize them beyond this sample. While company size may play a role in adoption, it is not the sole driver.
The differences in AI adoption by ownership structure suggest that access to capital and operational maturity may influence AI adoption. Publicly traded companies lead in AI investment, with 61% reporting dedicated spend—potentially reflecting more pressure to signal innovation to external stakeholders. In contrast, venture-backed and privately financed companies show lower adoption rates (39% and 42%, respectively).
Top AI Use Cases
Most marketing organizations investing in AI are doing so with clear use cases in mind. Just 4% report allocating budget for general experimentation, indicating that AI is being treated less as a frontier to explore and more as a tool to apply. Content creation leads all use cases by a wide margin, cited by 55% of respondents. Other common applications include predictive modeling, buyer engagement, and process automation, each selected by roughly one-third to just over 45% of marketers.
Modest Investment, Even More Modest Confidence AI Can Help
For most AI capabilities, investment lags belief that it can help. That is true for all but content creation, which is the most subscribed capability by a wide margin. When it comes to AI for content creation, more than half of marketers are investing in it, while less than half of marketers believe it will help. It may be that more experience with a given capability leads to a more realistic assessment of its ability to contribute.
Implications
The 2025 budget outlook for B2B marketing offers a strong rebuttal to the doom-and-gloom narrative often associated with current market conditions. In reality, the landscape looks optimistic, with most organizations actively growing and committing to meaningful budget increases.
One never knows which moments really are make or break for a business, an industry, or a function, but this does seem like an important moment for marketing leaders to more strategically align their budgets with long-term growth objectives. This means carefully balancing short-term pipeline-building efforts with sustained investment in brand-building activities. While demand generation and digital marketing currently dominate budget allocations, leaders must proactively advocate for more substantial investments in long-term brand growth, ensuring future pipeline stability.
AI is rapidly emerging as a strategic priority, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Although organizations universally recognize AI’s transformative potential, there remains uncertainty regarding funding approaches—whether to secure new resources or reallocate existing budgets. Leaders should clearly articulate AI’s expected business outcomes to justify dedicated funding, rather than diluting existing marketing programs through reallocation.
Companies committed to aggressive growth have already signaled their intentions by increasing budgets – including those for AI – to support ambitious revenue goals. Those slower to embrace AI risk falling behind as early adopters leverage new tools for competitive advantage. Overall, marketing leaders should view the current budget climate as an invitation to confidently invest in strategic growth and AI-driven innovation, positioning their organizations to outperform in an evolving marketplace.
Methodology
The study surveyed 392 B2B marketers in the late months of 2024, spanning tech, services, and manufacturing. Participants were sourced through panel providers and organic channels.
A companion to this report, The 2025 Science of B2B Report on Marketer Attitudes and Investment in AI, was produced from the same survey data.
Across this dataset, we observed some tendencies toward inflated responses—particularly in areas like reported company revenue growth, changes in marketing budgets, and pipeline targets. In this report, we’ve presented these figures transparently alongside relevant industry benchmarks to help ground interpretation.
In just one section—focused on the ratio of Demand to Brand investment—we applied a light regression-based adjustment. This was done to account for sourcing-related inflation and align the data more closely with neutral expectations.
Appendix
Assessing Revenue Growth
When we asked marketers how their companies’ revenue changed over the past 12 months, we saw a wide range of responses—including some very high growth rates. To understand how these self-reported figures compare to broader market trends, we reviewed several external benchmarks.
We looked at four sources:
- A benchmark survey from Benchmarkit
- Revenue growth data from a portfolio of private equity-backed B2B SaaS firms
- Publicly available 2024 financial data from 139 public B2B companies
- And, of course, our own survey responses
These sources vary in scope, sample composition, and methodology. For example, Benchmarkit’s data—like ours—is survey-based and shows similar growth rates across revenue bands. In contrast, the public company data shows the most conservative growth estimates, with a median of just 6.5%. The PE portfolio firms reported median revenue growth rates from 17% for companies over $100M to 30% for companies under with less than $50M in annual revenue.
Across nearly all comparisons, the self-reported growth rates in our study were on the higher end, with median growth rates reaching as high as 49% for companies under $1M in revenue, and ranging from 27% to 39% across other revenue bands.
The gap in growth rates across the four sources we reviewed likely reflects a variety of factors. The public company sample includes many large, mature firms, where percentage growth tends to be lower. Among our survey participants, it’s likely that many experienced solid revenue growth, though the magnitude of that growth was almost certainly overstated.
| Revenue Band | Our Survey (Median) | Benchmarkit (Median) | PE Portfolio (Median) | Public Companies (Median) |
| <$1M | 49% | 77% | – | – |
| $1M to $10M | 39% | 32% (Note: $1M-$5M) | – | – |
| $11M to $50M | 37% | 28% (Note: $5M-$20M) | 30% (under $50M) | – |
| $51M to $250M | 35% | 25% (Note: $20M-$50M) | – | – |
| $251M to $750M | 28% | 15% (Note: $50M-$100M) | – | – |
| >$750M | 27% | 12% (Note: >$100M) | 17% (over $100M) | 6.5% (> $1 Billion) |
