Here’s how digital marketing budget is being spent in 2016
A recent surveyed nearly 350 organizations with revenue greater than $500 million. Respondents were asked questions about marketing budget priorities and allocations, as well as what they are expected to deliver.
Marketing budgets continue to grow with an emphasis on tech, innovation and closing the gap between marketing and sales. 80% of companies have a Chief Marketing Technologist (or equivalent) and dedicate a third of their marketing budget to technology. Most if that is used on infrastructure, like network, servers and hosting. The average marketing budget of a company with revenue of $2 billion would be $220 million. That’s $60 million towards things like servers, hosting and networks, which leaves $11 million for commerce
solutions, innovation, customer experience etc.
Marketing budget spending on technology and innovation
Martech continues to be a big part of the conversation. Spending on digital commerce accelerated 8% over 2014 and is expected to continue the trend in 2016. Both B2B and B2C spend nearly 11% of their total marketing budget on digital commerce initiatives from awareness through to retention.
Other areas of emphasis include analytics and customer experience. The pressure is on marketing to deliver on customer retention—the survey results show that “senior management’s expectations of marketing’s responsibility in that area  increased by 36% this year.
Closing the gap between sales and marketing
Budget allocation reflects the realities of a more complicated selling cycle. Sales enablement content appears closer to the top of the funnel as consumers, B2B and B2C, increasingly self-serve themselves well past discovery and intent stages. Content and automation tech closes the gaps traditionally filled by qualifying sales calls and introductory meetings.
73% of respondents have some or all share in Profit and Loss responsibility, while 18% expect it to land on their plate in the next two years.
Buyers know exactly what they want and who’s offering what by the time they get to an in-person demo or pitch. That means product marketing is more responsible than ever before for delivering targeted sales enablement content that moves buyers through to conversion. In fact, respondents reported an increased responsibility of 37% for converting leads to sales.
Download the full report on 2016 trends in marketing budget allocation from Gartner .
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