Digital marketing spending grew by 7.3% over the past year, according to US CMOs, marking the lowest reported rate of growth in the post-COVID period, according to the latest edition [pdf] of The CMO Survey.
By comparison, past Spring editions of the survey have found reported digital marketing spending growth of 8.9% (2024), 8.2% (2023), 20.2% (2022) and 11.5% (2021).
Notably, while the change in overall marketing spending is also low, at 3.3%, that figure is higher than found in the previous 2 Springtime editions of the report (2.5% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023). That suggests that the slowdown in digital marketing spending has been slightly more pronounced than in other areas of spend.
Inflationary pressures continue to have an impact on marketing spending levels. In this latest report, 43.5% share of CMOs surveyed said that current inflationary pressures have led to decreased marketing spending levels. That compares with 39.9% who report no impact, and 16.6% who say these pressures have resulted in increased spending levels.
Looking ahead, senior marketers are more likely to believe that 2025 will bring less regulation (31.5%) than more regulation (27.5%) for their company. While the consensus view is that less regulation will have no impact on marketing spending (81% share), a plurality (46.4% share) believe that more regulation would result in decreased marketing spending.
Overall, CMOs are quite optimistic about their spending in the coming months, forecasting an 8.9% rise in overall marketing budgets and an 11.9% rise in digital marketing spending.
Compared to this time last year, CMOs in particular are more buoyant about their budgets for brand building and customer relationship management. Specifically, they predict a 6.6% increase in the year ahead for brand building spend, versus a 3.9% rise forecast last year. As for customer relationship management, the 3.9% increase predicted last year has been upgraded to a 6.1% expansion forecast this year.
It’s a different story for customer experience (CX), however. This year, respondents only see a 3.5% budget increase on the horizon over the next 12 months for this area, while last year they forecast a 4.7% hike.
Given that 1 in every 8 customer experiences around the world is considered to be “bad,” it’ll be interesting to see if spending intentions for CX change over time.
For more, check out the full report here.
About the Data: The results are based on a survey of 281 marketing leaders at US for-profit companies, 99% of whom are VP-level and above.
