April 3, 2025

9 Benchmarks B2B CMOs Need to Know in 2025

by Drew Neisser

Much like those first blooming flowers pushing through the soil, fresh marketing budget data has arrived to brighten our planning horizons. That's why we're so excited to share insights from the comprehensive "2025 B2B Marketing Benchmarks" report recently released by Benchmarkit.

This research—conducted by Ray Rike, Jon Miller, Carilu Dietrich, and Bill Macaitis—analyzed data from 323 B2B technology companies, offering a bounty of marketing budget insights that's as welcome as that first warm day after a long winter.

Let's dive into nine critical benchmarks every B2B CMO should know:

1. Marketing Budgets Are Growing in 2025

The research shows median marketing budgets are increasing from 9% to 10% of revenue in 2025, reflecting growing confidence in marketing's impact. Even more telling, the 75th percentile is seeing budgets jump from 16% to 20% of revenue, highlighting substantial commitments to growth at top-performing companies.

Like gardeners adjusting their planting schedules based on local conditions, marketing budget allocations vary significantly by company size—from 14% of revenue for companies under $5M to just 4% for those over $250M.

2. High-Growth Companies Invest More in Marketing

There's a clear correlation between growth rates and marketing investment. Companies growing faster than 30% annually typically allocate substantially more to marketing than their slower-growing counterparts.

As Carilu Dietrich notes on LinkedIn, "In my marketing benchmark overview, I shared data that faster-growing companies allocate more to marketing overall." While it's the classic chicken-or-egg question (does higher marketing spend drive growt, or do growing companies just spend more?), the relationship is undeniable.

3. Product-Led Growth Companies Have Different Budget Profiles

PLG companies are investing a larger percentage of revenue in marketing than other models (13% vs. 10% for sales-led companies in 2025).

Interestingly, PLG companies allocate their budgets differently too—spending much more on programs (52%) and less on people (32%). It seems PLG companies march to the beat of their own drummer when it comes to resource allocation.

4. The Marketing/Sales Budget Ratio Follows the 30% Rule—With Variations

As Dietrich explains, "The general 'rule of thumb' is that marketing gets 30% of the combined sales and marketing budget. This starting point holds up—until you dig deeper."

The report confirms this 30% benchmark overall but reveals fascinating variations:

  • Smaller companies (<$5M) allocate 40% to marketing at median
  • Companies with lower ACVs (<$10K) give 36% to marketing
  • Companies with higher ACVs (>$250K) reduce marketing's share to 25%

Dietrich adds, "This generally makes sense with the philosophy that more salespeople are needed to navigate bigger buying committees, keep long deal cycles moving, and customize an experience for more complex sales."

5. Technology Budgets Are Higher Than Historical Norms

Marketing technology now represents 14% of marketing budgets on average—at the high end of the historical 5-15% range. This raises an interesting question: With AI investments growing rapidly (23% of companies allocating 16-20% of budget to AI in 2025, up from 11% in 2024), will these increased tech investments come at the expense of people or programs?

I guess we'll soon find out if AI is really the marketing equivalent of a self-driving car or just an overhyped cruise control.

6. Demand Generation Dominates Program Spending

Across company sizes, demand generation claims the largest share of program budgets (30% at median), followed by events. Together, these two categories account for over 50% of most companies' program spending.

Companies in the high-growth bracket (20-30%) invest even more heavily in demand generation (37%), while those growing fastest (>30%) shift some spending from demand gen to events.

7. Attribution Models Evolve with Company Maturity

The report highlights fascinating shifts in attribution models as companies scale:

  • Multi-touch attribution becomes dominant as companies mature (73% of companies over $250M use it)
  • Smaller companies rely more heavily on first-touch, last-touch, and inbound models
  • As companies grow, there's a noticeable migration from simple attribution models to more sophisticated approaches

It seems that attribution models, like fine wines, become more complex with age.

8. Inbound Leads Correlate with Deal Size

The research shows a clear correlation between ACV and inbound lead contribution. Lower ACV companies (<$50K) generate significantly more business from inbound leads than companies with larger deals.

Dietrich notes the importance of this metric: "Finding ways to maintain or even increase the percentage of new bookings from inbound hand-raisers is a critical variable to decreasing customer acquisition costs and increasing revenue growth efficiency."

9. Marketing Efficiency Metrics Are Underutilized

Perhaps most surprising is how few marketing organizations prioritize efficiency metrics. While 62% measure pipeline generated and 51% track opportunities, only 18% consider cost per opportunity a top-three metric, and just 15% prioritize the marketing CAC ratio.

As Dietrich observed, "It's common that marketers get stuck deep in the weeds of sales/marketing attribution or channel cost/opportunity. But it's surprising that more aren't running a blended cost/revenue as a top metric to prove the effectiveness of marketing—and justify future investment."

Customizable Insights at Your Fingertips

You can customize these benchmarks to your specific situation. The interactive portal at benchmarkit.ai/b2b-marketing-benchmarks allows you to filter these insights by:

  • Company revenue
  • Average contract value
  • Go-to-market motion
  • Pricing model
  • Growth rates
  • And more

This powerful tool lets you compare your marketing investments against peers who most closely match your company profile.

Essential Benchmarking Resources for the Data-Hungry CMO

Looking for more benchmarking goodness? Here's a curated list of resources to help you contextualize your marketing efforts:

Free Resources:

  1. HubSpot's Marketing Statistics Report - Updated annually with trends across digital marketing channels
  2. Content Marketing Institute's B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks - Comprehensive content marketing data
  3. Semrush's State of Content Marketing Report - Deep insights on content performance metrics
  4. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Reports - B2B-specific engagement and advertising benchmarks
  5. Google's Marketing Platform Benchmarks - Industry-specific digital marketing performance data
  6. Benchmarkit.ai - Interactive B2B SaaS marketing benchmark tools (featured in this article)

Paid/Premium Resources:

  1. Benchmarker - Customizable SaaS metrics and benchmarks
  2. Forrester - Comprehensive B2B marketing and sales benchmarks
  3. TOPO Research (acquired by Gartner) - Sales and marketing benchmarks for high-growth companies
  4. OpenView's SaaS Benchmarks - Focuses on product-led growth metrics
  5. ProfitWell Benchmarks - Subscription business metrics and comparison tools

Next Steps

Use these benchmarks to validate your strategy or identify areas for adjustment as you allocate your 2025 marketing investments – and maybe, like the spring flowers, your marketing results will truly blossom this year.

Which of these benchmarks surprised you the most? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!