Are you budgeting an excessive amount of or too little on advertising and marketing? So much has occurred over the past 12 months, so do it’s essential to make a change? Fortuitously, our 2026 Excessive Progress Examine presents a contemporary reply.
First, let’s speak about what’s modified. There’s, in fact, all of the stuff you examine within the information: on-and-off-again tariffs, socio/geo/political turbulence, and loads of uncertainty about rules and insurance policies that have an effect on a large swath {of professional} companies industries.
Then there’s this:
Progress has fallen to the bottom stage since 2018, shedding 1.7 proportion factors within the final 12 months alone.*
Advertising and marketing Spending Traits
How do you suppose leaders responded when it got here to their advertising and marketing spend? In reality, throughout the skilled companies, spending (not together with compensation) notched up one proportion level, from 7% in 2024 and 2025 to eight% in 2026.
So if you’re in search of a broad market benchmark, it’s 8%.
However there’s one other bit of information you may need to think about. In our research, we examine a gaggle of prime performers that we name high-growth corporations to their no-growth counterparts. Excessive-growth corporations are these whose annual revenues grew 20% or extra yearly for the previous three consecutive years, and no-growth corporations are those who grew not all or contracted over that interval.
What did these two teams on the outer edges of our pattern spend on advertising and marketing final 12 months? Right here’s the info:
No-growth corporations not solely spent much less (over a 3rd much less) than {the marketplace} as a complete, they stored their advertising and marketing budgets precisely the place they had been the earlier 12 months. Like the bulk corporations, this group’s revenues additionally declined 12 months over 12 months.
What in regards to the high-growth corporations? We pay particular consideration to this group as a result of their monetary efficiency is spectacular even when the going will get powerful. We glance to them as fashions of “how you can do advertising and marketing proper.” And we be aware of any adjustments they make from one 12 months to the subsequent.
This group elevated its advertising and marketing spend from 10% within the 2025 report back to 12% this 12 months—an eye-opening 20% bounce.
Why Excessive-Progress Corporations Spend Extra
Why are high-growth corporations outinvesting their slower-growing counterparts by wherever between 50% and 240%? We don’t have laborious knowledge to reply this query, however now we have 4 theories based mostly on what we’ve skilled with our shoppers.
First, we all know that some agency leaders consider advertising and marketing as a price middle slightly than a progress engine. This may clarify why no-growth corporations stored their advertising and marketing price range on the similar low stage. However, many of those underperformers—the median no-growth agency took a 12.2% loss—merely might not have any extra cash to allocate to advertising and marketing.
Second, high-growth organizations might acknowledge a chance once they see it. When the market is down is when progress potential is the best. In order that they poured extra into advertising and marketing figuring out that others had been being extra cautious. They had been rewarded with a 39.9% median progress price, 4.7 occasions larger than common!
Third, a whole lot of high-growth corporations are investing closely in synthetic intelligence, together with AI-powered advertising and marketing tech. This doesn’t come low-cost, and since the expertise is new, some corporations are experimenting with a number of competing platforms to find out the very best match.
Fourth, advertising and marketing is the neatest path to ascertain and maintain visibility. Not too long ago, I lined the 5 advertising and marketing methods that ship the largest impression for top progress corporations. These techniques are aimed squarely at constructing visibility and credibility. Even these corporations that closely depend on referrals to drive new enterprise perceive that any severe purchaser, regardless of how sturdy the referral could be, will need to validate the advice by reviewing the agency’s web site, LinkedIn profiles, and thought management items. These are all sides of promoting.
With all of this info in thoughts, it might be time to take a contemporary take a look at your advertising and marketing price range. Whereas there are not any one-size matches all solutions to the query, “Am I spending an excessive amount of or too little?” you are actually geared up with the context to make a greater resolution.
*Dates seek advice from the 12 months the info was revealed, not when it was collected. Annually’s knowledge was captured within the prior 12 months. As an illustration, knowledge labeled 2025 displays {the marketplace} in 2024.
