119 Marketing Statistics October 2026

Marketing statistics for 2026 describe a function asked to do more with a budget that has barely moved. Gartner puts the rise in marketing budgets from 2025 to 2026 at 1.3% and says it falls well short of enterprise ambition (Gartner, Jun 2026). Marketing leaders reported company sales growth of 8.8%, up from 8.3% a year earlier, and profit growth of 6.9%, down from 7.8% (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

This page is the broad pillar. It covers how much companies spend, where the money goes, how marketers prove a return, who works in marketing, what CMOs are prioritising and how businesses of every size are adopting tools. Single-channel numbers sit on their own pages, for SEO, PPC, email, social media, content, influencer, affiliate and AI marketing.

Each number links to the organisation that produced it, with the date of the data. The spend figures come from company filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the labour figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indeed, and the practice figures from named surveys of marketing leaders. Survey results describe the people who answered, so each is labelled with its source rather than presented as an audit of the whole market.

How big are marketing budgets in 2026?

Marketing takes more than a third of revenue at some software companies and under 1% at the largest retailers, and in The CMO Survey its share of company budgets fell to the lowest level since 2021.

What share of revenue goes to marketing?

It depends on who sells to whom. Companies that sell to consumers and companies that sell online spend far more than business-to-business product makers and the largest corporations. Gartner's survey covers mostly companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, and its CMOs say the money is short.

• Marketing takes 12.0% of revenue at B2C product companies, against 10.1% at B2B services, 7.2% at B2C services and 7.0% at B2B product companies (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Companies that sell everything online spend 18.8% of revenue on marketing, against 8.0% for companies with no online sales (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 59% of CMOs said in 2025 that they had too little budget to execute their strategy, down five percentage points from 2024 (Gartner, May 2025).
• 54% of CMOs report insufficient resources (Gartner, May 2026).
• CMOs whose organisations report mature AI readiness spend 21.3% of their marketing budgets on AI and report budgets of 8.9% of company revenue, above the survey average (Gartner, May 2026).

How much do consumer brands and retailers spend on advertising?

Consumer goods makers and sportswear brands put roughly a tenth of sales into advertising, with PepsiCo lower, and the largest retailers put about 1%. The figures come from annual reports filed with the SEC, and a percentage marked "calculated" is a division of two figures in the same filing.

• The Coca-Cola Company spent $5.4 billion on advertising in 2025, up from $5.1 billion in 2024 and $5.0 billion in 2023, on net operating revenues of $47,941 million (about 11.3%, calculated) (Coca-Cola, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• PepsiCo cut advertising and other marketing activities to $5.4 billion in 2025 from $5.9 billion in 2024, with advertising alone falling from $3.9 billion to $3.4 billion, against net revenue of $93,925 million (marketing about 5.7%, calculated) (PepsiCo, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Colgate-Palmolive spent $2,703 million on advertising in 2025, about 13.3% of its $20,382 million in net sales (calculated), after $2,371 million in 2023 (Colgate-Palmolive, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Nike spent $4,754 million on demand creation, its brand and sports marketing line, in fiscal 2026, up 1% and equal to about 10.2% of its $46,398 million in revenues (calculated) (Nike, Form 10-K FY2026, Jul 2026).
• Walmart's advertising costs were $5.4 billion in fiscal 2026, up from $4.4 billion in fiscal 2024, on total revenues of $713.2 billion (about 0.8%, calculated) (Walmart, Form 10-K FY2026, Mar 2026).
• The Home Depot's net advertising expense was $1.3 billion in fiscal 2025, up from $1.1 billion in fiscal 2023, on net sales of $164.7 billion (The Home Depot, Form 10-K FY2025, Mar 2026).

How much do software and platform companies spend on marketing?

Software and platform companies report marketing together with sales, so these lines include sales staff and do not compare with the advertising totals above. They show how much of each revenue dollar goes into winning customers, and the share fell at several of the larger platforms in the latest year.

• Alphabet's sales and marketing expense was $28,693 million in 2025, up from $27,808 million in 2024, on revenues of $402,836 million (about 7.1%, calculated) (Alphabet, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Microsoft's sales and marketing expense was $26,710 million in fiscal 2026, 8% of revenue, down from 9% in fiscal 2025 (Microsoft, Form 10-K FY2026, Jul 2026).
• Meta's marketing and sales expense rose 6% to $11,991 million in 2025, mainly on higher professional services for platform integrity, and fell to 6% of revenue from 9% in 2023 (Meta Platforms, Form 10-K 2025, Jan 2026).
• Salesforce spent $14,345 million on sales and marketing in fiscal 2026, 35% of total revenues, against 37% in fiscal 2024 (Salesforce, Form 10-K FY2026, Mar 2026).
• Adobe's sales and marketing expense was $6,488 million in fiscal 2025, up 13% and 27% of total revenue (Adobe, Form 10-K FY2025, Jan 2026).
• HubSpot's sales and marketing expense was 44% of revenue in 2025, down from 49% in 2023 (HubSpot, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Shopify's sales and marketing expense was $1,663 million in 2025, up 19%, and fell to 14% of revenue from 17% in 2023 (Shopify, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Uber's sales and marketing expense rose 13% to $4,898 million in 2025, 9% of revenue, down from 10% in 2024 (Uber, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Amazon's advertising and other promotional costs rose from $20.3 billion in 2023 to $23.5 billion in 2025 (Amazon, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).
• Amazon's sales and marketing expense fell to 6.6% of net sales in 2025 from 6.9% in 2024, even as third-party advertising costs pushed the dollar total up 7% (Amazon, Form 10-K 2025, Feb 2026).

Where does the marketing budget go?

Toward digital channels and paid media, while the share going to labour rises and agency budgets are cut. Marketers also say they will lean on existing customers, and that retention is where results are improving.

Is the budget moving to digital and paid media?

Yes. Digital spending is still growing at a steady pace, and traditional advertising is the one area marketing leaders expect to shrink.

• Digital channels took 61.1% of total marketing spend in 2025, and seven in 10 sectors put more than 60% of their budget online (Gartner, Jun 2025).
• Paid online channels made up 69% of total digital spend in 2025 (Gartner, Jun 2025).
• Paid search took 13.9% of digital spend in 2025, digital display 12.5% (up 17% in a year) and social advertising 12.2% (Gartner, Jun 2025).
• In Gartner's 2025 chart of digital allocations, video and streaming took 10.7% of digital spend, SEO 8.9%, audio and podcast 7.5%, retail media networks 6.4% and influencer marketing 5.9% (Gartner, Jun 2025).
• Paid media took 30.6% of marketing budgets in 2025, equal to 2.4% of company revenue (Gartner, May 2025).
• Digital marketing spending grew 8.2% over the prior 12 months, and marketing leaders expect it to grow 10.4% over the next 12 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Marketing leaders expect traditional advertising budgets to fall a further 1.5% in the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Marketing leaders expect budgets for brand building and new product introductions to grow 5.9% each over the next 12 months, against 3.5% for customer relationship management and 3.0% for customer experience (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

Are agencies or in-house teams gaining budget?

Agencies are losing ground. CMOs planned to cut agency budgets and credit generative AI for part of the saving, agency employment has fallen from its 2023 high, and a minority of small firms using AI have cut outside spending. Most companies still build capabilities through their own training and hiring.

• 39% of CMOs planned to cut agency budgets in 2025, with the top actions being to drop unproductive agency relationships and streamline agency rosters (Gartner, May 2025).
• 22% of CMOs said generative AI had let them rely less on external agencies for creativity and strategy (Gartner, May 2025).
• Employment at advertising agencies was 200,100 in August 2026 (preliminary, seasonally adjusted), down from 209,700 a year earlier and from a high of 227,600 in April 2023 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, Aug 2026).
• Among small firms using AI, 18% decreased their spending on outside services and 11% increased it, while 71% saw no change (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• Among small firms using AI, 16% reported lower labour costs and 7% higher, and among those reporting a change in labour costs, 10% increased and 11% decreased their number of employees because of AI (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• 59.5% of companies build marketing capabilities by training and hiring, 38.5% partner and 1.9% buy other companies (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

Are companies putting growth money into existing customers or new ones?

Marketers say they will lean on existing customers while the outlook is poor, and retention is where performance gains are showing. Acquisition budgets are covered on the lead generation statistics page, and they remain the larger line.

• Marketing leaders reported customer retention growing 12.8% over the prior 12 months, ahead of brand value at 10.0% (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• In response to economic shifts over the last year, 43.7% of marketers increased their focus on loyalty and retention of existing customers, while 19.4% increased their focus on expanding into new geographic markets (The CMO Survey, Mar 2026).
• 71% of marketing leaders expected to increase their focus on customer loyalty over the following year (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 56.4% of growth spending goes to market penetration, which means selling existing products and services into existing markets, against 22.9% on product and service development and 14.1% on new markets (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

How do marketers prove ROI?

Mostly by building more tracking. Pressure from the top eased a little in 2026, but most marketing leaders still feel it, and the usual answer is to favour what pays back soonest.

How much pressure do marketers face to prove value?

More than half of marketing leaders feel it from the CEO and the CFO, and the effect is a shorter planning horizon.

• 59% of marketing leaders feel increasing pressure from their CEO to prove the value of marketing, 56% from the CFO and 45% from the board, all lower than in 2025 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 26.8% of marketing leaders emphasise spending over building capabilities and 25.5% limit the ambition of marketing's goals (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• When profits miss expectations, 53.1% of companies focus on cutting expenses rather than growing revenue, up from 46.0% a year earlier (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Companies rate marketing as a core business function at 5.5 out of 7, with B2C product and services firms at 5.8 and B2B product and services firms at 5.4 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Marketers spend 68.2% of their time managing the present and 31.8% preparing for the future, a split that has held since 2019 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

How do marketers show their value to finance?

Mostly with tracking, which tops Figure 3, and least with fresh customer insight. The partnership with the CFO that would make the case for spending is only moderate, though marketing and finance now work together on growth far more often than three years ago.

• 67.3% of marketing leaders demonstrate the value of brand and customer relationships to other functions, and 57.7% run experiments (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Marketing leaders rate the CFO's help in building a business case for marketing spend at 4.5 out of 7, up only from 4.3 four years earlier (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 78.2% of marketing leaders say marketing capabilities matter because they raise the return on every marketing dollar spent (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 10.7% of marketing leaders name marketing ROI and attribution as the capability most lacking in their organisation (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• No marketing technology activity scores above 5 on a 7-point scale, and hiring to manage marketing technologies scores lowest at 3.7 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

Can marketers measure long-term effects, analytics and AI?

Partly. The effects of marketing last longer than most reports capture, and the survey authors say short-term measurement may understate the return. Data quality and AI measurement hold back the rest.

• The median duration of marketing's effect on customers is now six months, up from several months in 2022 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 73.2% of companies rate digital marketing's contribution to company performance at 5 or higher on a 7-point scale, and the mean rating rose from 4.96 in 2022 to 5.16 in 2026 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• The world's 100 most valuable brands are worth a combined $13.1 trillion, up 22% in a year (Kantar, May 2026).
• McKinsey estimated that generative AI could raise the productivity of the marketing function by an amount worth 5% to 15% of total marketing spending (McKinsey, Jun 2023).
• 67.5% of marketers know how to measure the impact of AI, up from 48% in 2025 (HubSpot, Apr 2026).
• 65% of marketers say they have high-quality audience data, the same share as last year (HubSpot, Apr 2026).
• Adopting a data-driven strategy (19.5%), sharing data across the organisation (12.4%) and lacking high-quality data (9.2%) are marketers' top data challenges (HubSpot, Apr 2026).

How big are marketing teams, and what skills are missing?

Hiring has cooled since the 2022 boom, and teams report gaps in the skills AI now demands. Employment in advertising and public relations is below its 2023 high, job postings are well under their 2022 peak and the training budget keeps shrinking.

How many people work in marketing and advertising?

Roughly half a million managers and nearly a million analysts in the US, with the jobs closest to producing ads shrinking.

• The US had 454,800 advertising, promotions and marketing manager jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $165,780 a year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers, Aug 2026).
• 35% of advertising and promotions managers are self-employed, the largest single group, ahead of advertising, public relations and related services firms at 27% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers, Aug 2026).
• The US had 952,700 market research analyst jobs in 2025, and employment is projected to add 66,300 by 2035 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Market Research Analysts, Aug 2026).
• Advertising sales agent jobs are projected to fall 7% by 2035, a loss of 7,100 from 99,300 jobs in 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising Sales Agents, Aug 2026).
• Graphic designers held 253,100 US jobs in 2025, and employment is projected to fall 2% by 2035, a loss of 4,200 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Graphic Designers, Aug 2026).
• The US had 650,100 sales manager jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $148,270 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sales Managers, Aug 2026).
• Employment in advertising, public relations and related services was 478,600 in September 2026 (preliminary, seasonally adjusted), 24,600 below its February 2023 high of 503,200, the highest in the ten years the series page shows (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, Sep 2026).

What do marketing jobs pay, and is hiring recovering?

Pay is high for managers and modest for the roles that make and sell ads, and job postings are far below the 2022 peak.

• The median graphic designer earned $62,960 in 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Graphic Designers, Aug 2026).
• Advertising sales agents earned a median $64,820 in 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising Sales Agents, Aug 2026).
• The index peaked at 185.95 on 28 February 2022, a fall of about 59% (calculated) (Indeed Hiring Lab, Job Postings Index, Oct 2026).
• A year earlier, on 2 October 2025, the marketing postings index was 78.36 (Indeed Hiring Lab, Job Postings Index, Oct 2026).
• Only three of the 47 occupational sectors Indeed tracks had a lower postings index than marketing on that date: data and analytics, IT infrastructure, operations and support, and media and communications (Indeed Hiring Lab, Job Postings Index, Oct 2026).

Which skills and capabilities are marketing teams missing?

The most cited gap is capacity: people, time and money to run what already exists. After that come AI and analytics, and leaders concede they are short of talent.

• 22.3% of marketing leaders say their biggest capability gap is that existing capabilities lack the people, time and budget to work (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• AI-related gaps (analytics, demand generation, generative AI, GEO and bots) are cited by a combined 35.7% of marketing leaders (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Training and development takes 3.8% of marketing spending, down from a pre-pandemic high of 5.8% (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 38% of CMOs name a lack of internal AI expertise and talent as the top barrier to AI-driven efficiency (Gartner, Jun 2026).
• 71% of CMOs say the success of AI depends more on people's buy-in than on the technology (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 65% of demand leaders say AI-literate talent is essential to reach their high-priority objectives (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).

What are CMOs prioritising in 2026?

Talent, alignment and simpler systems come up again and again. Marketing owns more than it did a year ago, and a weaker economic outlook has pushed plans inward.

What is the marketing function responsible for?

More than it was last year, with public relations and customer insight among the activities that grew most and customer relationship management falling.

• 72.2% of marketing leaders say marketing is responsible for public relations, up 9.9 points in a year, and 56.7% say it owns customer insight, up 8.8 points (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Only 30.6% say marketing owns customer relationship management, down 5.8 points in a year (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• 78.6% say marketing owns marketing analytics and 73.8% say it owns marketing research (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Marketing leaders rate how well marketing works with sales at 5.8 out of 7, ahead of IT (5.1), operations (5.0), finance (4.8) and human resources (4.4) (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Talent is the top driver of organic revenue growth for 34.5% of marketers, down from 40.1% in 2023 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• Having all stakeholders aligned is the first priority for driving organic revenue growth for 22.3% of marketers, up from 14.9% in spring 2023 (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).
• The right operating model is the first growth priority for 19.4% of marketers, the right data for 15.0% and the right technology for 8.7% (The CMO Survey, Apr 2026).

What do CMOs worry about most?

Growth priorities, tangled systems and the pace of change. Marketing leaders describe fear of missing out as a driver of technology purchases, and they say their organisations are poorly set up to use what they buy.

• 46% of CMOs said their most urgent question for 2026 was how to prioritise the marketing initiatives most likely to drive growth (Gartner, Dec 2025).
• 58% of surveyed marketing and sales leaders admit that fear of falling behind makes them invest in technology before they understand its value (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 68% of surveyed leaders agree that simplifying their marketing technology would improve efficiency and effectiveness (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• Only 28% of organisations say the end-to-end customer experience is effectively owned and aligned across functions (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 69% of surveyed leaders agree that new privacy regulations will require them to rethink their data strategy (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 54% of demand leaders say they underestimated the operational complexity of turning AI strategies into outcomes, and only 17% strongly believe their function is ready to integrate agentic AI (IBM Institute for Business Value, Jun 2025).
• 64% of marketers say they are struggling to keep up with changing customer behaviour (Salesforce, Feb 2026).
• 86% of marketers have seen AI raise customer expectations (Salesforce, Feb 2026).

How are tariffs and a weaker outlook changing marketing plans?

Toward caution. Optimism fell, prices rose and more companies cut investment than raised it.

• 50.7% of marketing leaders are less optimistic about the US economy than they were the previous quarter, and 22.2% are more optimistic (The CMO Survey, Mar 2026).
• Marketing leaders rated their optimism about the US economy at 56.78 on a scale of 0 to 100, with a median of 60 (The CMO Survey, Mar 2026).
• 35.6% of companies have raised prices because of tariffs, and 12.7% expect to raise them this year (The CMO Survey, Mar 2026).
• 21.6% of companies report lower business investment because of tariffs, against 5.7% reporting higher investment (The CMO Survey, Mar 2026).

How are businesses of every size adopting marketing tools and AI?

Unevenly. Small employer firms use AI first for writing and marketing, and about half of those are still experimenting, while large firms are further ahead on social media and data analytics.

How many small firms use AI, and for what?

Small firms that use AI use it first for writing and marketing, and about half of them are still testing tools. Census data show larger firms and information businesses using it at higher rates.

• Among small firms using AI, 49% were experimenting, 44% had partially integrated it and 7% had fully integrated it into their business (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• 21% of small firms using AI call it very important to producing their core goods or services, 42% somewhat important and 37% not important (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• Among small firms using AI, 71% reported higher productivity and 31% reported higher sales, while 39% saw better quality of goods and services (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• The top challenges for small firms using AI were accuracy (46%) and adapting tools to business needs (43%) (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).
• In the period ending 3 May 2026, 32% of US firms with 100 to 249 employees used AI, as did 39.7% of information sector firms and 33.9% of finance and insurance firms, all above the national rate (U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey, May 2026).
• The AI questions were an optional module that about 81% of the survey's employer firm respondents chose to answer (Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey, Mar 2026).

How many businesses market online?

Most EU businesses have a website and a social media presence, and the gap by size and country is wide.

• 79.01% of EU enterprises with at least 10 employees had a website in 2025 (Eurostat, Digital economy and society statistics: enterprises, Jan 2026).
• Social media use by enterprises ran from 88.2% in Malta and 87.59% in Finland to 41.51% in Bulgaria (Eurostat, Social media use by enterprises, Jun 2026).
• In 2016 only 40.30% of small and 66.02% of large EU enterprises used social media (Eurostat, Social media use by enterprises, Jun 2026).
• Medium-sized EU enterprises raised their social media use from 50.83% in 2016 to 76.18% in 2025 (Eurostat, Social media use by enterprises, Jun 2026).

How many businesses use data analytics and AI?

Large EU firms run analytics in house far more often than small ones, and about one in five EU businesses use an AI technology.

• 78.84% of large EU enterprises did data analytics in-house, against 27.86% of small ones (Eurostat, Digital economy and society statistics: enterprises, Jan 2026).
• 19.95% of EU enterprises with at least 10 employees used at least one AI technology in 2025 (Eurostat, Digital economy and society statistics: enterprises, Jan 2026).

Methodology and Sources

Every statistic on this page was traced to the organisation that ran the survey, filed the accounts, published the labour data or produced the index, and each URL was fetched and checked for the figure and its date in October 2026. Roundups and pages that republish other people's numbers were not used. Survey figures come from The CMO Survey (US marketing leaders at for-profit companies), Gartner (CMOs and marketing leaders in North America, the UK and Europe, mostly at companies with over $1 billion in revenue), IBM (a global survey of marketing and sales leaders in the first quarter of 2025), HubSpot and Salesforce (marketer surveys run by software vendors) and the Federal Reserve Banks (small employer firms). Business adoption figures also come from Eurostat and the US Census Bureau, and brand value from Kantar. Company spend figures are taken from each company's Form 10-K, and where a percentage is marked as calculated it is a division of two figures in the same filing. The McKinsey estimate dates from June 2023 and is included as a foundational sizing. Labour figures use the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indeed Hiring Lab. Figures that the source later revises, such as preliminary employment, are refreshed monthly.

Sources

• Gartner, CMO Spend in 2026
• The CMO Survey, Highlights and Insights Report 2026
• Procter & Gamble, Form 10-K FY2026
• Booking Holdings, Form 10-K 2025
• Gartner, Awareness and Conversion Account for 62.6% of Total Media Spend (2026 CMO Spend Survey)
• HubSpot, 2026 State of Marketing
• Indeed Hiring Lab, Job Postings Index
• IBM Institute for Business Value, 2025 CMO Study
• Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms (2025 Small Business Credit Survey)
• Gartner, 2025 CMO Spend Survey
• Gartner, 2026 CMO Spend Survey
• Coca-Cola, Form 10-K 2025
• PepsiCo, Form 10-K 2025
• Colgate-Palmolive, Form 10-K 2025
• Nike, Form 10-K FY2026
• Walmart, Form 10-K FY2026
• The Home Depot, Form 10-K FY2025
• Alphabet, Form 10-K 2025
• Microsoft, Form 10-K FY2026
• Meta Platforms, Form 10-K 2025
• Salesforce, Form 10-K FY2026
• Adobe, Form 10-K FY2025
• HubSpot, Form 10-K 2025
• Shopify, Form 10-K 2025
• Uber, Form 10-K 2025
• Amazon, Form 10-K 2025
• Gartner, Digital Channels Account for 61.1% of Total Spend (2025 CMO Spend Survey)
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics
• Federal Reserve Banks, Small Business Credit Survey
• The CMO Survey, Topline Report 2026
• Kantar, BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands 2026
• McKinsey, The economic potential of generative AI
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising, Promotions, and Marketing Managers
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Market Research Analysts
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Advertising Sales Agents
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Graphic Designers
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sales Managers
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics
• Gartner, CMOs' Top Challenges and Priorities for 2026
• Salesforce, State of Marketing, tenth edition
• U.S. Census Bureau, Business Trends and Outlook Survey: AI use by businesses
• Eurostat, Digital economy and society statistics: enterprises
• Eurostat, Social media use by enterprises

Glossary

• AI: artificial intelligence.
• B2B: business to business, selling to other companies.
• B2C: business to consumer, selling to individuals.
• BLS: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that publishes US employment and pay data.
• CMO: chief marketing officer, the senior executive who leads marketing.
• CRM: customer relationship management, the systems and practice of managing customer relationships.
• EU: European Union.
• GEO: generative engine optimisation, shaping content so AI answers cite it.
• R&D: research and development.
• ROI: return on investment, the profit earned per unit spent.
• SEC: US Securities and Exchange Commission, the regulator that receives annual company filings.
• SG&A: selling, general and administrative expenses, the line in which many companies report advertising.