B2B marketing
What to budget
for B2B.
Benchmarks give a range: Gartner's 2026 survey puts marketing at 7.8% of company revenue, and the US CMO Survey at 9.0%. Neither is Australian or B2B-specific. A better starting point is your own numbers: the revenue you want, your deal size, your win rates and your sales cycle, worked back to a budget and a cost per lead you can afford.
Written by Dan Picken, a marketer who checks the sources. Last checked 2 November 2026.The
benchmarks.
Gartner surveyed 401 marketing leaders in North America, the UK and Europe, mostly at companies with over US$1 billion in revenue, and found budgets averaged 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, up from 7.7%. The CMO Survey of 308 US leaders put it at 9.0% of revenue.
Useful as a sense-check, not a target. A business growing fast, entering a new market or with a long sales cycle may need more. A business with a full pipeline from referrals may need far less.
Work back
from revenue.
Start from what you want, and what one deal is worth. The planner does the maths.
Reverse budget
Start from the revenue,
work back to the budget.
Put in your target and your own pipeline numbers. It works out the deals, opportunities and leads you need, what you can afford per lead, and when spending has to start.
Yearly marketing budget
Most you can pay per lead
The sales cycle
sets the timing.
6sense's 2025 research put the average B2B buying cycle at about 10 months. Yours may be shorter, but if it takes four months to close, leads from this month pay off next season.
That has two effects. Start before you need the revenue, and judge early months on leads and opportunities, not closed deals. Cutting the budget in month three because nothing has closed yet is a common way B2B marketing gets switched off just before it works.
Plan the budget by quarter rather than by month. It smooths out the lumpy months that long sales cycles produce, and gives each channel long enough to show whether it's building pipeline.
Where the
money goes.
Split the budget between capturing demand that exists now and building it for later. Search ads and SEO capture people already looking. LinkedIn, content and events build memory among the large majority who aren't buying yet.
Measurement is part of the budget too. Connecting your CRM to the ad platforms, covered in connecting your CRM to your ads, is what lets you see which part of the spend creates pipeline, and the Spend Curve shows where more money stops paying.
Platform minimums matter less than people think. LinkedIn's floor is $10 a day for any ad format, and $100 over a new campaign's life, in its US-dollar examples. The minimum that counts is what it takes to learn something in a quarter: enough clicks from the right job titles to see whether any turn into opportunities. If the budget can't do that on LinkedIn and search together, pick one and do it properly.
What I see most often
What I see
most often.
- 1
Budget from last year plus a bit
No link to the revenue target or what a deal is worth.
- 2
Judged on closed deals in month two
A four-month sales cycle, and a verdict after eight weeks.
- 3
All of it on one channel
Every dollar on one platform, with nothing building awareness for later.
- 4
No cost per lead ceiling
Leads bought at any price, because nobody worked out what one is worth.
The honest bit. If your deals come mostly from referrals and you can't take on more work, the right marketing budget might be small. Spend it keeping the referrers close.
Questions
people ask.
How much should a B2B company spend on marketing?
Overseas surveys suggest around 7.8% to 9.0% of revenue. Work back from your own revenue target and pipeline for a figure that fits you.
What percentage of revenue should go to marketing?
Gartner's 2026 average was 7.8%. It varies widely by growth stage and industry.
How long is the B2B sales cycle?
6sense put the average buying cycle at about 10 months in 2025. Yours depends on deal size and how many people decide.
What is a good B2B cost per lead?
One you can afford: work it out from deal value, margin and how many leads become customers. No credible public benchmark fits every business.
Related
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going.
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