B2B Marketing Budget: Plan Your 2025 Marketing Spend

How much do B2B companies spend on marketing?

B2B companies spend between 2-5% of their revenue on marketing.

Business-to-business (B2B) companies need an effective marketing strategy to reach potential leads. And before that, you need a B2B marketing budget. This page will break down business-to-business marketing budgets to help you start planning for 2025.

Here is what we will cover:

• How much do B2B companies spend on marketing?
• B2B marketing budget breakdown
• Factors that impact B2B marketing budgets
• How to create a B2B marketing budget
• FAQs on education marketing budgets

If you want to jump into creating your budget, check out our downloadable budget planner below!

Download Now: B2B Marketing Budget Planner

How much do B2B companies spend on marketing?

B2B companies spend 2-5% of their revenue on marketing, on average. Based on the costs of digital marketing, that can be anywhere from $51 to $10,000 per month.

B2B marketing budget breakdown

Your budget is dependent on the services that you invest in/perform in-house. Here are the average rates for each marketing channel that B2B companies prefer:

Factors that impact B2B marketing budgets

There are other factors besides the channels you use that impact your marketing budget. Here are some other considerations for your 2025 B2B marketing budget:

• Generating quality leads: Many B2B companies struggle to generate quality leads, whether due to complex sales processes, misaligned sales and marketing information, or highly competitive markets. Planning a marketing budget surrounding lead generation can help you select the right strategies to combat these issues.
• Handling competitive markets: Your business-to-business marketing budget will change depending on market demands. You must spend enough to compete with other companies in your industry.
• Building client relationships: You should invest in your current clients as well as generating new leads. Setting aside funds for marketing to existing clients will help you target those who already work with your business.
• Long sales cycles: If you struggle with long sales cycles, you need solutions that help either speed up the process or bring in more leads. This factor also makes building lasting relationships all the more important!

How to create a B2B marketing budget

How To Create Your 2025 B2B Marketing Budget

• Allocate 2-5% of your total revenue for marketing
• Reserve between 5-10% of your marketing budget to invest in new marketing strategies

You now know what factors influence your marketing budget, as well as how much you should spend. But, how do you write up a business-to-business marketing budget?

Here are four steps to creating your 2025 B2B marketing budget to help guide your process:

1. Define clear business goals to identify the best marketing channels
2. Assess your current B2B marketing effort
3. Establish a marketing budget aligned with B2B priorities
4. Adjust as necessary to maximize ROI

1. Define clear business goals to identify the best marketing channels

First, you should establish what you want to accomplish with your marketing budget. Your budget is the starting point for all campaigns, so you need to aim for an endpoint.

Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals to give you the best chance at succeeding. An example of a SMART goal for a B2B business might be something like, “We want to increase customer retention by X percent over the next six months.”

Setting SMART goals will help you:

• Prevent wasted spend on irrelevant strategies
• Save time on deciding marketing channels
• Achieve measurable results to share with stakeholders

Once you set your overall goals and build your budget, you can break them down into smaller objectives, which tie back into your marketing spend and campaigns.

2. Assess your current B2B marketing effort

Our research has found that 24% of companies across industries are unsure whether their current marketing ROI meets expectations. If that sounds like you, then your marketing budget could be going to waste on strategies that don’t serve you.

Look at the leads, sales, and revenue brought in through various marketing channels. Find the channels that bring the best results and those that you could drop (or at least invest less in).

You should also keep your strategy in line with industry standards. B2B companies see a lot of success with ABM, which we mentioned above, so that could be a good place to start. If you don’t currently use the popular strategies, and you aren’t satisfied with your ROI, you have a great jumping-off point.

3. Establish a marketing budget aligned with B2B priorities

Now it’s time to outline how much revenue you have to spend on marketing.

Around 2-5% of revenue is standard for B2B marketing budgets, but some companies spend as much as 10%, particularly if they want to see exponential growth. With that percentage in mind, your budget should account for:

• Marketing channels
• Marketing technology and tools
• In-house staff wages and benefits, if marketing in-house
• Outsourcing costs by channel
• Paid advertising
• Market research

4. Adjust as necessary to maximize ROI

Remember, your budget does not have to be fixed to be successful. You should evaluate your budget regularly to make sure you’re falling within your designated spending and seeing measurable results. If you find that some strategies are no longer working, move funds to the ones that do and see your ROI grow!

FAQs on B2B marketing budgets

Want to learn even more about B2B marketing budgets? Check out our FAQ below!

Turn your marketing budget into a revenue-driving plan with WebFX

If you want to take control of your B2B marketing budget, partner with WebFX. With our help, you can turn your marketing budget into a plan for driving revenue throughout the year.

With our digital marketing services, you can build your company’s online credibility and stand out in any market. You can connect with business representatives through the channels they use most, earning more revenue to fuel your growth.

Want to learn more? Contact us today to speak with an expert!