▌How much should a company invest in marketing?
This is probably the most common question we get from entrepreneurs and marketing executives: “How much should we spend on marketing this year?”
The short answer—”it depends”—is true, but it’s not helpful if you need to present a budget to the board or make a decision this month.
So let’s give a concrete answer based on data from 2026, not on assumptions.
▌How much will companies actually spend on marketing in 2026?
The two most frequently cited international studies in this field—the Gartner CMO Spend Survey and The CMO Survey (Deloitte, Duke University, and the American Marketing Association)—provide a solid starting point.
According to the latest Gartner report, marketing budgets reached 7.8% of revenue in 2026, slightly above the 7.7% recorded in 2025. However, the same source highlights an important point: 56% of CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) say they do not have a sufficient budget to carry out their strategy, and half of all companies are actually operating on budgets of 6% or less—the 7.8% average masks a much wider range of actual figures.
Deloitte reports a slightly higher figure for the share of marketing in the company’s total budget (not as a percentage of revenue), which now stands at 11.4%, up from 10.1% last year.
The key takeaway here: the “average” percentage in the market matters less than your company’s stage, industry, and goals. A generic percentage applied mechanically is often wrong.
▌Key metric: budget as a percentage of revenue
The most commonly used calculation method remains the percentage of annual revenue. Here are the ranges confirmed by most sources for 2026:
- Mature companies with a stable market: 5–8% of revenue, which is sufficient to maintain their market position and support current sales.
- Companies experiencing active growth: 10–20%, to gain market share and build brand awareness.
- Startups and companies in the rapid market expansion phase: 15–30%, sometimes even higher, because they do not yet have an existing customer base or brand recognition to build on.
- The SBA (Small Business Administration) recommends that small businesses with revenue under $5 million set aside 7–8% of their gross revenue, with a target of 10–12% for those seeking rapid growth.
For the local market, a study recently cited in the Romanian business press confirms the same order of magnitude: 7.7% of revenue, in line with Gartner’s international average — although most small and medium-sized Romanian companies still set their budgets empirically, based on “what’s left after other expenses,” rather than through a structured calculation.
▌The budget varies significantly depending on the industry
There is no “universally applicable” percentage. The differences by industry are significant.
The reason for these differences is simple: in industries with long sales cycles and fierce competition for keywords (SaaS, technology), the customer acquisition cost is much higher, and so is the budget needed to maintain a healthy pipeline.
A budget of 1,000 euros may be sufficient for a local business but almost irrelevant in a highly competitive industry. Similarly, a budget of 10,000 euros can generate excellent results or be spent without any real impact if the strategy, message, or sales process isn’t working.
In 2026, the marketing budget should be determined based on the company’s objectives, customer value, competition, and actual acquisition costs.
▌We can no longer calculate budgets using costs from a few years ago
One of the biggest mistakes is to start with the idea that:
“Three years ago, we were getting leads for 20 lei, so we should be getting the same results now.”
Online advertising works largely through auction systems. Companies compete for the attention of the same users, for the same search queries, and, often, for the same audiences.
The more advertisers there are interested in a particular audience or keyword, the greater the pressure on costs can be.
That is why we track indicators such as:
CPM – cost per 1,000 impressions
CPC – cost per click
CPL – cost per lead
CPA/CAC – cost per acquisition
ROAS – revenue generated relative to the advertising budget
ROI – return on investment
But for a business, CPM or CPC isn’t the end result.
You can have a higher CPM and a profitable campaign if the message converts well. Or you can buy very cheap traffic that doesn’t generate any sales.
The important question is: How much does it cost us to acquire a profitable customer?
▌Three Ways to Set Your Budget
1. Percentage of revenue
It’s easy to calculate and present to the board, but it has one flaw: if sales drop, the marketing budget automatically decreases—exactly when you need more visibility, not less.
2. A “bottom-up” budget, starting with objectives (pipeline math)
Instead of starting with a percentage, start with your revenue goal: how many new contracts you need, how many qualified leads (SQLs) you need to generate for each contract, how many marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) for each SQL, and how much a lead costs, on average, across your channels.
The resulting amount is your justifiable budget—because you can explain exactly what each leu is used for.
3. Competitive parity
You look at what your direct competitors are investing and adjust your budget based on the position you want to hold in the market.
Useful as an additional reference point, but risky as a sole method—because you never know how efficiently your competitors are actually spending their money.
Our recommendation: Combine Method 1 as a quick starting point and Method 2 for the final budget presented to management or investors.
▌How the budget will be allocated across channels in 2026
Once the total budget has been set, the next question is, “What should it be spent on?” Here is a suggested breakdown for 2026, applicable to most B2C and e-commerce companies:
- 30–45% — paid digital advertising (Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads)
- 20–30% — SEO and content marketing
- 10–20% — email marketing and automation
- 2–6% — AI tools and integrations for marketing (the fastest-growing segment this year)
- the rest — events, influencer marketing, PR, branding
In the B2B sector, the share of paid advertising is declining slightly in favor of content marketing, SEO, and events/partnerships—the longer sales cycle means you have to educate the market before you can convert.
▌The mistake we see most often
The most common mistake is not a “too-small budget,” but rather a uniform allocation—”a little of everything”—without a clear priority.
A budget of 5,000 lei per month spread across six different channels does not produce visible results in any of them—because each channel has a minimum investment threshold below which it simply does not generate enough data for you to optimize.
The simple rule: choose no more than 2–3 main channels, allocate a budget large enough to see measurable results within 60–90 days, and only then diversify.
▌Why we generally recommend a minimum of 100 lei per day per platform
At re7consulting, for many performance campaigns, we recommend starting with a budget of approximately 100 lei per day for each active platform, when market conditions and objectives allow.
That means, roughly:
Meta Ads: 100 lei/day → approximately 3,000 lei/month
Google Ads: 100 lei/day → approximately 3,000 lei/month
If we use both platforms, our average monthly budget comes to about 6,000 lei.
Important: This is not a threshold set by Meta or Google, nor is it a guarantee of performance. It is a budget benchmark that we consider sufficient, in many situations, to gather data, test audiences and messages, and optimize campaigns.
There are industries where we can start with less, and industries where 100 lei per day is not enough.
For example, in a highly competitive B2B niche, just a few clicks can use up a significant portion of the daily budget. In a local business, the same amount can provide enough volume for a relevant campaign.
▌When should you increase your budget?
Not because “it’s been working well for a week.”
We increase the budget when we have enough data to see that the model is repeatable and that the business can handle the additional volume.
If we invest 5,000 lei and successfully acquire 50 customers, the next question is:
What happens if we invest 7,000? What about 10,000?
Scaling must be done in a controlled manner.
Because doubling the budget does not automatically mean doubling the results.
▌Conclusion
There is no universally “correct” percentage for the marketing budget in 2026 — but there is a realistic range, depending on your company’s stage (5–8% for mature companies, 10–20% for those in active growth, 15–30%+ for startups) and the industry you’re in.
Where you start matters less than the discipline with which you allocate and track every leu you invest.
If you want to find out exactly how much you should invest in marketing for your business and through which channels, the re7consulting team can help you build a marketing budget based on data, not assumptions. Contact us to discuss your marketing strategy for 2026.
Sources: Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2025–2026, The CMO Survey (Deloitte/Duke/AMA), U.S. Small Business Administration, and local market analyses of marketing budgets for companies in Romania.
