50+ valuable marketing spend statistics for 2023

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Jocelyn Ho

Published on February 10, 2023

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8min

Global events over the past three years drastically changed how consumers and businesses around the world discover, buy, and sell products and services. As brick-and-mortar shops and offices closed their doors, online shopping, food delivery, streaming services, and remote work quickly skyrocketed–becoming the new norm.

In this article, we share 50+ eye-opening marketing spend statistics across different advertising platforms and mediums. These numbers highlight changes and trends brought on by the pandemic, as well as companies’ plans to ride out the ensuing economic repercussions.

Let’s kick it off with numbers that illustrate current attitudes towards marketing in general.

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Company marketing spend

How do businesses spend on marketing in general?

  • Companies spend 9.5% of revenue on marketing, on average. (Gartner)

  • Consumers across the globe spent $900 billion more at online retailers in 2020 versus the prior two-year trend. (Mastercard Economics Institute)

  • 62% of American consumers say that they shop more online now than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

Consequently, many marketers across all industries exponentially increased their spend on digital transformation and online campaigns, in an effort to quickly adjust to growing consumer demands for digital experiences in the global marketplace. That increase in spend will likely slow in 2023.

From paid ads and software fees, to agency services and contracted labor–teams can quickly rack up a range of marketing expenses.

The current state of marketing budgets

A general overview of marketing spend activity around the world shows that it’s constantly changing–whether that’s steady or rapid growth and decline.

Despite the dips in ad budgets and revenue for many sectors since the onset of the pandemic, research shows that these same industries will likely recover over time. Sadly, marketing budgets are often the first to get slashed in times of trouble.

  • Marketers reported a 10.4% growth in marketing spending over the last year. (The CMO Survey)

  • While the outlook was rather optimistic last year, there may be more economic turbulence ahead. 46% of US companies have already slashed their marketing budgets in anticipation of this turbulence. (The Future of Commerce)

  • Digital ad fraud committed by hackers and bots caused US advertisers $15.9 billion in losses last year. (Wordstream)

  • Across the globe, the automotive industry experienced the greatest fall in advertising spend in 2020, losing almost €13 billion. (WARC)

  • Travel ad spend grew by 36% in 2022, although growth is expected to slow to 19% in 2023. (Statista)

Digital advertising spend

Even as certain industries have struggled during the last couple years, others have thrived under the current circumstances. As the world continues to move towards an increasingly online-connected lifestyle, companies have adjusted their strategies and refocused their ad spend priorities to market to consumers’ changing needs.

  • Global digital ad spending was predicted to reach $567.49 billion by the end of 2022. (Insider Intelligence)

  • Google and Meta still dominate the advertising market at 50.5% combined, but their dominance is forecasted to wane this year. (Insider Intelligence)

  • Amazon is one reason for Google and Meta's decline in the advertising space; Amazon accounted for 11% of all digital ads purchased. (Washington Post)

  • Amazon's ad revenue reached $8.76 billion in 2022. (CNBC)

  • Alibaba generated the third-highest amount of ad revenue in 2022, behind Google and Meta, with $40.01 billion. (Digiday)

    Mobile advertising is more important than ever with increased smartphone use worldwide and marketing spend is reflecting that:

  • 90.7% of internet users today use their smartphones to access the web. (DataReportal)

  • Nearly 25% of companies invest in mobile optimization as a top SEO tactic. (HubSpot)

  • Mobile display ad spend reached $61 billion in 2020, a 22% increase from 2019. More than half of display ad spending was on rich media, which included a majority of mobile video ad content. (eMarketer)

  • Overall ad spend for mobile devices was forecasted to hit over $137 billion in 2022, and $156.38 billion by 2023. (eMarketer)

Paid search ads are changing the game for advertisers, small to medium businesses and global enterprises alike:

  • Mobile search ads can increase brand awareness by 46%, while more than 50% of smartphone users have discovered a new product or company when performing a search on their mobile device. (SEO Tribunal)

  • In 2023, marketers will spend over $90 billion on paid search ads in the US–$31 billion on desktop/laptops and $59 billion on mobile placements. (eMarketer)

  • The average CPA in Google Ads across all industries is $56.11 for search and $90.80 for display network. (Instapage)

  • 55% of marketing professionals rated paid search advertising as a top priority for 2022. (ROI Revolution)

Content marketing spend

Although many may associate advertising spend with traditional “blast” messaging, content marketing is on the rise–and fast. This marketing strategy increases ROI and efficacy of marketing spend by providing valuable, engaging, and relevant content to targeted audiences.

  • 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (HubSpot)

Video content in particular is one of the most popular formats for digital ad campaigns, leading to an investment in sales videos:

  • 87% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales. (Wyzowl)

  • CTV (connected television) ad spend is growing faster than traditional television spend. (Dentsu)

  • 91% of businesses use video in their marketing strategy. (Wyzowl)

  • Marketing departments use video the most, followed by sales and then HR. (Animoto)

  • 92% of marketers are happy with the ROI that video provides. (Wyzowl)

Social media spend statistics

From Facebook and Instagram, to TikTok and Snapchat–marketers across the globe are increasing their ad spend on a diverse array of social network platforms to achieve their business objectives and reach target audiences.

Interested in this topic? Read more social media ad spending statistics here!

  • CMOs report that digital channels used 56% of their marketing budgets in 2022, with social media the top channel for spend. (PFL)

  • In 2023, total social media advertising spending by US companies is expected to exceed $94 billion, a 17% increase from 2022. (Oberlo)

  • There are 4.89 billion social media users around the world–and growing. (Oberlo)

  • 93% of businesses say they’ve landed a new customer because of a video on social media. (Animoto)

  • 96% of marketers have confidence in social media to deliver a positive ROI. (Hootsuite)

Facebook

  • 93% of social media marketers use Facebook ads. (Lyfe Marketing)

  • In 2020, Facebook generated nearly $84.2 billion in ad revenues–21% more than in 2019. (Facebook)

  • But the outlook wasn't as rosy last year. Facebook's ad revenue fell year-over-year to $31.2 billion in Q4 2022 from $32.6 billion in Q4 2021. (Yahoo)

  • Facebook ads and Google ads have the highest ROI of paid channels, according to Ranktracker.

  • 54% of marketers consider Facebook the top advertising platform for B2B marketing. (Techjury)

  • Mobile ads outperform desktop ads by 34% on Facebook. (Lyfe Marketing)

Instagram

  • In the US, Instagram is projected to reach $40 billion in annual ad sales in 2023. (Statista)

  • Instagram has 2 billion active monthly users, and it's Gen-Z's preferred social platform. (Hootsuite)

  • 4 million businesses use Instagram Stories ads monthly and 58% of Instagram users say they’re more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories. (Instagram)

TikTok

  • Millennials and Gen Z generations have a combined global spending power of $4.4 trillion and growing. (Campaign)

  • TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and more than 60% of them are Gen Z. (Vogue Business)

  • It's the fastest-growing social media platform, and 40% of businesses plan to incorporate it into their social media strategy. (Wordstream)

  • 67% of users say that TikTok inspired them to find out more about a product or brand, 74% of users say it helped them decide what to buy, and 66% of users say the app has inspired them to shop even when they weren’t planning to do so. (TikTok)

  • TikTok made $540 million in ad revenue in 2020, despite the fact that only 5% of marketers use TikTok as part of their marketing strategy. (Spend Me Not)

  • TikTok brand takeover ads cost marketers anywhere between $20,000 — $200,000 in ad spend. (Digiday)

Snapchat

  • 15-to-25-year-olds make up 48% of Snapchat's user base. (Forbes)

  • Snapchat reaches more than 70% of 13-34 year olds in countries comprising over half the world's digital ad spend. (Snapchat)

  • Daily active users increased by 17% in 2022. (Snapchat)

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Traditional advertising spend statistics

Consumer behaviors have changed dramatically even before COVID. As digital transformation and internet accessibility have become more widespread, there’s been a gradual drop in traditional ad spend across all industries–although these formats aren’t going to disappear overnight.

  • Traditional advertising in the US continues to show negative expected growth. (The CMO Survey)

  • Globally, traditional ad spend across formats including newspaper, television, and outdoor advertising are predicted to fall by 20.7%. (Finances Online)

  • Despite an overall decline in traditional ad spend, newspaper ad spend grew in Q4 2022 by 22% YoY. (Marketing Dive)

  • Television still remains the largest worldwide media channel, making up more than 30% of global ad spend. (Marketing Edge)

Like television ads, some traditional marketing platforms have persevered through the digital revolution by adapting to their digital counterparts. As resolutions such as The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) arise from the fight for internet user privacy, marketers are looking for alternative ways to reach and collect data from their customers to provide more relevant experiences.

  • Within the newspaper industry, digital advertising is expected to generate more than $7.24 billion in revenue. (Finances Online)

  • Thanks to digital innovation in smart TVs (also known as connected TVs), CTV advertising spend increased by 23.7% in 2022. (Dentsu)

  • Digital mobile ads drove more than 162 billion phone calls to businesses in 2019. 85% of marketers believe phone conversations are a key component of their digital strategy. (Invoca)

The first-party data collected from these inbound customer service calls is invaluable for marketers, who can glean deeper and honest insights from intimate one-one-one conversations with their customers.

Marketing spend going forward

Despite the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, the good news is that e-commerce and digital-savvy consumer behaviors are likely to stick in the long-run, even as market trends continue to evolve over time. In order to succeed, marketers must continue to adapt at a moment’s notice to unexpected circumstances and marketing trends while maintaining consumer confidence.

No matter the size or industry of the company, managing marketing budgets is no easy feat. Juggling ad spend, subscriptions, and reimbursements for your team can be overwhelming, but you can simplify and streamline those processes with our all-in-one spend management solution at Spendesk.

We're here to help.

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