CMO Survey: Budgets Holding Steady or Rising

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council says most marketing budgets will either hold steady or increase this year, which runs counter to all the recent talk about a possible economic recession.

According to a CMO Council survey of 800 senior marketers, 37.6 percent of annual budgets will not change in 2008, while 33.1% of budgets will increase by up 5%. Nearly 10% of marketing budgets will grow between 6- and 10%.

Last year the majority of global marketers (52.6%) had budgets that equaled less than 4% of revenue and 35.4% indicated they spent the equivalent of 4- to 10% of revenue on marketing.

With respect to marketing automation the top areas for planned investment are e-mail campaign management, customer relationship management, marketing performance measurement, customer intelligence, search engine marketing and tools for sales and marketing integration.