How Much Should B2B Companies Invest in Marketing?

This article kicks off a four-part series on how B2B companies can allocate their marketing budgets across Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared Media. In this first installment, we focus on Owned Media, specifically the foundational role of the website.

Every B2B leadership team eventually faces the same question: How much should we spend on marketing?

There’s no single right answer. The ideal budget depends on a range of factors, including your industry, growth stage, business goals, market momentum, new market entry, and competitive landscape. And while deciding how much to spend is a challenge in itself, figuring out where and how to spend it is even harder.

What do smart companies actually spend on marketing?

Most B2B organizations calculate total marketing investment across Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared Media as a percentage of revenue. According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, B2B marketing budgets average between 7.7% and 9.4% of revenue, depending on the industry and growth trajectory. However, these benchmarks shift based on stage of growth:

• Startups or early-growth companies: 10% to 15% or more of revenue

• Established companies: 6% to 9% of revenue

• Rebranding: base marketing budget plus an additional 5% to 10%

It’s important to note that these figures reflect total marketing investment, not just media or advertising spend. They include strategy, content, platforms, agencies, tools, headcount, and production.

What do those percentages look like in practice?

An established B2B company with steady revenue typically invests around the midpoint of the benchmark range. For instance, a company generating $50 million in annual revenue with a 6% to 9% marketing budget would allocate $3.0M to $4.5M per year.

When an established company invests in a rebrand, the numbers look different because it is more than a visual update. A rebrand is a strategic repositioning that requires sustained visibility to shift market perception. Most companies maintain their base marketing budget and allocate an additional 5% to 10% to support the effort. For example, a company with a $3.0M to $4.5M annual marketing budget would invest an extra $150K to $450K during the rebrand year. This added spend typically supports brand launch campaigns, PR, content updates, and amplification across paid and shared channels, while also maintaining baseline marketing efforts.

Startups face a different challenge. They must build credibility, raise awareness, and generate pipeline, often while also raising capital. As a result, early-stage startups tend to invest more aggressively in marketing. A startup with $5 million in ARR and a marketing budget of 10% to 15% would allocate $500K to $750K or more. That level of investment supports visibility, traction, and momentum at a stage when acceleration often takes priority over efficiency.

Once You Have a Budget, Where and How Do You Spend It?

Too often, companies lean heavily toward Paid Media. It’s expensive, but it delivers comforting vanity metrics; you spent $X, hit your CPM or CPC target, and the numbers look good. The problem is that this often leads to underinvestment in Owned, Earned, and Shared, which collectively carry the brand and drive long-term value.

Each channel plays a distinct role, and while it’s natural to emphasize one over the others at times, it’s essential to understand how and why to invest in each. For most B2B organizations, Owned is the smartest place to start.

Owned Media includes the assets your company controls directly, including your website, blogs, email/CRM, case studies, branded content, whitepapers, and other collateral. Because all other channels ultimately point toward your website, it stands as your most important Owned asset and should command the largest share of your Owned investment.

How much you invest depends on your stage of growth:

• Startups: 15% to 25% of the first-year marketing budget

• Established companies: 10% to 15% of the annual marketing budget

• Rebrands: 20% to 30% of the marketing budget during the rebrand year

These recommendations are based on our experience working with B2B companies across industries and growth stages. While individual needs vary, these ranges generally align with benchmarks from analysts such as Gartner.

This investment covers far more than design. It includes brand positioning, UX/UI, site performance, content architecture, platform integration, and ongoing upgrades as the business evolves. It’s a significant allocation, but underinvesting here limits the performance of every other channel.

Website Investment for a Startup

For startups, the website is the first signal of credibility for prospects, investors, and partners alike. It merits a meaningful share of the budget. In most cases, that investment falls between 15% and 25% of the first-year marketing budget, or roughly 2% to 5% of revenue.

For example, a startup with a marketing budget of $500K to $750K could expect to invest $75K to $150K in its first website.

The typical scope for a high-growth startup website includes:

• Core brand positioning and messaging

• Website strategy and information architecture

• UX/UI design

• A focused page set, typically 5 to 10 pages

• CMS setup, performance optimization, and analytics

While this level of investment may feel significant, startups that underinvest here often rebuild within 12 to 24 months as sales pressure and investor expectations grow.

Website Investment for an Established Company

Even after achieving steady growth, established B2B companies need to continuously reinvest in their websites to stay competitive. On average, this investment ranges from 10% to 15% of the annual marketing budget, or about 1% to 2% of revenue.

For example, a company with a marketing budget of $3M to $4.5M might invest $300K to $675K in website and content enhancements. These updates are typically phased throughout the year, rather than treated as a single launch event. Common areas of focus include:

• UX /UI refreshes

• Content expansion and optimization

• Conversion improvements

• Accessibility and compliance updates

• SEO, performance, and analytics enhancements

  
  

Website Investment for a Rebrand

During a rebrand, a company isn’t always starting from scratch, so costs can be more flexible. If the existing technical infrastructure is solid, investment may focus primarily on branding, visuals, and content. However, if a new site architecture is required, the cost can increase significantly.

Most companies allocate 20% to 30% of their annual marketing budget for a rebrand year, with potential for more if a full rebuild is needed. For a company with a $3.0M to $4.5M budget, that equates to $300K to $900K, depending on scope and complexity. This investment not only supports the rebrand launch but also becomes the foundation for activation across Paid, Earned, and Shared channels.

The typical scope of a rebrand-focused site project may include:

• Brand and messaging translation into digital

• UX and content restructuring

• Expanded page set and deeper content

• SEO preservation and improvement

• Accessibility, performance, and analytics upgrades

• Integration with sales and marketing systems

• Back-end architecture and development

You’ve Built Your Website. Now what?

In B2B organizations, marketing is not discretionary. It is infrastructure for growth. While Owned is the foundation, Paid, Earned, and Shared are equally important. You could build the world’s best website, but if no one knows it’s there, what’s the point?

All four media types must work together. You’ll lean more heavily on different elements at different times, for different reasons. The real question isn’t how little a company can spend. It’s whether the investment across Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared Media is proportional to your growth ambitions and market realities.

Next in the Series:In our next post, we’ll look at Paid Media , what it’s good for, when to ramp it up, and how to balance spend across performance marketing, awareness campaigns, and brand building.