- CMOs expect their budgets to remain flat in 2025, though macroeconomic uncertainty could lead on to in-year cuts, in keeping with Gartner’s latest survey of the C-suite position.
- Budgets for the position remain at 7.7% of total company revenue, the identical figure tracked by the researcher in 2024, while marketing spending has stalled. That said, CMOs are improving efficiency with tools like generative artificial intelligence (AI).
- Paid media continues to be the highest spending bucket, at over 30% of CMO budgets, while more marketers are looking for to reduce on promoting agencies and labor, partly on account of the advantages of AI. Agencies are already facing a yr of contraction that might be worsened if brands further retreat.
Despite plateauing resources, many CMOs are stretching their budgets further as they get a greater handle on tools like generative AI, a trend that would send wider shocks through the marketing ecosystem. While 59% of CMOs imagine they’ve insufficient funds to deliver on their 2025 agendas, that figure marks a five percentage-point drop from 2024, underpinning some renewed confidence for the C-suite appointment. That said, the outlook for marketers could change quickly depending on how the economy swings amid a worldwide trade war.
“Given the looming macroeconomic uncertainties, CMOs are actually confronting the prospect of in-year budget cuts,” said Ewan McIntyre, vp analyst and chief of research for Gartner’s marketing practice, in comments attached to the research.
Among the highest advantages of generative AI, nearly half (49%) of CMOs see greater time efficiency while 40% say the identical for advantages in reducing cost. Twenty-seven percent of respondents to Gartner pointed to the power to supply greater volumes of content or handle other areas of business. Only 1% of CMOs will not be making the emergent technology a priority.
“CMOs are leveraging data analytics and technology, particularly AI, with a view to squeeze more from static budgets,” said McIntyre.
Gains with generative AI could spell bad news for marketing services providers, as over one-fifth (22%) of CMOs imagine the technology has reduced a reliance on external partners for creative and strategy constructing. As a result, 39% of CMOs plan to trim agency budgets either through eliminating unproductive relationships, streamlining rosters or renegotiating contracts and scopes of labor. The same share of promoting chiefs are angling to chop costs on labor through simplification or headcount reductions.
Agencies, with few expectations, are already grappling with low levels of organic growth and the potential for tariffs to scale back ad spending within the near term, aspects that would throw gas on the hearth for category consolidation.
Gartner conducted its latest 2025 CMO spend report between February and March, surveying 402 CMOs and marketing decision-markers across North America, the U.K. and Europe.
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