| In its report, “The State of Marketing Budgets 2021,” analyst firm Gartner finds marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue falling to “their lowest level in recent history.” Budgets were almost cut in half, falling from 11% in 2020 to 6.4% in 2021. More predictably, CMOs reported shifting offline spend to digital channels, pure-play digital accounting for over 72% of the total budget. One year ago, based on its “CMO Spend Survey 2020-2021,” Gartner predicted that marketing technology would see increased spend even as other functions were cut back. In fact marketing technology held steady as a percentage of overall budget (an increase of 0.4% hardly indicates strong growth). Surprisingly, analytics found itself in fourth place in budget allocation across marketing programs and operations. 400 respondents in North America and Europe were surveyed. Why we care. CMOs are having to square the circle this year. With exceptional downward pressure on their overall budget, they still have to spend adequately on the digital channels which have become all-important and the marketing technology that powers them. That has meant re-allocation of dwindling resources: bad news for external agencies and publishers offering offline ad inventory. Of course, CMOs showing they can do more with less are making CFOs happy. They’re prepared to cut marketing as well as travel and real estate. Read more here. » | 