Marketing spend as a share of companies' total budgets in the U.S. 2023, by industry

During an early 2023 survey among chief marketing officers (CMOs) from for-profit companies in the United States, they reported that, on average, corporations selling consumer packaged goods allocated 22.61 percent of their total budgets to marketing expenses. Communications and media companies followed with an average of 21.75 percent, while educational organizations devoted 17 percent of their budgets to marketing spending.

CPG marketing

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing promotes perishable consumer goods such as food, beverages, or household products. As these items are used and replenished regularly, the CPG industry is known as a highly competitive playing field, and brands rely on effective marketing campaigns to stand out among the crowd. At the start of 2023, CPG companies' marketing expenditure growth rate stood below 0.3 percent. Yet their spending on digital marketing grew by seven percent.

Top advertising spenders

Amazon was the top advertiser in the U.S. in 2021, with roughly ten billion U.S. dollars in spending. Procter & Gamble was the leading advertiser from the CPG industry that year, which comes as no surprise considering the conglomerate’s size and extensive brand portfolio. Many of the world’s most popular cleaning and personal care brands, such as Pampers, Braun, Gillette, and Pantene, fall under the P&G umbrella, making the company a multinational CPG giant.