There is no universal percentage for a marketing budget. The right budget depends on your industry, your growth targets, the competition in your market and how established your brand already is. A company entering a new market typically needs to invest more than one defending an existing position.

Rather than starting with a percentage, we recommend working backward from your goals: how many leads or customers do you need, what does it cost to win one, and which channels deliver at an acceptable cost? This approach makes the budget defensible and easy to control.