The most common approach that senior marketers take for setting their marketing budget is to create a yearly budget based on the previous year's expenses, according to recent research from The CMO Survey.

The report was based on data from a survey conducted in August 2021 among 2,791 senior marketers (94% of respondents are VP-level or above).

Some 41% of respondents say their marketing budget is set on a yearly basis based on the previous year’s expenses, and then adjusted during the year, if needed.

Other common approaches include building the budget from scratch every year based on new needs and objectives (28% of senior marketers say they take this approach), setting the budget as a percentage of projected revenue (21%), and revisiting and, if necessary, resetting the budget every month or quarter depending on what is needed to meet objectives (10%).

Senior marketers say they expect their marketing budgets to increase 13%, on average, in the next 12 months.

Senior marketers at B2B services firms expect their marketing budgets to increase 17%, on average, in the next 12 months, and senior marketers at B2B product firms expect their budgets to increase 11%.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey conducted in August 2021 among 2,791 senior marketers (94% of respondents are VP-level or above).