Marketing Optimism: Overall And Digital Marketing Spend Growth Rates Both Expected To Rise

Of the many insights from the recent 34th edition of The CMO Survey, perhaps the most interesting is the expected growth rate change in overall and digital marketing spend over the next 12 months, which is forecast to increase by percentages not seen since September 2022 despite growth rates slowing over the last 12 months.

(Source: The CMO Survey)

Overall marketing spend slowed from 5.8% YoY last fall to 3.3% YoY in this spring’s survey, but the marketers surveyed expect that growth rate to rise back to 8.9% over the next year. Similarly, digital marketing spend slowed from 11.1% YoY last fall to 7.3% YoY in the spring, with a bounce back to 11.9% expected over the next year. 

Despite the predictions of stronger overall budget growth, marketers expect slower growth for “spending on customer relationship management, brand building, customer experience, and new products and services,” with pessimism about economic factors overall.

“Almost half of marketers are ‘less optimistic’ about the U.S. economy compared to last quarter,” the report says. “This is a 64% increase over the 29.4% that were ‘less optimistic’ in Fall-2024. The number of marketers who are ‘more optimistic’ has decreased from 37% in Fall-2024 to 31.2% in 2025. Inflation, new policies, and the potential for additional tariffs may be driving these more pessimistic views.”

Another area of projected growth was in AI use, with the report finding that respondents use artificial intelligence or machine learning to optimize and automate marketing efforts 17.2% of the time this year, up from 13.1% in the fall and expected to increase to 44.2% of the time in three years (for a projected growth of 157%).

“Organizations have made significant progress in addressing these implementation challenges: minimizing bias and ensuring fairness, investing in necessary hardware infrastructure, and reducing vulnerability to malicious attacks,” the report’s analysis says. “Smaller improvements were made in ensuring that the marketing strategy created by generative AI … is a good fit for the brand and target markets. The investment is delivering tangible results, [with] 8.6% improvement in sales productivity, 8.5% increase in customer satisfaction, [and] 10.8% reduction in marketing overhead costs.”

For more information about how to improve your email deliverability, download A Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing by Mirabel’s Marketing Manager: