Marketing ROI is being evaluated across more channels while budgets face tighter scrutiny. Recent reports show strong reported returns for email, account-based marketing, creator programs, content, social tools, and AI—alongside persistent difficulty connecting traditional and digital activity into one view.
Contents
- Marketing budget and measurement benchmarks
- Which channels report stronger ROI
- Content, email, and social commerce returns
- Creator and influencer marketing results
- AI, productivity, and revenue indicators
- B2B, ABM, and software ROI
Marketing budget and measurement benchmarks
Nielsen’s 2024 Annual Marketing Report surveyed nearly 2,000 global marketers. The report found that 72% expected bigger advertising budgets in 2024, compared with 64% in 2023. At the same time, 70% planned to prioritize performance marketing over brand-building initiatives, and planned digital media spending exceeded 63% of total media spending.
Measurement confidence was high but not universal. Nielsen reported that 84% of global marketers were extremely or very confident in their ROI measurement capabilities, up from 69% in 2023—a 15-percentage-point increase. However, only 38% said they evaluate holistic ROI by measuring traditional and digital marketing together. Nielsen identified social media, search, online and mobile video, and online and mobile display as the most effective ROI channels in the report.
Gartner’s 2024 CMO Spend Survey found that average marketing budgets fell to 7.7% of company revenue, down from 9.1% in 2023. The survey covered 395 CMOs and marketing leaders across 10 industries; Gartner said the vast majority of respondents reported median annual revenue above $5.3 billion. An Adobe summary of the Gartner survey reported that 73% of CMOs said teams feel pressure to do more with less, while 47% said their organization perceives marketing as a cost center rather than a profit center.
The same Adobe summary reported that marketing budgets at U.S. companies fell from 9.3% of total revenue in 2023 to 7.9% in 2024. Among marketers at companies with more than $5 billion in revenue, 56% said proving ROI with analytics was their biggest challenge, and only 9% said they could accurately forecast the ROI impact of a 10% shift in marketing spend.
| Measurement or budget indicator | Reported figure | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Global marketers expecting larger ad budgets | 72% | Nielsen, 2024 |
| Marketers prioritizing performance marketing | 70% | Nielsen, 2024 |
| Digital share of planned media spending | More than 63% | Nielsen, 2024 |
| Marketers measuring traditional and digital together | 38% | Nielsen, 2024 |
| Average marketing budget as company revenue | 7.7% | Gartner, 2024 |
| Marketers confident in ROI measurement | 84% | Nielsen, 2024 |
| Large-company marketers able to forecast a 10% spend shift | 9% | Adobe summary, 2024 |
These figures describe different populations and measures, so they should not be combined into a single benchmark. The Nielsen results concern global marketers, while Gartner’s budget survey focuses on senior leaders and large organizations.
Which channels report stronger ROI
Forrester’s 2024 ABM snapshot found that account-based marketing programs usually deliver 21% to 50% higher ROI than non-ABM marketing. In the same snapshot, 23% of global respondents said their ABM ROI was 51% to 200% higher. The research covered North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
CreatorIQ’s 2024 State of Creator Marketing surveyed 902 organizations and 231 creators across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, the UAE, and Brazil. Ninety-four percent of organizations said creator content drives more ROI than traditional digital advertising, and 70% of brands said creator marketing contributed to their highest-ROI campaign.
Social channels also appear in channel-level comparisons. In a global marketer survey cited by Sprout Social in October 2024, Facebook was considered the highest-ROI social network by 28% of marketers, followed by Instagram at 22% and YouTube at 12%.
Sprout Social’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report found that 49% of consumers make purchases daily, weekly, or monthly because of influencer posts. Eighty-six percent had made at least one influencer purchase at least once a year, while 30% trusted influencers more in April 2024 than six months earlier. Eighty percent were more likely to buy from brands that partner with influencers beyond social content. More than 60% of frequent buyers were more likely to share product feedback with an influencer than with a brand, including 41% of Gen Z consumers.
Content, email, and social commerce returns
Litmus reported email ROI between 10:1 and 36:1 for most companies. Its findings said 35% of companies see $10 to $36 for every $1 spent on email, while 35% see ROI above 36:1 according to the Litmus retail email playbook 2025. The State of Email report 2025 identified customer engagement emails, promotional emails, and newsletters as the highest-ROI bands.
Forbes Advisor reported average content marketing ROI of $2.77 for every $1 spent, described as a 177% profit on content marketing spend. The publication also reported that 92% of marketers view content as a valuable business asset for long-term ROI, and 89% believe content marketing delivers stronger ROI than traditional marketing.
Among content channels in the Forbes Advisor statistics, websites, blogs, and SEO tied for the top reported ROI at 16% each. Paid social media content and email marketing each registered 14% as strong-ROI content channels. Short-form video led ROI trends for 17% of marketers, while brand-values content accounted for 13% and influencer marketing campaigns for 12%.
| Content or commerce benchmark | Reported figure | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Typical email ROI range | 10:1 to 36:1 | Litmus |
| Companies reporting $10–$36 per email dollar | 35% | Litmus |
| Average content marketing return | $2.77 per $1 | Forbes Advisor |
| Marketers calling content a valuable long-term asset | 92% | Forbes Advisor |
| Marketers saying content beats traditional marketing ROI | 89% | Forbes Advisor |
| Websites, blogs, and SEO as strong-ROI content channels | 16% each | Forbes Advisor |
Sprout Social’s summary of Statista data reported that social networks accounted for 17.11% of all online sales in 2025. The same source reported a 13.7% compound annual growth rate for global social commerce and projected that the sector would pass $1 trillion by 2028. These are a measurement and a forecast from different points in time, not a guaranteed return for every social campaign.
Short-form video was the top ROI driver for 71% of video marketers in the cited Sprout Social statistics. Long-form video was the top driver for 22%, and live video for 6%.
Mailchimp’s Revenue Blueprint report surveyed more than 2,000 marketing leaders. Almost two-thirds named email as the foundation of their marketing strategy, while 59% said search was declining.
Creator and influencer marketing results
CreatorIQ reported that 74% of organizations increased creator marketing investment over the previous year. Industry leaders allocated 57% of their marketing budgets to creator marketing and spent 299% more on creator marketing than organizations overall. Creator marketing investment was up 143% since 2021.
The report also compared creator and owned content for Fortune 100 brands with leading social programs. Creator content powered 32 times more posts than brands’ owned content across Instagram and TikTok, generated 12 times more impressions, and generated 17 times more engagement.
The scale of creator activity does not by itself establish profitability, but it does show why marketers continue to examine creator programs as an ROI channel. CreatorIQ’s organization and creator samples covered nine countries, so the findings describe a broad international respondent base rather than one national market.
Consumer behavior in Sprout Social’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report provides a related demand signal: 49% of consumers reported purchase activity tied to influencer posts at least monthly, 86% purchased from an influencer at least annually, and 80% were more likely to buy from brands partnering with influencers beyond social content. The report also found that more than 60% of frequent buyers preferred sharing feedback with an influencer rather than a brand.
AI, productivity, and revenue indicators
Invoca’s 2024 State of AI in B2C Digital Marketing Report surveyed 600 marketers in the United States and the United Kingdom. Eighty percent said AI tools exceeded ROI expectations, 93% reported positive experiences with tools they implemented, and 95% planned to increase AI investment in the coming year. Ninety-four percent said AI positively impacted revenue, while 54% anticipated a very positive impact on their organizations.
Invoca also reported that 90% planned dedicated AI budgets in 2025. Executives were responsible for AI adoption for 37% of respondents in 2024, up from 18% in 2023, and only 1% said there was no clear AI owner. At companies with more than 1,000 employees, 60% of marketers reported expert-level AI knowledge. Fifty-seven percent believed AI would generate more jobs than it displaces, up 7 percentage points from the previous year.
HubSpot’s State of Marketing 2024 reported that marketers using AI save three hours per piece of content and 2.5 hours per day overall. Eighty-four percent said AI helps them create content more efficiently, 82% said it enables significantly more content, and 77% said it enables more personalized content. However, 60% of marketers using generative AI for content worried about brand-reputation risk from bias, plagiarism, or misalignment. Sixteen percent saw AI taking over most of their job duties, while 85% expected generative AI to have a transformative impact on content creation in 2024 and 81% said it enhances their roles.
HubSpot’s State of Sales 2024, as cited in a HubSpot AI sales article, found that 80% of sales representatives using generative AI said it was easier to get customer insights for closing deals, compared with 54% of representatives who did not use AI. Eighty-three percent of sales teams using generative AI saw revenue growth in the past year, versus 66% of teams without AI. The same article reported that sales representatives spend 70% of the workday on non-revenue-generating activities.
B2B, ABM, and software ROI
HubSpot reported that 73% of B2B marketers understand the journey their leads take. In sales analytics, 37% of sales professionals used AI tools for metrics analysis, and those tools were rated the highest-ROI category at 31%, according to the HubSpot sales article’s cited sales-trends data.
Forrester’s ABM snapshot supplies a direct B2B-style comparison: ABM programs usually produced 21% to 50% higher ROI than non-ABM marketing, and 23% of global respondents reported an ABM ROI increase of 51% to 200%. Because the snapshot covered North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the ranges should be read as reported program outcomes across regions rather than a universal result.
Sprout Social’s 2025 Total Economic Impact study found that customers achieved 268% ROI from Sprout Social, with an estimated net present value of $1.3 million over three years and a payback period of less than six months. Before adopting Sprout Social, interviewed customers’ social teams spent 70% of their time on scheduling, publishing, listening, replying, and campaign planning. The results are estimates from a commissioned economic-impact study, not a general benchmark for every software buyer.
Taken together, these marketing ROI statistics point to two simultaneous realities: marketers report substantial returns from specific channels and tools, yet comparable measurement across the full customer journey remains difficult. The strongest interpretation is therefore channel-specific and source-specific, with geography, respondent type, measurement period, and whether a figure is an estimate or forecast kept visible.