Marketing Statistics (2026): 75 Sourced Figures

This page collects figures on how much companies spend on marketing, where that money goes and who the audiences are. Every number links to the document that first published it. Most figures come from official statistics: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the US Census Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Eurostat and the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS). Others come from company filings, Pew Research Center, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and named survey publishers. One vendor survey is included and labeled. Teams that want to turn these figures into automated campaigns can compare tools on the StatWharf page for marketing automation software.

Key figures at a glance

Digital advertising spending

The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report is the longest-running measure of US digital ad revenue. PwC conducts it for the IAB. The 2025 edition was released on April 16, 2026. It reports revenue earned by companies that sell digital advertising in the United States.

Social media was the largest category in 2025. Social revenue grew by about $29 billion in one year. The IAB notes that 2025 had no Olympics, FIFA World Cup or US national election. Those events usually lift ad spending. Programmatic revenue rose 20.5%. The categories overlap. A social video ad bought through an automated exchange can count in social, video and programmatic at once. For that reason the categories do not add up to the total.

The same release puts creator advertising spend at $37 billion in 2025. The IAB projects it to reach $44 billion in 2026. The IAB describes a shift from one-off influencer campaigns to ongoing creator programs.

Ad revenue at the largest platforms

Alphabet, Meta and Amazon report advertising revenue each quarter. Alphabet and Amazon file their releases with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Meta posts its release on its investor site. The figures below cover the quarter ended June 30, 2026. They are the most recent full quarter reported at the check date.

Search still produces most of Google’s ad revenue. Alphabet reported 17% growth in Google Search and other and 13% growth in YouTube ads. Google Network revenue was slightly lower than a year earlier. That line covers ads Google places on partner sites and apps.

Meta reported two drivers of its ad growth. Ad impressions across its apps rose 14% year over year. The average price per ad rose 12%. Meta counted 3.60 billion daily active people across its apps on average in June 2026. Rising prices mean advertisers paid more for each impression than a year earlier.

Amazon’s advertising services revenue was $15,694 million in the second quarter of 2025. The 26% growth rate in the second quarter of 2026 was the fastest of the six quarters shown in Amazon’s release. Amazon sells ads mainly on its own store, which makes it the largest example of commerce media.

The company figures are global. The IAB figures cover the United States only. A direct comparison between the two is not valid.

Marketing budgets

Gartner surveys chief marketing officers (CMOs) each year on how much they spend. The 2026 survey ran from January through March 2026. It covered 401 CMOs and other marketing leaders in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. Most respondents work at firms with annual revenue above $1 billion.

Gartner describes budgets as effectively flat. The share of revenue moved by a tenth of a point. Within that flat total, a growing slice goes to AI. Marketing teams that Gartner rates as AI-ready allocate 21.3% of their budgets to AI. The survey sample leans toward large firms. The results do not describe smaller firms.

What marketers report

HubSpot, a marketing software vendor, publishes an annual State of Marketing survey. The figures below are vendor-reported by HubSpot. The 2026 edition, updated on April 10, 2026, surveyed over 1,500 B2B and B2C marketers across industries, regions and company sizes. A vendor that sells marketing software has an interest in the results. The figures describe the respondents, not all marketers.

• Using AI to create personalized content was the top trend, named by 48.57% of marketers (HubSpot, vendor-reported).
• Automation was named by 47.38% (HubSpot, vendor-reported).
• Updating SEO for search changes was named by 40.6% (HubSpot, vendor-reported).
• 68.2% of marketers said they understand how to use AI in marketing, up from 47% in 2025 (HubSpot, vendor-reported).
• 70.2% said they can adapt their strategy to changes in organic search such as AI overviews (HubSpot, vendor-reported).

Automation and AI-driven personalization rank close together. Both depend on customer data held in one system. Search changes rank third.

Audiences on social media

Pew Research Center asks US adults which social platforms they ever use. The latest survey ran from February 5 to June 18, 2025. Pew published the results in its Social Media Fact Sheet on November 20, 2025.

TikTok use rose from 33% in 2024 to 37% in 2025. Age changes the picture. Among adults aged 18 to 29, 80% use Instagram and 63% use TikTok. A campaign aimed at younger buyers reaches them on different platforms than one aimed at older buyers.

Businesses in Europe use social media too. Eurostat reports from its 2025 survey on ICT use in enterprises with 10 or more employees.

• 63.6% of EU enterprises used any type of social media in 2025.
• The share was 61.1% in 2023.
• Among small enterprises, 60.6% used social media.
• Among large enterprises, 89.1% used social media.

Eurostat gives online presence and marketing as examples of why enterprises use social media.

Online sales

Marketing spend increasingly points buyers to an online checkout. The US Census Bureau publishes quarterly e-commerce estimates. The release for the second quarter of 2026 came out on August 18, 2026. The figures below are seasonally adjusted and not adjusted for price changes.

E-commerce grew faster than total retail. Total retail sales rose 6.7% over the same twelve months. The Census Bureau notes that revised estimates will appear in the third-quarter release on November 19, 2026.

In Great Britain, the ONS reports online spending in its monthly retail sales bulletin. Online spending values rose by 10.1% in the three months to August 2026 compared with a year earlier. Over the single month to August 2026, online sales values rose by 2.5%. The bulletin was released on September 18, 2026.

Marketing jobs and pay

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook reports pay and job counts for marketing roles. Wages refer to May 2025. Job counts refer to 2025. Projections cover 2025 to 2035.

Market research analysts are the larger group by job count. Marketing managers have the higher median wage. Both groups are projected to grow over the decade.

Fraud that starts with ads

Advertising also carries risk for buyers. The FTC collects fraud reports through its Consumer Sentinel Network. Its April 27, 2026 Data Spotlight covers scams that started on social media.

Shopping scams were the most reported scam type on social media in 2025. Many fake ads sent people to sites that impersonated known brands. This matters to legitimate marketers. Fake ads that copy a brand erode trust in the real brand’s ads. The FTC notes that most scams are never reported, so real losses are likely higher.

Method

• Data window. Figures date from 2020 to 2026. The 2020 FTC figure serves only as a baseline. The page prefers the most recent release of each series at the check date.
• Primary sources only. Each figure links to the body that first published it. Government sources are BLS, the US Census Bureau, the FTC, Eurostat and ONS. Company sources are the filings and investor releases of Alphabet, Meta and Amazon. Survey sources are Pew Research Center, the IAB report conducted by PwC, the Gartner CMO Spend Survey and one vendor survey. Statistics aggregators and articles that re-quote figures were not used. The vendor survey is labeled as vendor-reported with HubSpot named.
• Checks. StatWharf Editorial opened each source in October 2026 and checked that the figure appears there with the stated date. Figures not found on a primary source were left out. One example is the ONS share of retail sales made online. The August 2026 bulletin refers readers to a separate dataset for it. Eurostat 2025 figures on paid internet advertising were also left out because they were not reachable at the check date.
• No modeling. The page reports published figures only. Company revenue figures in the chart are rounded to one decimal place. No value is calculated or estimated.

Using these figures

The figures show where marketing money and attention sit in 2026. Digital ad revenue keeps growing faster than overall budgets. Social and commerce media grow fastest. Budgets as a share of revenue stay flat, so teams shift spend toward AI and automation rather than add new money. Teams that compare tools for email, lead scoring and campaign workflows can use the StatWharf comparison of marketing automation software. The comparison does not rank products. Send corrections to any figure to the editorial address below.

Factual corrections are free: editorial@statwharf.com.