B2B marketing budgets are rising in 2026, but benchmarks vary by business model

Two different datasets point to the same near-term reality for marketing ops teams: 2026 planning is moving upward, not downward. Forrester reports that 83% of B2B marketing decision-makers anticipate higher investment in the next 12 months. A separate survey summarized by Demand Gen Report, based on 10Fold’s 2026 Marketing Budget Blueprint, puts the portion expecting budget increases at 69%.

But the bigger operational shift is hiding in the benchmark math. The most common planning failure still starts with a single “marketing is X% of revenue” rule. Spring 2026 figures from the Duke University, Deloitte and American Marketing Association CMO Survey, published by CMO.Works, show the number swings far more than most annual plans admit, and it swings by business model as much as by B2B versus B2C.

The benchmark that breaks the one-number budget rule

CMO.Works published a business-type split from The CMO Survey’s Spring 2026 report that should change how operators argue for budget in the CFO meeting. Marketing spend as a share of revenue was listed as 12.0% for B2C product companies, 7.2% for B2C services, 7.0% for B2B product, and 10.1% for B2B services.

That table does two useful things in one glance. First, it undercuts the hallway assumption that “B2C spends more than B2B.” B2B product (7.0%) sits basically on top of B2C services (7.2%), while B2B services (10.1%) is much closer to B2C product (12.0%) than many finance templates would allow.

Second, it gives marketing operations a cleaner internal segmentation than industry labels. Product versus services is doing as much work as B2B versus B2C in the spend profile. For enterprise operators, that matters because it ties spend to the mechanics of demand creation: how much has to be generated from cold, versus how much comes through renewal, reputation, partner channels, and referrals.

Where budget increases are actually being aimed: brand and discoverability

The spend mix is where the sources start to rub against each other in a productive way. Demand Gen Report’s write-up of 10Fold’s findings says brand awareness is the top investment priority for 2026, with brand awareness and content marketing together representing the largest projected spending share at 16%. The same report calls out planned investments in corporate and executive social plus social influencers at 21%, and PR and PR agencies at 14%.

10Fold’s dataset also helps clarify which organizations are spending and the speed of those changes. Demand Gen Report says the Blueprint draws on input from 400 senior marketing executives in the U.S. and Europe. The report finds that 57% have yearly marketing budgets of $1 million to $10 million, including 29% that fall between $1 million and $5 million. Looking ahead, 42% project budgets will rise 5% to 10%, while 10% predict increases of 11% or more.

Forrester’s guidance for 2026 planning is less about “more money” and more about controlled reallocation. According to Forrester, success will hinge on where marketers choose to invest, divest, and experiment amid volatility.

Read together, the operational issue is not whether brand gets funded. It’s whether brand spend comes with a governance model that survives procurement and finance scrutiny. If a team wants to move dollars into executive social, PR, and broader visibility, it needs a measurement plan that prevents those line items from becoming the new “miscellaneous.” Forrester explicitly pushes teams toward layered measurement that blends traditional metrics with predictive analytics and conversational intelligence.

AI is taking budget share faster than readiness, and that changes staffing plans

Multiple signals across the sources suggest the same constraint: AI is increasingly a defined line item, yet many organizations are still developing the operating capability to use it safely and consistently. CMO.Works reports that, in 2026, CMOs on average direct 15.3% of marketing budget to AI. It also breaks out spending by readiness: organizations with mature AI-readiness put 21.3% toward AI, and just 30% say that readiness is in place.

That’s a procurement and operating model issue more than a tooling issue. If only 30% self-report mature readiness, then the limiting factor for 2026 is often data workflows, content governance, and analytics capability, not access to another generative model subscription. Forrester’s recommendation to invest in upskilling, especially in AI tools and data analysis, lines up with that constraint.

Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 report adds another corrective. In an overview published by Robert Rose, CMI said the 2026 report draws on a survey of 1,015 B2B marketers conducted with MarketingProfs and sponsored by Storyblok. The framing argues that teams performing well are building stronger fundamentals and then using AI to amplify them, rather than using AI to substitute for strategy.

Regional planning: Asia Pacific is spending less now, but hiring and martech demand may move first

For global operators, Forrester’s regional notes matter because they map how constraints play out differently by geography. In North America, Forrester says 37% of U.S. marketing decision-makers are “quite optimistic” and forecast a budget increase of 5% or more.

In Europe, Forrester says surveyed B2B marketers report allocating 9% of revenue to marketing, and 37% expect budget increases in the next 12 months. In Asia Pacific, Forrester reports that nearly half of respondents say they plan to put 7.1% or more of revenue into marketing, below North America and Europe, while Asia Pacific marketers also report the largest planned investment increase across programs, personnel, and technology.

That combination suggests a catch-up dynamic. For vendors, agencies, and platform teams, it implies the earliest demand could show up in enablement, measurement, and stack rationalization projects as much as in top-of-funnel media.

2026 planning checklist for marketing ops, finance, and procurement

• Which benchmark should guide the plan: business model (B2B product vs. B2B services) or a generic “% of revenue”? Put the CMO Survey segment number in the budget deck and show the rationale (via CMO.Works citing the Spring 2026 CMO Survey).
• If brand gets incremental dollars, what gets turned off? According to Forrester, 2026 planning calls for choices about where to invest and divest.
• If AI is a line item, require an operating spec: approved use cases, content review workflow, and measurement.
• For AI-era discovery, decide whether to follow Forrester’s recommendation to reallocate at least 15% of content or digital spend to AI search visibility, and define who owns schema markup, modular content production, and expert profile maintenance.