Where Marketers Plan to Spend Budgets Across Advertising, Marketing In 2023

• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, Yesterday

More marketers participating in a recent survey from NP Digital plan to increase rather than decrease advertising and marketing budgets in 2023. The study includes business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B).

Twenty-six percent of B2C marketers plan to increase budgets, the study found, while 51% plan to maintain their budgets and 23% plan to decrease their spend. Some 34% of B2B marketers said they would increase spend, while 45% plan to maintain budget and 21% plan to decrease spend.

About 8,032 marketers reading the NP Digital blog responded to a survey fielded by the company.

Where will they spend budgets in 2023? Marketers working with Google and Bing will increase paid-search ad budgets — at 59% and 47%, respectively — mainly because paid search provides a clear ROI compared to other marketing channels.

They also will maintain budgets — 18% for Google and 19% for Bing. The main reason is that marketers have not determined how to scale campaigns while maintaining profit margins.

Some marketers also said they will decrease budgets — 23% for Google and 34% for Bing. The main reason is that the average cost per click (CPC) for their respective industry continues to decline in cost, and fewer people are searching for the keywords they bid on, so their overall spend falls.

The data also shows that 68% plan to increase planned media budgets for search engine optimization in 2023, while 11% will maintain budgets and 21% plan to decrease budgets.

When it comes to social media, 32% of companies plan to increase their organic budget. The primary reason is focused on Apple iOS’s change in privacy restrictions, and that they are not able to spend as much as they want on paid social media.

While 26% plan to maintain paid social-media budgets because they are viewed as a tool to communicate with consumers, 42% said they would decrease the budget due to a decline in organic reach and a decline in ROI.

What will marketers do with content budgets?

• 83% will increase content-production budgets because costs associated with the media and the need to create content in multiple formats such as video.
• 8% said they would maintain the budget
• 9% will decrease budgets because artificial intelligence (AI) tools help create content more affordably

Nearly all marketers participating in the survey, at 98%, said they would invest in AI tools in 2023. The main reasons are saving money by automating content creation, reducing the amount of time spent on creating content, and ability to reduce the number of employees in the content department.

Neil Patel, NP Digital founder, highlights data around Twitter as being the most interesting information collected from the study. “I didn’t expect these results,” he wrote in a blog post.

Some 28% of companies plan to increase their Twitter ad spend. Marketers cite the top reason as an opportunity to acquire customers for less on the platform due to companies pulling out after Elon Musk bought the company.

Many of the 34% who plan to decrease ad spend on Twitter plan to do so because they do not agree with how Musk is running the platform and the changes being made.

When it comes to email marketing, 56% of companies said they would increase budgets. Some reasons include:

• Because their list size is growing so their costs for housing email addresses are rising
• Due to privacy laws, companies are spending more to ensure compliancy with personal data
• Companies are investing more in marketing automation

The data shows that very few companies plan to reduce headcount related to email marketing. Here is what they plan to do with budgets:

• 56% plan to increase budget
• 38% plan to maintain budget
• 6% plan to decrease budget

Other channels include:

• Podcast -- 78% plan to increase, 18% plan to maintain, and 4% will decrease spend
• Banner -- 34% plan to increase, 52% plan to maintain, and 14% plan to decrease ad spend
• Remarketing -- 94% plan to increase, 5% plan to maintain, and 1% plan to decrease ad spend
• Over-the-top and connected television -- 52% plan to increase, 35% plan to maintain, and 13% plan to decrease ad spend
• Influencer marketing -- 41% plan to increase, 17% plan to maintain, and 42% plan to decrease spend