What’s going well: CMOs, marketing budgets, alignment with sales
What could be improved: Trust, conversions, and customer retention
In the course of writing weekly blogs and a monthly newsletter, I tend to cover many marketing surveys and PR statistics. While random sampling is a difficult challenge, I strive to be diligent about checking the sources and curating those that seem credible.
My suggestion is to take these statistics as an indicator of trends that merit closer examination. Often such surveys draw conclusions of challenges we all face, along with ensuing discussion about how it’s best to go about solving them.
Halfway through 2025, here are statistics summarizing the state of marketing and PR now that we are at the halfway point in the year. I’ve tried to group these into logical categories to help readers peruse this post to find what interests them.
Statistics about the CMO and marketing leadership
1. CMO titles are cool again. There was a substantial increase in CMO appointments in 2024, with 310 new CMOs announced globally compared to 213 in 2023, representing a 45.5% jump. (source)
2. CMO tenure stabilizes. The average tenure for CMOs at Fortune 500 companies is 4.3 years. “Nearly two-thirds of CMOs who left their jobs were either promoted internally or moved onto a similar or higher role at a different brand.” (source)
3. CMOs get a good report card. 71% of CEOs grade their CMO an “A” or “B” overall. (source)
4. Pressure on CMOs still grows. 63% of CMOs are feeling increased pressure from the CFO. (source)
5. Turnover tanks marketing progress. Turnover of marketing leaders reduces “buzz” by 6.1%. (source)
Statistics about B2B marketing budgets
6. More with less stalls momentum. 86% of CMOs said a lack of resources is holding their teams back. (source)
7. Budgets are improving modestly. As a percentage of company revenue, marketing budgets rose to 9.4% – up from 7.7% last fall – across all business types. (source)
8. About 1 in 4 marketers saw “significant” budget increases. Some 67% of respondents said the budget has increased over the last year. This includes about one in four (23%) who indicated their budget grew “significantly.” (source)
9. Correlation between spending and growth? High-growth companies spend 40% more on marketing. (source)
Statistics about marketing strategy
10. Focused buyers. 41% of buyers have a single vendor in mind. (source)
11. Fractured audience. 74% of “B2B buying teams have unhealthy conflict” according to Gartner. (source)
12. Educational content wins. “65% of respondents rated educational content as ‘very important’ for audience engagement, highlighting the demand for trust-building and value-driven strategies.” (source)
13. How much does it cost? 45% of B2B tech buyers want pricing transparency from vendors. (source)
14. Downloading gated content. Downloading content is just early engagement for a long sales process; 66% of prospects who download content aren’t ready to buy for another year. (source)
15. A mixed bag of trust. Praytell, a US-based marketing and PR firm, tapped YouGov to poll 1,300 Americans and ask about the source of information that informs purchasing decisions: 24% of respondents said they prefer traditional media; 25% of respondents said they prefer emerging media; and 51% of respondents said they prefer a mix of both. (source)
16. Brand familiarity facilitates clicks. “59% of Americans click results from brands they know, while less than one-third choose the top-ranked result. That means users are twice as likely to trust brand recognition over algorithms — perhaps a response to growing skepticism toward search engines.” (source)
Statistics about marketing and sales alignment
17. Collaboration is key. “Fewer than 4 in 10 CEOs and CFOs believed that their CMO consistently collaborates effectively with other senior leaders.” (source)
18. Top B2B sales challenges. 65% said buyers have tighter budgets; 45% cited increased competition; 35% said buyers are taking longer to decide; 32% said prospects go silent without explanation; and 29% said buyers expect sales to do more work, such as offering a more personalized experience. (source)
19. Customer marketing is a top sales priority. 57% of chief sales officers see account retention and growth as a top-3 priority. (source)
20. Overpromising delivers churn. “73% of churned customers said they never saw value.” (source)
Statistics about marketing tactics
21. Most are spending more on content. Content marketing budgets are going up by ~46%. (source)
22. Email is still the killer app. Email outpaces every other marketing channel with 19.3% of conversions. (source)
23. Email deluge. Buyers are getting 100 emails a day. (source)
24. Too much email. 54% of subscribers say they unsubscribe when they get too much email. (source)
25. Events are back. 53% of B2B event organizers expect bigger event budgets. (source)
26. Listen and learn. Global podcast ad spend is expected to top $5 billion in 2025 (source)
Statistics about B2B public relations
27. Generative AI use case. 82% of PR pros use generative AI for tasks like brainstorming. (source)
28. Average investment in PR. About half (49%) of respondents surveyed by BuzzStream invest between $5,000 and $20,000 per month on digital PR. (source)
29. Wireless PR. 70% of PR people DO NOT use wire services for press release distro. (source)
30. Unworthy! 90% of press releases are not newsworthy. (source)
31. Is AI part of journalism? More than half of the 3,000 journalists polled by the media team at Cision are using generative AI tools. However, “72% worry about factual errors in AI-generated PR content.” (source)
32. Or is AI a threat to journalism? More than half of the 2,000 reporters (57%) surveyed by Pressat, a press release service based in the UK, worry AI may replace their jobs. If that happens, about “60% worry AI will erode human identity and autonomy in journalism.” It’s not entirely doom and gloom: 26% believe AI could enhance investigative journalism.
Statistics about SEO / GEO / AIO
33. Lacking visibility. 25% of B2B buyers find it difficult to discover products online (source)
34. Search engine market share. Google’s search market share drops below 90%. (source)
35. AI elbows its way in search. “AI Overviews now appear in 42.5% of search results.” (source)
36. Zero-click. Depending on whose research you believe, anywhere from 25% to 40% of searches are zero-click. (source)
37. Spending spree. 60% of B2B marketers are spending more on AI and social media. (source)
Statistics about social media
38. Blind sharing. 75% of Facebook shares are made without reading the content (source)
39. An AI-curated world. 50% of your Instagram feed is now AI-recommended Reels (source)
40. Twitter is most used for distribution. 43% cite Twitter as the top social channel for content distribution. (source)
41. Paid social. 90% of marketers are using paid social media to engage customers (source)
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Image credit: Google Gemini
