How much should your media budget really be?

Quick answer: The right media budget depends on five factors: your growth objective, your brand's maturity, how competitive your category is, your sales cycle and customer value, and your capacity to handle growth. As a reference point, Gartner's research puts total marketing budgets at around 7.7% of company revenue, and start-ups and challengers usually need to invest proportionally more to build awareness and win share.

Media budgets are often inherited from last year, negotiated down in a planning meeting or trimmed until they feel comfortable. Yet media is still expected to drive growth. At Habitat M, we see that tension every day, and we find the most useful question to ask is what should shape the investment in the first place. Here are the five factors we look at with every client.

1. Start with your growth objective

Before you set a number, be clear on what media needs to achieve. That might be creating demand where awareness is low, taking share in a crowded market, driving short-term revenue, or restoring a brand that has lost momentum. Each objective calls for a different level of investment and a different mix. A clear objective keeps the budget pointed at the channels that will deliver it, and makes it far easier to defend in the boardroom.

2. Brand maturity changes everything

Where your brand sits on its growth journey has a big influence on how much you should invest.

  • Start-ups usually need proportionally higher investment to build awareness and credibility from a standing start.
  • Challengers need to punch above their weight and win share of voice against better-funded rivals, often by being smarter and more creative with how they spend.
  • Established brands can often grow by rebalancing spend, simplifying their channel and creative mix, and rebuilding brand strength alongside performance.

Benchmarks are a useful starting line. Gartner's annual CMO Spend Survey put marketing budgets at 7.7% of company revenue in both 2024 and 2025, down from 9.1% in 2023. That research is drawn mostly from large companies in North America, the UK and Europe, and it covers the whole marketing budget rather than media alone, so treat it as a reference point and adjust for your stage, ambition, risk and urgency.

3. Competitive intensity: your market sets the entry price

Your budget only means something relative to what your competitors are spending and how your category behaves. A conservative budget will find it hard to outperform heavy spenders in a crowded market, while a less cluttered category can reward smarter targeting and sequencing. Share of voice, media saturation and category buying patterns all shape what it takes to be noticed, which is why our calculator asks about your industry and competitor landscape.

4. Sales cycle and customer value

A quick, low-consideration purchase behaves very differently from a long, complex buying journey. It helps to ask how long your customers take to decide, how many touchpoints influence that decision, and what a customer is worth over their lifetime. A high lifetime value can justify more upfront investment, and a long sales cycle calls for a sustained presence so you're front of mind when buyers are ready.

5. Internal capacity and readiness

Media can create demand quickly, so make sure your sales, operations and onboarding teams can handle the growth you're paying for. Matching investment to readiness turns new demand into momentum and keeps the customer experience strong. The smartest budgets balance ambition with what the business can deliver.

Bringing it together

Setting your media budget is a strategic decision, and the five factors above give you a framework to make it with confidence. We built the Habitat M Media Investment Calculator to help marketers stress-test investment levels, adjust for growth stage, industry and ambition, and move from gut feel to a structured recommendation.
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Media budget FAQs

The right figure depends on your growth stage, your category and how ambitious your targets are. As a reference point, Gartner's CMO Spend Survey put total marketing budgets at 7.7% of company revenue in 2024 and 2025, and media is one part of that. Start-ups and challengers chasing share usually need to invest proportionally more, while established brands can often grow by rebalancing what they already spend.

Start-ups typically need to invest a higher share of revenue than established brands, because they're building awareness and credibility from a standing start. The best way to set the number is to work back from your growth objective, the cost of competing in your category and the value of a new customer over time. Our Media Investment Calculator can help you test different levels.

The balance depends on your brand maturity, sales cycle and how much demand already exists for what you sell. Brand activity builds the future demand that performance channels then convert, so most growing brands need both working together. The Habitat M Media Investment Calculator recommends a mix based on your market maturity and competitor landscape.

Agree on your measures before the campaign starts. The most useful ones connect media to business outcomes: brand health and awareness, share of voice, revenue attribution, margin impact and customer lifetime value. Tracking these over time shows whether your investment is building momentum and where to adjust.

Every business has to manage cash, so it's worth looking at how you spend before deciding how much to cut. Reducing your presence can hand share of voice to competitors who keep investing, which makes it more expensive to win back later. Rebalancing channels and sharpening targeting often protects results while easing the pressure on budget. Read more in Sam Brownbill's blog >

Article written by:
David Ross
  • February 10th, 2026
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