Copy article

Marketing tops US small-business investment plans. What do UK and US firms actually spend?

ended 15. August 2026

Published benchmarks rarely measure the same thing. We want actual figures and first-hand experience from the people setting the budget.

In QuickBooks’ July 2026 survey, 66% of US small and midsize business respondents planned to invest during the following three months. Sales and marketing was the most common destination.

That tells us where attention is going, but not what businesses actually spent.

One of the cleanest UK–US comparisons we found asked marketing leaders the same questions over exactly the same period in early 2023.

Among those who answered:

  • UK marketing expenditure averaged 5.21% of revenue, with a median of 3%.
  • US marketing expenditure averaged 10.89% of revenue, with a median of 5%.

Yet measured against the total company budget, the averages were almost identical: 12.78% in the UK and 12.30% in the US.

The result changes with the denominator, before we even consider company size, sector, growth stage, funding model or what each respondent includes under “marketing”.

These were small, self-selecting and unmatched samples, so they are not national estimates. We want current, first-hand evidence from founders, finance leaders and people who approve marketing budgets.

Exact figures are welcome, but a range is fine if the information is commercially sensitive.

We would like to know

What did your business actually spend on marketing during its last full financial year?

Please give it as a percentage of revenue, or as an amount alongside a revenue band. Tell us whether it includes salaries, website investment and software. Report sales or business-development costs separately.

How was the business financed?

Was there no outside equity, angel or venture capital, private equity, public ownership or another structure? Did the reported marketing spend come mainly from operating cash, owner capital, debt, outside equity or a mixture?

Who approved the budget?

Was it the founder, marketing team, finance, board or procurement? What target, payback expectation or constraint shaped the final number?

What happens when money becomes tight or plentiful?

Is marketing protected or cut when cash is tight? When spare funds appear, where do growth and marketing rank?

What commercial job does the website have?

Is it primarily for credibility, generating enquiries, direct sales, customer support or something else? How do you judge whether it works, and over what period should the investment pay back?

Have you managed budgets in both the UK and US?

What difference did you observe, if any? Please give one example from each market and include the company size, sector, growth stage and funding model.

3 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Star Quote
Copy

Editor
Zac SanterVerified
Director at South Digital
US firms are not inherently more generous. The more useful question is what the money has been raised to do.

Several of our US clients are venture-backed, whereas UK prospects are more often deploying operating cash or owner capital. Venture funding is not free: it costs equity and comes with targets, scrutiny and a runway. But it is raised expressly to accelerate growth, which can make delay look riskier than spending. That may explain why two US contacts independently told us to increase our quote for a website build.

Businesses expecting a website to drive demand tend to give it a target, owner, distribution and measurement. Others fund a brochure, then take limited results as evidence that websites do not work. Our own site is a principal source of enquiries, and at this stage we reinvest spare funds into growth. Expectations do not guarantee a result, but they determine whether the website is run as an asset or treated as overhead.
Copy

Editor
Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
I don’t set marketing spend by saying “we must spend X% of revenue”. I approve it based on the commercial job it needs to do and whether I can see a credible return.

For us, marketing includes much more than paid ads: websites, PR, content, software and the infrastructure behind several customer-facing brands. Sales and business-development costs are treated separately.

The website is particularly important. In financial services, it isn’t just a digital brochure; it has to establish credibility before someone ever speaks to us, generate enquiries and explain complex propositions clearly enough for people to act.

When cash is tight, I would cut vanity marketing before growth marketing. When money is available, I would rather invest in an asset that compounds — better technology, stronger websites, better distribution — than simply pour more into ads. The budget ultimately comes back to one question: what will this £1 realistically build or return?
Copy

Editor
Paul DenleyVerified
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
Marketing in the trad sense is less relevant to our firm: we target a small number of higher net worth clients, not a high volume of leads. The most effective marketing is relationship led -existing client referrals, our professional network, and introductions from solicitors, accountants & other advisers. Our website matters mainly as validation: someone hears about us through a trusted contact, then looks us up, so it needs to establish credibility and give them confidence to take the next step. I make the decisions on marketing spend. The constraint isn’t what we can afford, but how many new clients we can work with while maintaining a high level of personal service. There’s little point generating more demand than we can accommodate without compromising that. That makes marketing spend as a percentage of revenue a slightly misleading measure for us. The better question is whether the money strengthens the network, reputation and trust that ultimately bring us the right clients.