The following is a summarized version of an article by Gartner about digital marketing budgets and spending in the United States, titled,  “Key Findings from U.S. Digital Marketing Spending Survey, 2013“

1.  10.4% of 2012 Revenue Was Spent on Marketing, and Budgets Will Increase 6% in 2013
Companies spent, on average, 10.4% of their annual 2012 revenue on overall marketing activities.  With the largest increase in spending, media companies actually allocated more funds in comparison to other companies.

2.  Digital Marketing Spending Averages 2.5% of Company Revenue
Many customers are choosing to purchase products using digital channels. The annual digital marketing budget for companies in 2012 was about 2.5% of the revenue. Many people are also saying they spend between 10% and 50% of their budgets on digital marketing activities.

3.  Digital Advertising Accounts for 12.5% of Digital Marketing Budgets
For content creation and management, companies reported using 11.6% of their digital marketing budget on content creation and management, 10.7% on both design, development and maintenance of their website and search marketing. Email marketing, social media marketing and the company blog combined total nearly 1/4th of their entire digital marketing budgets.

4.  41% of Marketers Say That Savings From Digital Marketing Are Reinvested
Most companies found the effectiveness of their digital media marketing campaigns helped stretch their marketing budgets. Reinvesting that money in to more digital marketing is also a big trend in most companies as they see it as a better investment compared to traditional techniques. Most eve

5.  Up to 50% of Digital Marketing Activities Are Outsourced
About 50% of search marketing is outsourced. Marketers at manufacturing companies outsource 53% of their social media marketing to other companies.

6.  70% of Companies Surveyed Have a Chief Marketing Technologist — 80% of Them Report to Marketing
Some companies are creating new roles as technology increases in order to help them stay up with the current fast-paced market. There are various names but the point is they’re necessary to help you achieve your tactics.

7.  The Top 3 Digital Marketing Activities Key to Marketing’s Success — Corporate Website, Social Marketing and Digital Advertising
As  the title of this portion says the top three digital marketing activities that are key to success are a corporate website, social marketing and digital advertising, in that order.

So what does this mean for your company? Let’s put it into perspective:

If an average company’s revenue is $100,000 per year, they spend about $10,400 on overall digital marketing activities. This number is supposed to increase by about 6% for 2013. That would mean an average company would spend about $6,000 more on marketing in the coming year, bringing the total to $16,400.  This means that of their total marketing budget the company would spend about $9,200 on Content Creation and Management, Design/Maintenance of their website, Email Marketing, Analytics, Social Media Marketing, and Blog combined.  For those categories alone a basic Internet Marketing budget would be about $750 per month.

Article data provided by Gartner.com.  To read the full article and see a bit more on the findings, click here.