• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 25, 2023

B2B marketing budgets have gone up at least slightly in 2023. But there have been cutbacks in several areas, including personnel, and 66% of marketers are suffering from burnout, according to The State of B2B Marketing Budgets, a study by Integrate.

Only 11% of U.S respondents are significantly expanding their budgets over those of 2022. Another 34% say they are slightly higher.  

Budgets are being impacted by these factors (or fears): 

• Economic recession — 48% 
• Competitive forces — 46%
• Rising interest rates — 44% 
• Inflation — 42%
• World geopolitical instability — 29% 
• Supply chain disruptions — 27% 
• Changing opportunity — 23%

On a practical level, 45% say their main challenge is using data to inform decisions and/or measure marketing performance.  

The marketing areas most negatively affected by budget/hiring changes, some of which would hit email units, are: 

• Content creation/strategy — 49% 
• Customer marketing — 44%
• Field or event marketing — 35% 
• Marketing ops/technology — 34% 
• Product marketing — 32% 
• Communications — 29% 
• Demand generation — 25%
• Digital — 25% 
• ABM — 20% 
• New verticals — 19%
• Sales enablement — 13% 

Drilling down, the areas specifically targeted for less spending are: 

• Field or event marketing — 20%
• Content creation/strategy — 18% 
• Product marketing/strategy — 18% 
• Communications — 18% 

The cuts are having an effect. Here is how B2B brands are adapting to layoffs or budget reductions: 

• Travel budget cuts — 51% 
• Consolidating teams/jobs — 49%
• Relying on agencies — 36% 
• Relying on contractors — 35% 
• Closing offices — 20% 
• Other coping strategies — 6% 

On the positive side, the main areas of marketing investment are content marketing strategy, customer marketing and marketing ops/technology. Overall, 68% report meeting or exceeding their growth targets.  

Companies are spending more on: 

• Marketing ops/technology — 44%
• Customer marketing — 39%
• Product marketing/strategy — 37% 
• Sales enablement — 37%

Given the nature of these initiatives, there should be some money trickling down to email teams.

Of those polled, 67% will focus on buyer-driven cross-channel campaigns, followed by inbound-always on (57), outbound/demand generation (54%) and ABM/ABX (36%). 

Most of the respondents seem satisfied with their martech stack — 28% say it supports them very well and 37% simply say it supports them well.

Another 23% are neutral, while only 12% say martech is helping them poorly, with 3% saying it does so very poorly.

Some marketers say they suffer from redundancies in their tech stack -- 48% to a great or very great extent and 27% to some extent. 

That said, 33% of marketers surveyed expect their martech stacks to grow through addition of new solutions this year, and 48% say it will stay the same except for maintenance/upgrades. Another 19% will reduce the size through consolidation/elimination.