US martech spending set to break $20 billion this year; growth slowing

U.S. marketing technology spending is expected to increase a healthy 14.3% this year — surpassing $20 billion, according to industry research eMarketer.

But marketing technology spending increases in 2022 won’t match earlier years. Spending increased 20.9% in 2021, according to the report. Last year companies spent to keep up with the pandemic-driven shift to online by customers and businesses. This followed huge growth between 2018 and 2020 when martech spending nearly doubled. 

B2B firms will increase martech spending less this year and next as well. Spending by B2B firms will rise 14.6% in 2022 and 12.4% in 2023, according to the report. Spending is expected to accelerate in 2024.

B2B martech spending will reach $6.6 billion by the end of the 2022 and exceed $8.5 billion by 2024. A separate study estimates that the overall martech industry worldwide was worth about $345 billion in 2021. Spending increases by B2B firms will outpace increases by B2C companies.

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Martech spending is still ahead of spending on marketing overall. Marketing budgets have climbed to 9.5% of total company revenue in 2022, an increase from 6.4% in 2021, according to Gartner. While marketing budgets are increasing this year, they still lag pre-pandemic spending levels.

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The marketing resource budget mix is largely unchanged this year, the study found, with martech accounting for 25.4% share of resource budgets, down from 26.6% in 2021. 

Why we care. If this is a slowdown in comparison with the last few years, it still shows a willingness to spend even in an uncertain economy. And $20 billion is quite a milestone.