The True Costs Of B2B Marketing Data Hierarchy 2020

In 2004, Forrester initiated a longitudinal study to gain an understanding of B2B marketing organizations’ spending behavior. We have collected data from marketing leaders of organizations of various sizes across a range of industries to determine how marketing investment is allocated to headcount, programs, outsourced services, and systems and tools. Marketing organizations have evolved new categories of spending, and we have adjusted our marketing budget benchmarks to account for these changes. In this report, we explain the updated data architecture for tracking the true costs of B2B marketing and provide definitions for the categories used in our research.