A company wants to know whether its marketing budget is normal.

There is nothing strange about that question. When comparable companies spend a certain share of their revenue on marketing and you are well above or below it, that is relevant information.

But it does not yet produce a budget decision.

A benchmark primarily tells you something about other companies. Not what the next euro spent in your own business needs to deliver economically.

The percentage looks simpler than it is

Marketing budgets are often expressed as a percentage of revenue.

That makes comparison easy. But the ratio already contains two fairly substantial problems.

Revenue is not the same as economic capacity.

A company with high margins, recurring revenue and strong pricing power can carry the same revenue percentage very differently from a business with low margins, long sales cycles or limited capacity to handle additional demand.

Then there is the numerator.

Does it include internal staff? Software? CRM? Agencies? Media? Events? Sales enablement? Photography and video? Sponsorship?

Two companies can both say they spend 7% of revenue on marketing while economically measuring very different things.

That does not make a benchmark worthless, only less suitable as a decision rule.

The more interesting question comes first

Before allocating a budget, I would rather first know what the company is trying to change.

Create more demand. Bring a new product to market. Gain market share, become less dependent on direct sales, reduce pricing pressure, improve retention. Or build a brand that will require less explanation later.

Those are different business assignments. It would be strange if they all happened to cost exactly the same percentage of revenue.

Only once the desired change is clear does it become useful to examine what is required, what return can reasonably be expected, how much risk is acceptable and what else the same money could be used for.

A marketing budget then has an economic reason rather than just a percentage.

That is when the benchmark becomes more interesting

Suppose that exercise produces a budget equal to 11% of revenue.

And a reasonable comparison group sits around 6%.

That 6% is useful.

Not because the budget therefore needs to come down.

But because there is now a deviation that deserves an explanation.

Maybe the growth ambition is greater.

Maybe the company includes more internal costs.

Maybe a new market still has to be built.

Maybe the margins or customer economics are fundamentally different.

Or perhaps revisiting the assumptions simply shows that 11% is indeed difficult to defend.

The benchmark has then done what it is good at: exposing a question.

An average does not make the decision for you

The same problem appears elsewhere.

An average ranking does not automatically tell you how visible a brand really is.

One customer request does not prove that a product should be built.

A recurring task does not mean a process is sufficiently understood to automate it.

And a marketing benchmark does not tell an individual company how much it should rationally spend.

In all of those cases, the observation is useful.

The mistake begins when we turn it into a decision too quickly.

A benchmark can tell you which question to ask. Not how much to spend.