Digital channels have taken center stage in marketing strategies, accounting for 61.1% of overall marketing spend, according to Gartner’s latest 2025 CMO Spend Survey. The findings were unveiled at the ongoing Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo in Denver.
Based on responses from 402 CMOs and senior marketers across North America, the UK, and Europe, the survey highlights a clear shift toward online investments. Paid digital media dominates this digital spend, representing 69% of the total. Among these, paid search continues to lead, slightly increasing its share to 13.9%, while digital display advertising has overtaken social media, growing 17% year-over-year to 12.5%. Social advertising holds strong at 12.2%.
While the use of owned and earned channels declined by 9% year-over-year, email marketing bucked the trend, registering a modest rise and holding 7.4% of the digital budget.
Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst and Chief of Research at Gartner Marketing Practice, emphasized the industry’s ongoing transformation. “The growing digital investment underscores how marketers are adapting to shifting consumer habits, GenAI adoption, and uncertainties like Google’s delayed cookie phase-out and TikTok’s regulatory future,” he said.
Search advertising emerged as a top performer, seen as both high-spend and high-impact—especially in driving conversions and influencing pre-purchase decisions. Meanwhile, video and streaming platforms slipped in impact rankings due to saturation and targeting limitations.
Notably, retail media networks have surged, overtaking traditional video formats in impact. These networks are gaining favor for their precise targeting and ability to break through platform clutter. Linear TV still commands moderate to high spending but ranks lower in effectiveness, except in sectors where it’s used to drive broad awareness.
Email marketing maintained its reputation as a reliable channel, ranking fifth in overall impact and first for fostering customer loyalty.
“As marketing leaders adjust their strategies in a multichannel environment, performance-based planning is essential,” McIntyre added. “Budget pressures and platform volatility will continue to test CMO priorities.”
Gartner clients can explore the full findings in Insights From the 2025 CMO Spend Survey.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Despite the widespread dominance of mobile web traffic, AI-powered search tools are overwhelmingly driving traffic from desktop devices, according to new findings from BrightEdge.
Their latest report reveals that over 90% of AI search referrals originate from desktop, spotlighting a major gap in mobile engagement. Interestingly, Google Search remains the outlier, directing more traffic from mobile (53%) than desktop (44%).
Meanwhile, other major AI platforms show a strong desktop skew:
- ChatGPT.com: 94% from desktop
- Perplexity.ai: 96%
- Bing: 94%
- Google Gemini: 91%
This discrepancy may stem from how AI interfaces behave on mobile apps. Many users interact with AI-generated previews within apps like ChatGPT, but a second action is often required to reach external sites—leading to fewer direct referrals.
BrightEdge also highlighted differences in how AI Overviews perform across devices. On mobile, AI-generated summaries appear three times more frequently for ecommerce queries and show greater variability in design, suggesting ongoing experimentation by Google. In contrast, desktop Overviews appear 39% more often, take up 80% more screen space, and maintain more consistent formatting.
Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, emphasized the strategic importance of these insights:
“If marketers are not paying attention to how AI operates on different devices, they may be missing some key opportunities, especially in ecommerce.”
With desktop users primarily seeking detailed information and mobile users leaning toward discovery and shopping, the data calls for a tailored AI search strategy—one that accounts for device behavior as much as keyword intent.
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News Source: SearchEngineLand.com
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