scrolL
07
06
05
04
03
02
01
New Logo Bookings Per Marketing FTE
Total Marketing Spend
vs. New Logo Bookings
Why Create This Data Set?
A common question asked by scaling SaaS companies is how much to spend on marketing and where to spend it. As investors and advisors, we continuously look for ways to increase marketing efficiency and effectiveness. There's no shortage of surveys and data out there, but we couldn't find a relevant data set for our portfolio of high growth SaaS companies. So, we created our own.
Insight's SaaS Marketing Spend Benchmarks
Marketing is a critical driver of growth and requires investing in the best programs to drive impact. For SaaS marketers it's challenging to know how much, and where, to invest for maximum ROI. Benchmarks from comparable scale-up companies can be useful in deciding where to allocate resources. Insight Partners has developed benchmark guidelines based on data from our portfolio of SaaS companies.
46%
Total Marketing Spend
vs. New Logo Bookings
29%
Marketing % of Total Sales & Marketing Spend
Marketing % of Total Sales & Marketing Spend
For most of our portfolio, marketing focuses more than half of its resources on driving new logo bookings - resulting in a strong correlation between marketing spend and growth in new business. This KPI provides insight into whether marketing is adequately resourced to hit new logo booking targets and how efficiently those booking are being generated.
Total Marketing Spend Breakdown
51%
Program
37%
People
12%
Other
36% Events
21%
Other*
8%
Content
Marketing Program Spend Breakdown
36% Digital
Marketing Resource Focus
55% New
16% Brand
10%
Expansion
13%
Sales Enablement
6%
Renewal
GO TO DETAILED REPORT
Use this when discussing overall marketing spend. This KPI can be used to estimate how much in marketing dollars is needed to hit new logo bookings targets and to highlight when to invest more in marketing and when to investigate inefficiencies.
SaaS companies should use these benchmarks as an input into strategic discussions around marketing budgets and resource allocation. This data should be used as guidance and not an absolute target. Benchmarks will vary by company type, resources, and goals.
How Should the Benchmarks Be Used?
Sales and marketing spend are combined when assessing a company's CAC; however, this can mask inefficiencies. It's important to look at each component separately since an imbalance can result in higher costs and lost opportunities. For example, underspending in marketing can result in the sales team working harder to generate leads while underspending in sales can result in marketing generated leads growing cold. Across our portfolio, marketing spend is typically one third of total go-to-market spend.
Having enough people in place to strategize and execute on marketing plans is critical for success. This KPI helps approximate the headcount needed to support different levels of new logo bookings targets.
Balance is key to an efficient and effective marketing organization. Are you overspending on programs without enough people to support these programs? Are you overspending on people without investing in scalable infrastructure? This data provides insight into questions like these.
B2B marketing organizations often focus their resources on tried and true areas like tradeshows & events. However, being overly reliant on a single demand gen strategy can result in inefficiencies, lost opportunities, and chaos when performance starts to decline. It's important to invest in various areas (including brand) to ensure the continued health of your demand gen engine.
Having the right level of resources is only helpful if those resources are properly deployed. Marketing teams at smaller organizations tend to focus almost exclusively on new logo demand gen and, to a lesser extent, sales enablement. As the organization grows, the focus changes - notably an increasing focus on brand and expansion (i.e., cross-sell/up-sell). While driving new business is important, neglecting to invest in other key areas can result in inefficiencies and lost opportunities.
Join our mailing list and get a more detailed report.
Need These Metrics Sorted
by New Deal Size?
EMAIL ADDRESS
What size do you expect your next new business deal to be?
< $15K
$15K–$74K
$75K+
Not Sure
Use this when discussing the overall sales and marketing budget to ensure that the teams are balanced in their resources. This can be used for budgeting or as a double click into efficiency benchmarking and CAC analysis.
Use this to discuss budget allocation across people, program, and other marketing spend (which includes tech, corporate allocations, travel and other spend). This can also highlight areas to investigate when looking to improve marketing efficiency and effectiveness.
Use this when discussing your overall marketing budget to ensure that you have the right size team to support new business bookings targets. This can also be used as another data point for efficiency benchmarking.
Use this to discuss program spend allocation across different demand gen channels and strategies. This will also impact how you structure your team and can highlight areas to test as you aim to generate increasingly higher levels of new business bookings or strive to improve marketing efficiency.
Use this to determine where to invest your time and resources - whether budget, headcount, or mind space - especially as your organization grows and evolves. This can also help you identify inefficiencies and opportunity areas.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
WHEN SHOULD I USE THIS?
*Total marketing spend includes people, program, and other (e.g., tech, corporate allocations, travel and other spend). It excludes BDR/SDR spend if this sits in marketing.
$750K
/ 1 FTE
*Other program spend includes PR agency, analyst fees, merchandise, direct mail, partner marketing, and other program spend.