2025 Marketing Budget for Ecommerce Companies

How much do ecommerce companies spend on marketing?

On average, ecommerce companies spend 10-20% of revenue on marketing.

This post will give you the run-down on:

• How much should ecommerce companies spend on marketing in 2025?
• Ecommerce marketing budget breakdown
• Factors impacting ecommerce marketing budgets in 2025
• How to create an ecommerce marketing budget
• FAQ: Ecommerce marketing budgets

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How much should ecommerce companies spend on marketing in 2025?

In 2025, ecommerce companies should expect to spend 10-20% of revenue on marketing.

The exact dollar amount you’ll invest in marketing depends on several factors, including:

• Business size
• Growth goals
• Platforms, tech, & integrations
• Your marketing provider: Agency or in-house

Ecommerce marketing budget breakdown

Here’s a breakdown of what your ecommerce company may spend on top marketing services for your industry:

Factors that impact your 2025 ecommerce marketing budget

The top factors impacting your marketing budget include:

• Industry trends
• Marketing channels
• Customer experiences
• Marketing automation and technology

Industry trends

The ecommerce industry is constantly changing. Between shifting consumer preferences and new sales technology, each year offers new updates to consider for your budget.

For example, one emerging trend in the ecommerce world is the push for social commerce — companies selling their goods through social media sites. If this is common in your market, you could expand your marketing budget to social platforms for selling through social media.

Part of your marketing budget should be spent testing new strategies based on these industry trends. In fact, WebFX research has shown 21% of respondents dedicate 5-10% of their marketing spend to experimental strategies. That means that to keep up, you should set aside some funding for trying new approaches!

Read: Ecommerce Marketing Trends

Marketing channels

The marketing channels you use will also greatly affect your budget. The channels you choose and how you use them will be where the bulk of your budget, so it’s important to pick the right ones for your ecommerce business.

Here are the top ecommerce marketing channels in 2025:

• Paid advertising
• SEO
• Social media
• Email marketing and SMS
• Content marketing
• Amazon marketing

Marketing provider

One of the biggest factors impacting how much you’ll spend is who you’re working with, whether that’s a freelancer or two, or a digital marketing agency for ecommerce companies.

Your digital marketing provider, as well as how much they cost, will depend on:

• What services you choose
• The agency’s experience level and expertise
• Their available packages and customizations
• Their deliverables and capabilities

The best provider will vary from business to business. If you’re a startup company, you might not have the funds for a full-scale, overhaul approach to marketing. You should ultimately choose the best provider that you can reasonably afford.

Marketing automation and technology

One final factor to consider for your marketing budget is any automation and ecommerce technology you want to add to your campaign. These factors are essential for improving customer experience and creating better systems.

The first piece of technology you’ll need to budget for is your ecommerce platform. Whether you use Shopify, WooCommerce, or something else, you should account for that cost as part of your marketing budget.

Automation helps your staff and customers work and shop quickly. Ecommerce marketing automation could look like:

• Automated email campaign tools
• Automatic data integration and workflows
• Automated SMS campaigns and promotions

Ecommerce technology can also help optimize your marketing campaigns while saving time. For example, you might want to add a content creation tool to your docket to help you improve your product descriptions and share content across multiple channels.

With the right marketing tools, you can:

• Show dynamic content to prospects
• Upsell and cross-sell products
• Optimize the checkout process

Thinking about where you can improve processes can help you allocate funds to areas of need.

How to create a marketing budget for ecommerce companies

How to Create Your 2025 Ecommerce Marketing Budget

• Allocate 10-20% of your total revenue for marketing
• Reserve between 5-10% of your marketing budget to invest in new marketing strategies

Now you know what goes into an ecommerce marketing budget. Next, you can start planning yours. Here are four steps to planning a marketing budget for ecommerce companies:

1. Define your marketing budget
2. Outline your goals
3. Consider market factors
4. Evaluate ROI

1. Define your marketing budget

The first step to creating a marketing budget is evaluating your needs.

While a good rule of thumb is to allocate 10-20% of your revenue for marketing, you might invest more if you have the available revenue and want to see faster growth. However, if you’re just starting out, spending more on marketing might not be feasible.

You should also consider how much you want to spend on each strategy, which is where selecting your channels comes into play. You might consider a fixed marketing budget that accounts for only the channels you know you need, and you can invest more depending on your ROI each month.

During this step, you should:

• Consider your current and past marketing approaches to find revenue-driving actions
• Find the strategies that give you the highest ROI based on your analytics
• Review your past budgets and expenses to see where your funds have gone

Understanding your current marketing landscape and available revenue will help you plan your budget for the most effective strategies.

2. Outline your goals

Once you have an idea of what strategies you want to invest in, you can set goals for your budget. If you aren’t sure where to start, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do you want to accomplish this quarter/year?
• What channels produce the most ROI?
• What resources do you have in-house?
• How will you measure your success?

Creating SMART goals — those that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely — will help you set attainable standards for your marketing budget. An example of a SMART goal could be, “We want to increase sales by X percent in the next 12 months.”

Setting achievable goals can help you better judge what you will need to accomplish them.

3. Consider market factors

After setting goals and identifying your top-performing channels, you must determine the marketing initiatives needed to achieve your goals.

You can evaluate your competitors’ spending habits, preferred channels, and successes to see what you should be spending to keep up. For example, if you see that they perform well with a certain email marketing tool, you can add that to your strategy and account for the cost.

4. Evaluate ROI

Keeping track of your ROI is key to maintaining an effective marketing budget. If you don’t know what channels are driving revenue, you could be investing in the wrong ones.

Take time each quarter to see where you stand on current spending and find areas to improve throughout the year. The more you keep track of your funds, the more you get back in returns. That’s where marketing tracking tools like RevenueCloudFX become invaluable — having all your data in one place makes it easy to see where you can make adjustments.

Remember that your budget may fluctuate, too. With different seasons come high- and low-spend months for consumers, so you might find certain times are better for investing more (like the holiday season, for example). Being attentive will keep your budget on-track in the long run.

FAQ for ecommerce budgeting

Want to learn more about building an ecommerce marketing budget? Here are some common questions about budgeting for ecommerce.

Get the most out of your ecommerce marketing budget with WebFX!

If you want to earn more sales and grow your ecommerce company, WebFX is here to help. We are a leading digital marketing agency with experience helping ecommerce companies like yours earn more sales through leading industry channels.

Our revenue-driving ecommerce marketing services help you earn more money back on your marketing campaigns. That means, when it’s time to budget, you’ll see more growth and opportunities for your business.

Want to learn more? Contact us online or call 888-601-5359 today!

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