How Much Should a DTC Brand Spend on Marketing?

Direct answer: Most DTC brands should spend somewhere between 7% and 20% of revenue on marketing, with the exact figure driven by growth stage. Early-stage brands under $1m in revenue often need to spend 15-20% to build initial traction, growth-stage brands between $1m and $10m typically settle around 10-15% as efficiency improves, and established brands over $10m usually run closer to 7-12% with more weight on retention than acquisition.

This is one of the most common questions founders ask when they are building a first annual plan, and the honest answer is that the percentage should shrink as the brand matures rather than stay fixed.

Why the percentage changes by stage

A brand with no existing customer base has to spend disproportionately on acquisition just to generate the order volume needed to learn what works. As a customer base builds, retention channels like email and SMS start contributing meaningful revenue at close to zero incremental spend, which lowers the percentage needed to hit the same growth rate. This is the mechanic behind most of the benchmark ranges cited below.

Benchmark ranges by stage

Stage	Typical marketing spend (% of revenue)	Primary focus
Early-stage (pre-$1m)	15-20%	Testing channels, building an initial audience
Growth-stage ($1m-$10m)	10-15%	Scaling what works, building retention infrastructure
Established ($10m+)	7-12%	Retention, brand, efficiency at scale

Overall, ecommerce businesses allocate roughly 7% to 12% of total revenue to marketing on average, with newer brands investing up to 20% during their growth phase. Marketing budgets across company types broadly held flat around 7.7% of revenue in 2025.

Source: Omnisend, Ecommerce Digital Marketing Statistics and Benchmarks for 2026.

A starting channel allocation for early-stage brands

For a brand still working out its channel mix, a reasonable starting split looks like this: 45% paid advertising for testing, 35% email and SMS for building an owned list from day one, and 20% content and SEO as a long-term foundation. This is a starting point to adjust once you know which channels are converting, and the allocation should shift toward what is actually working.

Why more spend does not always mean more growth

Founders under pressure to grow often assume the answer is simply more budget. In practice, a brand that increases spend without first fixing conversion rate, retention or creative testing velocity usually just pays more for the same output, at a worse blended MER. Budget is a multiplier on whatever system it is feeding. Increasing the multiplier on a weak system produces a weak result faster and more expensively. We go into this in more detail in How to Lower CAC for DTC Brands in 2026.

Signs your marketing budget is misallocated

Spend concentrated in one channel with no test budget for anything else. This creates fragility; a single platform's algorithm change or CPM spike can take out your entire acquisition engine.

Little to no budget for email and SMS. These channels typically produce revenue at close to zero marginal spend once flows are built, and a brand skipping this is leaving efficient revenue on the table.

No content or SEO investment at all. Paid channels get more expensive every year as more brands compete for the same auction inventory. Content and SEO are the only channels that get cheaper on a per-customer basis as they compound.

Budget set once a year and never revisited. Ecommerce is seasonal and channel costs shift constantly. A budget that does not flex quarterly against real performance data is really just a guess dressed up as a plan.

How to set your own number

Start with your gross margin and your target growth rate rather than an industry average. A brand aiming for 50% year-over-year growth needs a materially higher acquisition budget than one aiming for 15% growth, even at the same revenue size. From there, use the stage-based ranges above as a sanity check rather than a target to hit exactly. If your spend as a percentage of revenue is well outside the range for your stage in either direction, that is worth investigating rather than ignoring.

FAQ

What percentage of revenue should a new DTC brand spend on marketing? Early-stage brands typically spend 15-20% of revenue on marketing while building initial traction, tapering down as the customer base and retention channels grow.

Does marketing spend as a percentage of revenue go down as a brand scales? Generally yes. Established brands over $10m in revenue typically run 7-12%, since retention and repeat revenue contribute more without proportional new spend.

Should paid ads or email get more of the early budget? Both matter, but many early-stage brands underinvest in email and SMS relative to paid ads. A rough starting split of 45% paid, 35% email/SMS and 20% content is a reasonable baseline to adjust from.

Is a higher marketing budget always better for growth? No. Increasing budget without fixing conversion rate, retention or creative testing usually just increases cost per acquisition rather than accelerating growth.

How often should a DTC brand review its marketing budget? At minimum quarterly, and ideally monthly during periods of rapid change in channel performance or seasonality.

See pricing to see how PPAIOS structures spend across paid, email and content for brands at different stages, or join the waitlist.