{"id":2139,"slug":"schonfeld-2025-advertising-to-sales-3-percent","title":"Schonfeld 2025 — advertising-to-sales ratio average 3.07% across 2,500 public companies","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["marketing-spend-benchmarks"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Schonfeld & Associates, \"Advertising Ratios & Budgets,\" May 2025 (**2,500+ public companies across 315 industries**): overall average **3.07% of sales** (\"up from 2.83% in 2023\"). Services highest at **3.74%**, Construction ~**0.50%**, Manufacturing ~**3.14%**.\n\n**Critical definitional note:** This is **ADVERTISING ONLY** and **PUBLIC COMPANIES ONLY** — a MUCH narrower measure than \"marketing % of revenue\" (~7.7-9.4%). Don't conflate.\n\n**Source:** Schonfeld & Associates (standard advertising-spend reference).\n\n**Confidence:** Verified (single firm but the standard reference).\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** Important guard against definitional drift. When vendors quote \"the average business spends 3% on marketing,\" they're actually quoting the advertising-only ratio — not the full marketing-spend benchmark. The widget must not confuse the two. See [[caveats-vendor-quarantine-spend-benchmarks]] for the definitional-drift point.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-spend-benchmarks-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget spend benchmarks — feasibility of a \"digital-minus-ads\" % of revenue (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T20:03:31.505Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T20:03:31.505Z"}