Gartner 2025 — paid online = 69% of digital, owned/earned = ~31% (declining 9% YoY)

Claim: Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey (official infographic "2025 digital channel investment allocations — mean % of digital channel budget"):

• Paid online channels = 69% of total digital spend.
• Owned/earned = ~31%, and owned/earned (except email) declined 9% year-over-year.

Source: Gartner 2025 official infographic. Single-source but high quality.

Confidence: Single-source (Verified for the figure itself; no independent equivalent).

Why this matters for Candid: The closest published proxy for "digital minus advertising" is the 31% owned/earned slice. Combined with prior anchors: ~31% × ~61% × ~7.7% ≈ 1.5% of revenue for owned/earned digital (Directional-Speculative — see Derived "owned digital" share of revenue — ~0.5%-2% (Directional-Speculative)).