Schonfeld 2025 — advertising-to-sales ratio average 3.07% across 2,500 public companies

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%.

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.

Source: Schonfeld & Associates (standard advertising-spend reference).

Confidence: Verified (single firm but the standard reference).

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 and structural gaps in spend-benchmark evidence for the definitional-drift point.