Digiday+ Research: Brand marketing will be the priority in 2026, after revenues fell short of expectations

That’s according to a Digiday+ Research survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2025 among nearly 50 marketing professionals.

Digiday’s survey found that, overall, a good chunk of marketers saw their revenues rise in 2025. Significantly more than a third of marketer pros (39%) told Digiday in Q4 that their 2025 revenues increased over their 2024 revenues — a positive sign for the industry.

But, looking more closely at the data, the increase was slight: Just short of a quarter of marketers (23%) said their 2025 revenues were up by 10% or less over 2024. Meanwhile, just 11% of marketers said their revenues increased between 11% and 25% last year, and 5% said their revenues were up 26% or more.

What’s more, just shy of a third of marketer pros (32%) told Digiday that their revenues decreased last year, with 20% saying their 2025 revenues were down by a significant percentage: between 11% and 25%. For context, just 5% of marketers said their revenues were down just slightly last year between 1% and 10%.

And there’s an even bigger “but”: A whopping 86% of marketers told Digiday in Q4 2024 that they expected their 2025 revenues to be higher than their 2024 revenues. So, despite many marketers saying their 2025 revenues increased over 2024, the year didn’t exactly live up to expectations.

It makes sense, then, that Digiday’s survey found that optimism among marketers has dimmed a bit since last year. Just under two-thirds of marketer pros (65%) said they think their 2026 revenues will be higher than their 2025 revenues (which is significantly less than the 86% mentioned earlier who said they’d expected 2025 revenues to increase over 2024). And 37% — the largest group in Digiday’s survey — said they expect revenues to rise only slightly this year, by 10% or less.

The good news is that 60% of marketers told Digiday in Q4 that they expect their marketing budgets to increase this year, while just 15% said they expect to be working with smaller budgets in 2026.

A little less than one-third (31%) said they expect a modest increase in their marketing budgets this year of between 1% and 10%. Meanwhile, 21% — still a significant percentage — said they think their marketing budgets will increase by 11% to 25% this year.

Digiday’s survey found that brand marketing will be a big focus for those increased budgets in 2026. Nearly three-quarters of marketer pros (73%) said in Q4 that their companies will increase their investments in brand marketing this year, compared with last year — making brand marketing the biggest area in which marketers will increase their investments in 2026.

Product development and innovation will be the second-biggest focus in terms of growing investments this year, with nearly two-thirds of marketers (63%) saying their companies will increase their investments in that area in 2026. Performance marketing followed, with 58% of marketers saying their companies will increase their investments in that area of their business this year.

Interestingly, less than half of marketers (46%) said their companies will increase their investments in influencer marketing this year. This is a significant drop from last year, when 57% of marketer pros told Digiday their investments in influencer marketing would increase.

To provide a bit more context, 13% of marketers said their companies’ investments in influencer marketing will decrease this year, compared with 9% who said the same of performance marketing and 6% who said the same of both brand marketing and product development and innovation.