By Sammy Fiorino
The 2026 marketing budget survey sponsored by ABA included 121 respondents across institutions with assets ranging from less than $150 million to $10 billion or more. The results show higher median marketing budgets across seven of the eight asset tiers, continued concentration of spending on growth objectives and increased reporting of marketing staffing levels.
Median marketing budgets by asset tier
Year-over-year data show that changes in marketing investment vary by institution size. Median marketing budgets increased from 2025 to 2026 across every asset tier except institutions with less than $150 million in assets, where the median budget declined 30.5% from $47,500 to $33,000. The largest increases occurred among institutions with more than $3 billion in assets.
Budget allocation by objective
The survey asked respondents to identify the share of their 2026 marketing budgets allocated to five primary business objectives. Deposit growth received the largest average allocation, followed by new customer acquisition and loan growth.
Growth objectives account for most reported marketing spending. On average, respondents allocated 30 percent of their budgets to growing deposits, 23 percent to attracting new customers and 20 percent to growing loans. Deepening existing relationships accounted for 14 percent of the average budget, while retaining existing customers accounted for 12 percent.
Together, deposit growth, new customer acquisition and loan growth represent 73 percent of the average 2026 marketing budget. Relationship deepening and customer retention account for the remaining 26 percent. Component figures are rounded and do not sum to exactly 100 percent. While the percentage of budget dedicated to acquiring new relationships is higher than that of existing relationships, existing relationship deepening and cross-sell programs are also far more efficient, so these results are not necessarily surprising.
Return by marketing channel
Respondents also rated the return they are seeing from individual marketing channels on a five-point scale. Digital channels remain at the top of the rankings, as in recent years. Digital channels remain easier to track and monitor the results of in real-time, and marketers have gravitated toward them for ease of reporting and measurement. In 2026, digital advertising received the highest average return rating (3.78), followed by search engine marketing and optimization (3.62), email (3.40), and social media (3.37).
The relative ranking of the highest-performing channels has remained generally consistent over the three years shown. Digital advertising and search engine marketing and optimization ranked at or near the top in 2024, 2025, and 2026. Email improved from 3.17 in 2024 to 3.40 in 2026, while social media declined modestly from 3.53 to 3.37. Among the lower-rated channels in 2026 were directories at 1.52, statement enclosures at 1.63, influencer marketing at 1.70, magazines at 1.78, and newspapers at 1.80.
Planned increase in marketing spending
Digital advertising is also the channel most frequently identified for additional spending. In 2026, 85.0 percent of respondents said they expect to increase their digital advertising budget next year. This compares with 82.1 percent in 2025 and 68.1 percent in 2024. Search engine marketing and optimization was the second most frequently selected area for increased spending in 2026 at 55.8 percent, followed by social media at 45.1 percent and content marketing at 38.1 percent. Direct mail was selected by 23.0 percent of respondents and email by 29.2 percent. All other channels shown were selected by fewer than 11 percent of respondents.
The three-year results show a continued concentration of planned increases in digital channels. Digital advertising rose from 68.1 percent of respondents in 2024 to 85.0 percent in 2026. More than half of respondents selected search engine marketing and optimization in each of the three years.
Marketing staffing levels
The survey also asked respondents to report the number of full-time marketers employed at their institutions. Marketing staffing generally increases with institution size, but the differences are relatively modest among institutions with less than $1 billion in assets. The more significant change occurs among larger institutions, where marketing teams expand considerably as organizational scale and marketing needs increase. This suggests that growth in marketing staffing is not necessarily linear with asset size but becomes more pronounced as institutions reach greater levels of scale.
2026 survey summary
The 2026 results show increases in both marketing budgets and staffing for much of the industry represented in the survey. Median budgets increased in seven of eight asset tiers, with the largest percentage increases among institutions with $3 billion or more in assets. At the same time, respondents continue to direct most marketing spending toward deposit growth, customer acquisition and loan growth. Digital advertising, search engine marketing and optimization, email and social media remain the highest-rated channels for return. And digital advertising is the most common area identified for additional spending.
Sammy Fiorino is marketing consultant and project manager at Capital Performance Group.
