Marketing Industry Report 2025: Innovation Insights of the Year

The 2025 Marketing Industry Report highlights key shifts in the marketing landscape, driven by AI, analytics, and automation, with trends like personalized marketing, influencer partnerships, and AR, VR-powered immersive experiences. It emphasizes privacy-focused strategies amidst data privacy regulations and profiles innovators shaping omnichannel engagement. The report serves as a guide for stakeholders to navigate industry growth and innovation.

This report was last updated in January 2025.

Executive Summary: Marketing Industry Report 2025

• Industry Growth Overview: The marketing research and analysis services market size will grow from USD 84.37 billion in 2025 to USD 99.44 billion in 2029 at a compound annual growth rate of 4.2%. On a micro level, the marketing industry reports a 4.21% yearly growth rate as per the Discovery Platform’s latest data.
• Manpower & Employment Growth: The number of marketing professionals worldwide is 31.2 million, which saw a growth of an additional 1.7 million last year.
• Patents & Grants: 2690 applicants submitted over 10 230 patents. The yearly growth rate of patents is 1.01%. The USA and China have the highest patent activity. There are more than 6600+ in the industry, which highlights support for innovation and research.
• Global Footprint: The USA, UK, India, Australia, and Canada are the top country hubs in marketing innovation and activity. Further, London, New York City, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Sydney are among the top cities.
• Investment Environment: Over 105 000 finance rounds with an average investment value of USD 37.4 million were made in the marketing sector.
• Top Investors: Softbank Vision Fund, Tiger Global Management, Goldman Sachs, and more have collectively invested USD 38.1 billion.
• Startup Environment: Five startups such as Admind (AI-powered tool for tracking performance), TAGLAB (personalized web analytics and digital marketing tools), Bazsy (AI-powered tool for content marketing and link building), Easymailing (email marketing automation tool), and AudiencePlus (AI-powered audience marketing tool) demonstrate the global scope of the marketing industry.

Methodology: How We Created This Marketing Industry Report

This report is based on proprietary data from our AI-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, which tracks 25 million companies and 20 000 technologies and trends globally, including detailed insights on approximately 5 million startups, scaleups, and tech companies. Leveraging this extensive database, we provide actionable insights on emerging technologies and market trends.

For this report, we focused on the evolution of marketing over the past 5 years, utilizing our platform’s trend intelligence feature. Key data points analyzed include:

• Total Companies working on the trend
• News Coverage and Annual Growth
• Market Maturity and Patents
• Global Search Volume & Growth
• Funding Activity and Top Countries
• Subtrends within marketing

Our data is refreshed regularly, enabling trend comparisons for deeper insights into their relative impact and importance.

Additionally, we reviewed external resources to supplement our findings with broader market data and predictions, ensuring a reliable and comprehensive overview of the marketing industry.

What Data is Used to Create This Marketing Report?

Based on the data provided by our Discovery Platform, we observe that the marketing industry ranks among the top 5% in the following categories relative to all 20K topics in our database.

These categories provide a comprehensive overview of the industry’s key metrics and inform the short-term future direction of the industry.

• News Coverage and Publication: There were over 9400+ stories regarding the marketing industry in news sources and magazines.
• Funding Rounds: 105 000 funding rounds show a significant amount of investment activity in the industry.
• Manpower: Over 31.2 million people work in the marketing sector worldwide, and 1.7 million more joined in the past 12 months.
• Patents: There are more than 10 230 patents.
• Grants: The marketing industry received more than 6600+ grants.
• Yearly Global Search Growth: Over the previous year, there was a 6.40% increase in global search interest in marketing-related topics.

Explore the Data-driven Marketing Industry Report for 2025

As per The Business Research Company report, the marketing research and analysis services market size will grow from USD 84.37 billion in 2025 to USD 99.44 billion in 2029 at a compound annual growth rate of 4.2%.

According to the beehiiv’s marketing blog, by 2026, the global digital advertising and marketing market is forecasted to grow to USD 786.2 billion.

Another analysis suggests that the market is projected to exceed USD 730 billion in 2025, with further growth anticipated to surpass USD 800 billion by 2026.

The digital marketing sector is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.20% between 2025 and 2034, reaching around USD 1.44 trillion by 2034.

The Marketing Industry Report 2025 uses data from the Discovery Platform and encapsulates the key metrics that underline the sector’s dynamic growth and innovation.

The diversity of the marketing industry is reflected by 431 800+ enterprises and 28 259 startups in the database. The industry’s dynamic nature and growth potential are further showcased by its 4.21% growth last year.

Credit: The Business Research Company

With over 6600 grants given to businesses in the industry and over 10 230 registered patents, innovation is still a major motivator for the marketing industry.

Moreover, there are currently 31.2 million workers in this profession worldwide, and 1.7 million more were added in the last 12 months.

The countries are the USA, the UK, India, Australia, and Canada. London, New York City, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Sydney are the main hubs for industry operations and development at the city level.

A Snapshot of the Global Marketing Industry

The marketing industry records an annual growth rate of 4.21%. Out of 28 259 businesses, 13 000 businesses are early-stage startups, which indicates a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Moreover, approximately 16 960 mergers and acquisitions in the industry indicate significant consolidation.

More than 2600+ applicants filed 10 200+ patents, which demonstrates that innovation is still a major factor. The 1.01% annual patent growth rate further suggests that scientific breakthroughs are progressing steadily.

With 3559+ patents, the US leads the world in patent issuance, closely followed by China with 2420 patents.

Explore the Funding Landscape of the Marketing Industry

The average investment value of each funding round of USD 37.4 million in the industry. Broad support from a range of investment sources is further reflected by the 49K investors showing interest in the industry.

Due to the high level of investment activity, more than 105 000 funding rounds have been closed. Additionally, 29 000 businesses have received funding.

Who is Investing in the Marketing Industry?

The industry’s leading investors have made a substantial financial commitment to the sector, with a combined investment of about USD 38.1 billion.

• Softbank Vision Fund invested USD 7 billion in 62 businesses. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son announced the USD 500 billion Stargate AI initiative with Donald Trump, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison.
• Tiger Global Management invested USD 4.6 billion in 107 businesses. It also joined a secondary transaction for Rokt, raising its valuation to USD 3.5 billion.
• Goldman Sachs invested USD 4.6 billion in 84 companies.
• General Atlantic invested USD 4 billion in 44 enterprises. General Atlantic agreed to acquire UK-based Learning Technologies Group for approximately USD 995 million.
• HSBC spent USD 3.3 billion on 70 companies. HSBC partnered with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) to launch a USD 1 billion trade finance program.
• GIC spent USD 3.3 billion on 29 companies. GIC partnered with TPG Rise Climate to acquire Techem Group for approximately USD 7.3 billion.
• Sequoia Capital invested USD 3.2 billion in 161 companies. Sequoia Capital participated in a USD 6 billion Series B funding round for Elon Musk’s AI venture, xAI.
• Grab invested USD 2.8 billion in 6 businesses.
• KKR spent USD 2.7 billion on 34 companies. KKR formed a strategic partnership with BBVA, which committed USD 200 million to KKR’s global climate strategy.
• Abu Dhabi Investment Authority invested USD 2.6 billion in 8 companies. ADIA invested approximately USD 750 million in structured debt instruments of GMR Enterprises, the holding company of India’s GMR Group.

AI is becoming increasingly integral to marketing strategies, with reports predicting that AI could contribute USD 450 billion globally, with the beauty sector benefiting up to USD 10 billion.

Top Marketing Innovations & Trends

Explore the emerging trends within the marketing industry along with the firmographic data:

• CRM & Marketing Automation, which includes 1100+ businesses and, 41 500+ workers, is also a strong trend in the marketing industry. Additionally, 4300 new professionals joined the workforce last year. This trend shows an annual growth rate of 10.00%.
• Interactive Marketing includes 1146 enterprises and 34 500 people working in them. Last year, the industry saw 2700 new hires along with an annual growth rate of -1.04%.

Moreover, the global email user base is projected to grow by 2.5% annually, reaching approximately 4.73 billion users by 2025.

The content marketing industry is also expected to grow up to USD 107 billion by 2026, reflecting increasing investments in content strategies as businesses seek to engage consumers more effectively.

Further, by 2025, VR technology is expected to be more accessible and widely adopted in marketing, with projections indicating it could become a USD 435 billion industry by 2030.

5 Top Examples from 28K+ Innovative Marketing Startups

The five innovative startups showcased below are picked based on data including the trend they operate within and their relevance, founding year, funding status, and more. Book a demo to find promising startups, emerging trends, or industry data specific to your company’s needs and objectives.

Admind builds an AI-powered Marketing Platform

Italian startup Admind builds an AI-powered platform to optimize marketing strategy. It includes integrated tools for planning, creating, and automated publishing.

The platform also allows the automatic generation of and posting of content over multiple social media platforms. Further, the platform allows real-time performance tracking, which ensures consistency for businesses and increases reach.

Admind platform utilizes ChatGPT 4o and DALLE 3 to ensure an autonomous and effective social media presence.

Additionally, the platform comes with customized keywords, which optimizes the SEO strategy.

TAGLAB provides a Digital Marketing and Web Analytics Tool

Lebanese startup TAGLAB offers customized web analytics solutions that increase the digital performance of businesses.

The Tag Audit Tools provide tags and data layer inspection, whereas UTMs Creator provides UTM parameters.

The company also offers a metric calculator for simplifying marketing formulas and calculations. The marketing and analytics solution ensures data accuracy and compliance along with optimizing decision-making insights.

It includes web analytics for user behavior insights and website performance along with a conversion rate optimizer, search engine optimizer, and a suite for curating UI and UX.

It also contains revenue ops for simplifying revenue generation, dev ops for integrating development and operations, and ad ops for optimizing digital advertising.

The analytics dashboard further enables actionable insights and well-informed decisions with simple visualization of data.

Bazsy provides a Link-building and Content Marketing Platform

Taiwan-based startup Bazsy provides a link-building and content marketing platform that assists companies in improving their SEO ranking.

The full-service link-building platform eliminates manual outreach. It supports companies in reaching a wider audience and improving authority with AI-recommended guest blogging on high-domain authority websites.

With AI-powered intelligent recommendation, the platform analyzes the user’s site and provides suggestions to build a strong link profile.

Easymailing offers Email Marketing and Automation

Spanish startup Easymailing builds an email marketing platform for analyzing email marketing and automation campaigns.

The platform includes responsive drag-and-drop template editors along with a contact manager for organizing contacts by segments and groups. Marketers also schedule the emails to their subscribers and receive notifications after the delivery.

Additionally, marketers analyze the metrics of email marketing by comparing clicks, opening rates, bounces, and unsubscriptions.

The startup’s automated marketing tool creates email lists by analyzing subscriber’s behavior and data.

Marketers further add conditions to the marketing automation for defining mail sequence by segmentation and personalization.

The tool also monitors subscriber behavior and provides reports for improving marketing strategy.

AudiencePlus builds an AI-led Audience Marketing Software

US-based AudiencePlus builds an audience marketing platform, which allows companies to build their own AI-powered content distribution channel.

It also enables marketing teams to launch their own media channel, understand their audience, and utilize first-party intent signals to convert potential buyers.

The platform also acts as a single platform for written, audio, video, and downloadable content. It additionally provides granular controls for search engine optimization.

Moreover, the platform provides performance analytics, audience analytics, generative metadata, a copilot for assistance, and a detailed subscriber profile.

Gain Comprehensive Insights into Marketing Trends, Startups, or Technologies

The 2025 marketing industry report highlights the industry’s notable expansion and change. Emerging future trends like sustainable marketing, more personalized and omnichannel approaches, social media evolution, and immersive technologies like AR and VR further support the expansion.

Get in touch to explore all 28K+ startups and scaleups, as well as all industry trends impacting marketing companies.