Marketing Consulting Services
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 47,000 marketing consulting services in the US provide advice and assistance on marketing related issues. Services include marketing strategy and market development consulting and implementation; sales management and development consulting and implementation; and strategic management consulting and implementation. Most marketing consulting firms are small, independent operators.
Variable Demand
Demand for marketing consulting services can vary depending on client needs.
Increasingly Complex Environment
Shifting demographics and the advent of digital technology have fundamentally changed the discipline of marketing and created a more complex and fragmented environment for clients and consultants.
Industry size & Structure
The average marketing consulting firm operates out of a single location, employs fewer than 5 workers, and generates about $914,000 annually.
- The marketing consulting services industry consists of about 47,000 firms that employ 326,000 workers and generate about $43 billion annually.
- The industry is fragmented; the top 50 companies account for about 24% of industry revenue.
- Large management consulting firms that provide marketing consulting services include Bain, Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey. ZS Associates is a management consulting firm that specializes in sales and marketing. Most marketing consulting firms are small, independent operators.
Industry Forecast
Marketing Consulting Services Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Nov 18, 2024 - Report Shows TV Advertising Drives Traffic to Brand Websites
- While TV viewership has become more fragmented, it is still a robust driver of traffic to advertiser websites, according to new research by the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB). The VAB study tracked 201 first-time advertisers between April 2020 and April 2024. First-time advertisers that spent $500,000 or less on TV advertising saw an 8% rise in website traffic the month their ad launched and saw an average monthly rise of 20% over the several months the brand remained on TV. Ad buyers who spent between $2 million and $5 million on ads experienced a 9% increase in web traffic in their ads’ debut month and an average monthly jump of 25% throughout the multi-month TV campaign. Advertisers who spent $10 million or more saw web traffic rise 36% in the launch month and a monthly average increase of 42% over the months the ad stayed on TV.
- Marketing leaders are wearing more hats than ever as they are tasked to do more with less, including AI implementation, according to a recent survey by McKinsey. While 87% of marketing leaders surveyed said brand building leads their agenda, they are increasingly taking on other responsibilities, including design (46% of respondents), sales and ecommerce (34%), product innovation (24%), and generative AI (22%). The leading marketer use cases for AI included creative efficiency (39% of respondents), scaling personalization (28%), media optimization (28%), marketing automation (22%), and improvements in customer experience such as search and chatbots (20%). However, McKinsey found that only 5% of marketers are expanding GenAI capabilities, and just 4% are scaling their GenAI use cases.
- Competitors are increasingly posing challenges to Google’s long-maintained dominance of the search advertising business, according to The Wall Street Journal. The short-video app TikTok recently began allowing brands to target ads based on users’ searches. The AI-search start-up Perplexity plans to introduce ads under its search results – the firm currently has a subscription-based revenue model, charging $20 per month for access to its more advanced AI technology. Amazon is also eating into Google’s share of search advertising as the ecommerce giant serves ads based on customer searches on its site. In 2025, Google is forecast to account for less than half of the US search ad market for the first time in more than a decade, according to eMarketer.
- Consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms are expected to tap the brakes on digital ad spending in 2025 after strong estimated spending growth in 2024, according to eMarketer. The CPG industry is expected to spend nearly $50 billion on digital ads in 2024, up 16.6% over 2023. However, digital ad spending by CPG firms is forecast to moderate to 6.1% growth in 2025 and 5.8% in 2026. Categories that hold the largest shares of CPG digital ad spending include toiletries and cosmetics (35% of CPG digital ad spending), food, and beverages. However, beverages are the fastest-growing CPG category for digital ad spending; nonalcoholic beverage digital ad spending is expected to rise 27.4% in 2024, followed by alcoholic drinks (22.1%), and toiletries and cosmetics (19.2%).
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