It's Benchmark Season: What the 2025 Data Tells Us and How to Apply It in 2026
Every spring, the reports drop. The data rolls in. And most marketers skim the headlines, nod along, and go back to doing exactly what they were doing before.
That's a missed opportunity — because benchmark season is one of the most useful times of year to pressure-test your strategy, realign your priorities, and make the case internally for what needs to change.
Here's my take on what the 2025 data actually means — and the five reports every serious marketer should be reading.
What Benchmark Season Is (and Why It Matters)
Benchmark reports are annual studies that aggregate performance data across organizations, industries, and channels. They answer the question every marketing leader eventually gets asked: "Are our numbers good?"
Good compared to what? That's where benchmarks come in. They give you a baseline — not a ceiling.
The best ones don't just hand you averages. They give you context: what's trending, what's declining, where the outliers are, and what the high performers are doing differently. Used well, they're a strategic planning tool. Used poorly, they become a justification for the status quo.
What Happened in 2025: The Themes That Matter
1. Monthly giving is quietly becoming the most important metric in fundraising
The 2025 M+R Benchmarks Study — the gold standard for nonprofit digital marketing — found that recurring giving grew 5% while one-time donations stayed flat. Monthly giving now represents 31% of all online fundraising revenue.
If your donation forms, email flows, and campaign asks aren't actively prioritizing monthly conversion, you are leaving compounding revenue on the table every single year.
The 2026 application: Audit every touchpoint in your donor or customer journey. Is monthly giving the default or the afterthought? Test leading with recurring ask amounts before one-time options. The data is clear on where retention and lifetime value live.
2. More emails ≠ more revenue
Nonprofits sent more fundraising emails in 2024 and generated 20% less revenue per 1,000 messages sent than the prior year. Email programs are declining in raw efficiency — not because email is dead, but because volume without strategy is eroding trust and deliverability.
The 2026 application: The organizations winning in email are winning on segmentation, personalization beyond a first name, and subject line rigor. If you're not A/B testing every major campaign — at minimum — you're flying blind. M+R found that 80% of nonprofits used A/B testing for email and ad messaging in 2024. The ones pulling ahead are going further: pre-market testing messages before they launch.
3. Search ads still have the best ROI. TikTok ads do not.
For nonprofit advertisers, search delivered $2.23 in return for every dollar spent. TikTok returned $0.03. That is not a typo.
And yet organizations kept spending on TikTok — largely out of frustration with Meta rather than strategic intent. Ad spend overall grew 11% in 2024, with connected TV advertising jumping 84%.
The 2026 application: Don't abandon experimental channels, but know why you're there. TikTok can build awareness and audience; it cannot currently replace search or Meta for direct ROI. Channel decisions should be tied to objectives, not trend-chasing. If you can't articulate the goal, you shouldn't be spending the budget.
4. AI adoption is high. AI governance is not.
78% of nonprofits used generative AI in their marketing in 2024. Only 42% had any formal policy, procedure, or guideline in place.
That gap is a risk — reputational, operational, and strategic. Organizations using AI for productivity (56%) and content drafting (53%) without clear guardrails are one hallucination away from a public mistake.
The 2026 application: If you don't have an AI use policy yet, write one. It doesn't have to be lengthy. It does need to cover: what AI can be used for, what requires human review before publishing, and how you handle data privacy. This is basic governance that most organizations are skipping.
5. Website traffic is down. Engagement is up.
Nonprofit websites saw fewer visitors in 2024, but email list sizes and social followings grew. People aren't disappearing — they're engaging differently, and on their terms.
This is happening across sectors, not just nonprofits. AI-generated search results, zero-click searches, and platform-native content consumption mean fewer people are hitting your homepage from organic search.
The 2026 application: Your SEO strategy needs to evolve. Ranking #1 matters less than being the answer — in AI overviews, in email, in the communities where your audience already lives. This is a content and distribution problem, not just a technical SEO problem.
The 5 Benchmark Reports Every Marketer Should Read
These are the ones I return to every year. They cover different audiences and channels, but together they give you a full picture of what's happening across digital marketing.
1. M+R Benchmarks
Best for: Nonprofit marketers, fundraising teams, digital engagement strategists What it covers: Email, advertising, web traffic, social, mobile messaging, fundraising performance Why it matters: The most comprehensive nonprofit digital dataset available. 216 participants, real year-over-year comparisons, and honest analysis that doesn't sugarcoat what's declining. Where to find it: mrbenchmarks.com
2. HubSpot State of Marketing Report
Best for: B2B and B2C marketers across industries What it covers: Channel performance, AI adoption, content strategy, sales and marketing alignment, ROI reporting Why it matters: One of the broadest annual surveys of marketing professionals — useful for understanding where the industry is investing attention and budget. Where to find it: hubspot.com/marketing-statistics
3. Content Marketing Institute B2B Content Marketing Report
Best for: Content strategists, marketing directors, brand teams What it covers: Content formats, distribution channels, team structure, budget allocation, what's actually driving results Why it matters: Cuts through the noise on content strategy. Consistently useful for benchmarking content maturity and making the case for investment. Where to find it: contentmarketinginstitute.com
4. Sprout Social Index
Best for: Social media managers, brand strategists, digital marketers What it covers: Engagement benchmarks by platform and industry, publishing frequency, consumer behavior, what audiences actually want from brands Why it matters: Platform-specific data that helps you answer the "how often should we post?" question with evidence instead of guesswork. Where to find it: sproutsocial.com/insights/data
5. Mailchimp / Klaviyo Email Benchmarks
Best for: Email marketers, e-commerce brands, any organization using email as a channel What it covers: Open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates — broken down by industry Why it matters: Industry-specific email benchmarks are essential context. A 25% open rate in one vertical is excellent; in another, it's average. Know which bucket you're in. Where to find it: mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks (Mailchimp) or klaviyo.com/resources (Klaviyo)
How to Actually Use These Reports
Reading the report is the easy part. Here's the process I use with clients to turn benchmark data into action:
Step 1: Pull your own numbers first. Before you read any report, document your current performance across your key channels. Open rates, conversion rates, traffic by source, ad ROAS — whatever you're measuring. This prevents you from unconsciously anchoring to benchmark averages before you know where you stand.
Step 2: Compare honestly. Where are you above benchmark? Below? The goal isn't to feel good or bad — it's to identify where the gap is largest and whether closing it is worth prioritizing.
Step 3: Look at the outliers. The median tells you what's average. The 75th percentile tells you what's possible. Focus your attention on the gap between your performance and the top quartile — that's your growth opportunity.
Step 4: Translate to one or two priorities. Benchmark reports can produce a 20-item to-do list fast. Resist that impulse. Identify the one or two areas where improvement would have the most material impact on your goals, and build a 90-day plan around those.
Step 5: Set a review cadence. Benchmarks are annual snapshots. Your performance reviews should be quarterly at minimum. Build the habit of checking your numbers against these benchmarks regularly — not just when the new report drops.
Final Thought
The marketers who get the most out of benchmark season aren't the ones who read the most reports. They're the ones who read the right reports, compare them to their own data honestly, and make one or two sharp strategic decisions as a result.
The data is there. The question is whether you use it.
