Why Cutting Brand Is Costing You More Than You Think with Omar Akhtar of Benchmarker

Tech Marketing Rewired

I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Want to know the real secret behind high-growth SaaS companies? It's not what most marketers think.
When Omar Akhtar, founder of Benchmarker, surveyed 250+ B2B SaaS companies about their marketing spending patterns, he discovered something counterintuitive: the highest-performing companies split their marketing budgets almost equally between brand and demand generation activities (48% brand, 52% demand). Meanwhile, underperforming organizations were dramatically overinvesting in demand gen (65-70%) while neglecting brand (30-35%).
This revelation challenges the prevailing wisdom in tech marketing, where demand generation frequently dominates budget conversations and brand activities are often seen as "nice to have" luxuries. As Omar explains in our conversation, "Brand is the foundation upon which demand generation succeeds... it might be difficult to measure what it's doing when it's there, but look at what happens when it's not there."
Our discussion dives deep into how company size, funding structure (VC vs PE), and target market (enterprise vs SMB) affect marketing budget allocation. We explore why private-equity-backed companies tend to slash brand spending first, how enterprise-selling organizations allocate resources differently, and the surprising volatility of product-led growth models compared to sales-led approaches.
Perhaps most provocatively, Omar suggests that marketing attribution systems—the dashboards and software many CMOs rely on to justify their existence—might be among the least valuable tools in the marketing arsenal. Instead, focusing on straightforward activity metrics and competitive benchmarks could provide more actionable intelligence with less overhead.
Whether you're a tech CMO trying to justify brand investments to your CFO, a startup founder balancing growth priorities, or a marketer wondering if your budget allocations are aligned with market leaders, this conversation will fundamentally change how you think about marketing investment strategies.
Follow Omar on LinkedIn to contribute questions to his upcoming research on channel performance metrics, or visit benchmarkerdata.com to explore his latest research.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at [email protected]

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

📰 Subscribe to Kevin's Substack at: Subscribe to Kevin's Substack at: https://kevinkerner.substack.com/
📰 Want more tech marketing insights? Subscribe to the Drag & Drop newsletter for fresh thinking, real talk, and tools that make your job easier.

www.mightyandtrue.com

Chapters

1. Introduction to Omar Akhtar & Benchmarker (00:00:00)

2. Brand vs Demand: High Growth Research (00:02:37)

3. Defining Brand & Demand Activities (00:08:38)

4. Company Size Impact on Brand Investment (00:12:34)

5. PE vs VC Funding Effect on Marketing (00:15:24)

6. Enterprise vs SMB Marketing Differences (00:22:16)

7. Product-Led vs Sales-Led Growth Models (00:24:24)

8. Marketing Attribution: What Actually Matters (00:27:27)