Marketing investment in B2B tech - Southeast Asia must do better

In enterprise B2B technology, marketing is always under pressure. Higher targets, stagnant budgets, and expectations of immediate pipeline and revenue.

For CEOs, managing directors and CMOs across Southeast Asia, the question is less how much to spend (more is always nice), but how to allocate that investment for sustained growth.

Across software, SaaS, hardware and industrial automation, mature organisations follow a broadly consistent funding model. The difference is not in whether they invest in brand or demand - but how deliberately they balance both.

The baseline: investment levels and structure

Globally, mature B2B companies typically allocate 8–12% of revenue to marketing, rising to 10–20% in high-growth segments. That budget is typically structured across four areas:

1. Brand and reputation (PR, thought leadership, executive visibility)
2. Demand generation (paid media, ABM, performance campaigns)
3. Content and owned channels (SEO, reports, website, email)
4. Sales enablement and field marketing (events, partners, customer marketing)

This structure is consistent across markets. What differs is the weighting.

Global best practice: balanced investment

Leading global B2B technology companies demonstrate a more balanced allocation between long-term brand and short-term demand.

Companies such as Salesforce and HubSpot have built growth engines that combine performance marketing with sustained investment in content, ecosystem and thought leadership. Their owned media strategies - reports, benchmarks and communities - ensure they are known and trusted before buyers enter the market.

Enterprise leaders such as IBM and Siemens take this further. Their investment in research, executive visibility and industry narratives positions them as authorities, not just vendors. This is particularly critical in complex, high-risk buying environments.

Even product-led organisations like Adobe use brand to support premium positioning and long-term demand creation, not just acquisition.

Across these companies, a consistent model emerges:

• 40–50% demand generation
• 30–40% brand and content
• 10–20% events and ecosystem
• 5–10% experimentation

Brand is a commercial lever, not a discretionary cost.

Southeast Asia: demand-heavy, but evolving

In Southeast Asia, the approach is more heavily weighted toward demand generation.

Many B2B technology companies - particularly in Singapore - allocate 50–70% of marketing budgets toward paid media, lead generation and short-term pipeline activity. LinkedIn and search dominate, supported by events and partner marketing.

This could reflect immediate revenue pressure and a strong emphasis on measurable ROI. But it could also reflect an immature marketing approach; paid is easy, brand is more complicated. It also creates structural risk: companies become efficient at capturing demand, but less effective at creating it.

Some Asia companies more closely follow global best practice.

In SaaS, companies like Freshworks - which serves customers globally with CRM and IT service platforms - have invested significantly in brand, media and category positioning to compete beyond product features. Its evolution from a regional player to a Nasdaq-listed global company reflects not just product strength, but visibility and narrative.

In Southeast Asia, a growing ecosystem of B2B SaaS and enterprise companies - from firms like Airwallex to infrastructure and data platforms - are scaling rapidly as the regional SaaS market expands, driven by enterprise demand and digital transformation.

These companies are increasingly investing in content, PR and thought leadership alongside performance marketing to build credibility across fragmented markets.

Differences across B2B tech sectors

While the core model holds, allocation varies by category.

SaaS and software companies tend to prioritise demand generation, often exceeding 60% of spend. This reflects shorter sales cycles and digital acquisition models. However, leading SaaS firms are increasing investment in brand and thought leadership to support differentiation and pricing power.

Hardware and infrastructure providers place greater emphasis on brand, relationships and field marketing. Longer sales cycles and higher deal values mean trust and credibility are critical. Investment in PR, events and partner ecosystems is typically higher.

Industrial and automation companies sit between the two. Firms operating in areas such as AI, engineering and offshore development - like Saigon Technology - rely on both technical credibility and market visibility. Their investment often leans toward case studies, technical content and industry recognition to reduce perceived risk.

In all cases, the requirement is the same: buyers must understand the value and trust the provider.

What needs to change

For many B2B technology companies in Southeast Asia, the issue is not always budget size, but allocation.

Too much investment is directed toward short-term demand capture, and not enough toward long-term market positioning.

The most effective organisations are rebalancing:

• Maintaining strong demand generation engines
• Increasing investment in brand, content and visibility
• Building credibility before buyers enter the market

Marketing investment is ultimately a strategic decision. It determines how a company is perceived, how it competes and how efficiently it grows.

The companies that get this right are not just generating pipeline. They are shaping demand, strengthening their market position and building long-term advantage.