What Percentage of Revenue Should go to Marketing?

Every marketing agency will eventually quote you the same figure: spend 7–12% of revenue on marketing. Some narrow it to 8–10%. Some cite the U.S. Small Business Administration. Some attribute it to industry benchmarks without naming which industry or which benchmark. What almost none of them tell you is where that number comes from, why it was never designed for home service contractors specifically, and why following it blindly can lead a growing contractor to wildly underspend during the highest-opportunity period of their business