Earned & PaidWayfair
Wayfair spent $1.43B on advertising and marketing in fiscal 2025, down 3.2% on the year before and +30% since 2019. That's 11.4% of revenue, less than in 2019: the business outgrew its marketing.
Marketing spend by year
Bars: advertising and marketing expense, $B (10-K). Line: spend as a share of revenue.
What they told investors
“we're evolving our marketing mix to mirror our U.S. strategy, moving beyond traditional channels to aggressively lean into platforms like TikTok, Connected TV and streaming audio.”Niraj Shah · 2026 Q1 · transcript
“advertising was 13.7%, which we expect will represent the high watermark for this line item.”Kate S. Gulliver · 2024 Q4 · transcript
“I think when we look back over the last few years, we'd probably say that we're probably a little slow to experiment and optimize for some of the more emerging channels.”Niraj S. Shah · 2024 Q4 · transcript
“And so that's why on the call we referenced that Q4 was a high water mark on this advertising spend because the paybacks can be as low as sort of 60 and 90 days, but they can also extend to longer.”Kate S. Gulliver · 2024 Q4 · transcript
“Early in 2024, we rolled out a significant brand refresh with our Wayborhood campaign, which brought fresh creative in top of funnel.”Niraj S. Shah · 2024 Q4 · transcript
“all our ad dollars are payback driven, spent against channels with specific expectations for ROI over a defined time frame.”Kate S. Gulliver · 2024 Q4 · transcript
What the 10-K says about marketing
- investing in brand “Superior customer service is a core part of the experience we offer shoppers. Our customer service organization has over 2,000 full-time employees who help consumers navigate our sites, answer questions and complete orders, and offers specialists focused on specific product…” 10-K, Feb 19, 2026
- cutting spend “ecrease our marketing spend within a period, based on the degree of our achievement of intended results, which may result in increased or decreased customer engagement in any given period. We cannot assure you that the net profit from new or returning customers we acquire will…” 10-K, Feb 19, 2026
- investing in brand “Our business model is designed to grow our net revenue by acquiring new customers as well as stimulating repeat purchases from our existing customers. Through increasing brand awareness as well as paid and unpaid advertising, we attract new and repeat customers to our family of…” 10-K, Feb 19, 2026
Say vs do
Wayfair's management has talked about its marketing budget, but in ways annual filings can't check: one quarter, one brand or channel, or the mix.
What they said
“advertising was 13.7%, which we expect will represent the high watermark for this line item.”
Kate S. Gulliver, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer on the 2024 Q4 earnings call, Feb 20, 2025 · transcript
Can't tell from annual filings It's about part of a year; filings report full years.
“Our industry-leading expertise, underpinned by our proprietary technology tools and decades of experience, enables us to have the agility to lean in where dollars are generating the highest ROI, while simultaneously pivoting from channels if their efficiency weaken.”
Kate S. Gulliver, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer on the 2024 Q4 earnings call, Feb 20, 2025 · transcript
Can't tell from annual filings It's about part of a year; filings report full years.
What they did
| Year | Marketing spend | Change | Share of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $1.43B | -3.2% | 11.4% |
| FY2024 | $1.47B | +5.4% | 12.4% |
| FY2023 | $1.40B | -5.2% | 11.6% |
| FY2022 | $1.47B | +6.9% | 12.1% |
| FY2021 | $1.38B | -2.4% | 10.1% |
| FY2020 | $1.41B | +28.8% | 10.0% |
Against its peers. Compared with the 3 other Marketplace advertisers we track (eBay, Etsy, Chewy): since 2019 its marketing spend went +30% (peer median +231%); its share of revenue moved -0.6 pts (median +0.7); last year -3.2% (median +2.6%).
How we check: a statement gets a verdict only when it's clearly about the size of the whole company's marketing budget over a full fiscal year; we compare it with the advertising and marketing expense in that year's 10-K. Statements about one quarter, one brand or channel, or the mix between brand and performance can't be checked against annual filings.
What they say about media
The marketing channels it talks about using for itself on earnings calls and in its 10-Ks and 10-Qs, since 2019; counts are statements, not spending.
- Creative campaigns “In Canada, we scaled our Creator program from 0 to more than 1,000 creators in the past year, generating tens of millions of views.” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Apr 30, 2026 · source
- CRM, loyalty & first-party data “But then if you think about the consumer tech investments we're making now we're post replatforming, what we're doing with the native apps.” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Apr 30, 2026 · source
- Influencers & creators · Sponsorships & athletes “Central to this approach is speaking to the consumer in a voice they recognize through local influencer and celebrity collaborations.” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Apr 30, 2026 · source
- Connected TV & streaming “As we have scaled our brand awareness to household name status in both Canada and the U.K., we're evolving our marketing mix to mirror our U.S. strategy, moving beyond traditional channels to aggressively lean into platforms like TikTok, Connected TV and streaming audio.” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Apr 30, 2026 · source
- Measurement “But I think what we've been able to do is run get back into a cadence of running a relatively high amount of tests that have let us really hone how we do a lot of the marketing attribution and make sure that the anywhere we're spending advertising costs, we get to really good…” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Feb 19, 2026 · source
What they see in the market
What its leaders and filings say about the ad market: its own ad business, or the channels advertisers use, since 2019; counts are statements, not spending.
- Retail media “So there's a little bit of these moving parts that are hard for someone to kind of get their arms around at the same time because, for example, if you then look at our supplier advertising is the retail media, that actually would grow gross margins because there's things that go…” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Aug 11, 2026 · source
- AI in marketing “We were an early partner with Meta, an early partner with Google, an early partner with Pinterest helped develop [ ad news ] with all of them, still do that and all the alphas and betas with those guys.” Niraj Shah on the earnings call · Apr 30, 2026 · source
- Programmatic & display “We first launched Media Services in the U.S. a few years ago, consisting predominantly of our on-site display ads.” Steve Conine on the earnings call · May 6, 2021 · source
In the news
- Wayfair ups investment in sports for values-focused brand platform Retail Dive · Sep 29, 2026 · sponsorship
- Wayfair Invests In Quarterback Matthew Stafford --- And The NFL MediaPost · Sep 29, 2026 · sponsorship
- Wayfair (W) Rolls Out Wayfair Delivers Brand Platform Yahoo Finance · Sep 27, 2026 · brand strategy