What qualifies
Online ads (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, TikTok), print ads, billboards, sponsored content, podcast sponsorships, influencer partnerships, SEO services, branded swag, business cards, brochures, sponsorships of community events, search engine marketing, and mailing list services.
Goodwill advertising
Sponsoring a youth sports team, donating to a community organization, or buying an ad in a charity event program is deductible as advertising (not as a charitable contribution) when the primary motive is goodwill toward the business and you receive promotional value.
Website costs
Hosting, domain renewals, content production, and ongoing SEO are deductible as advertising or marketing. Initial website development costs that produce a long-lived asset may need to be capitalized — but ongoing maintenance and content updates are clearly current expenses.
Branded merchandise
T-shirts, mugs, pens, and other branded items distributed for promotional purposes are deductible. Branded items costing $4 or less are not subject to the $25 business gift limit. More expensive branded items given to customers may straddle the gift rules.
Where it goes
Schedule C line 8 ("Advertising"). Most marketing expenses fit cleanly here. Some prefer to break out major categories (online ads, print, sponsorships, content production) in Part V "Other expenses" with a labeled detail for management visibility.
Where this fits in the larger Schedule C picture
Schedule C has more than two dozen named expense lines plus an "Other expenses" catch-all. For most small businesses, four or five lines drive the bulk of the deduction total — vehicle, home office, depreciation, contract labor or wages, and supplies — and the remaining lines individually contribute small amounts that nevertheless add up. Treating each named line as a recurring decision rather than an afterthought, and revisiting the categories each January, often surfaces $2,000–$5,000 in additional legitimate deductions that a less disciplined process would have missed entirely.
Documentation that survives an exam
An IRS examination of this deduction will request three things: proof of payment (bank or card statement), proof of the underlying transaction (invoice or receipt), and proof of business purpose (a contemporaneous note or calendar entry). The first two are usually trivial to produce; the third is where most filers fall short. Capturing business purpose at the moment of the expense — a one-line note in your bookkeeping software or a category and memo on the receipt-capture app — converts a generic charge into a documented deduction that will withstand scrutiny three to six years later when memory has faded.