NR scored 721 Australian businesses by state. Western Australia averages 56.5 against 64.8 in New South Wales, but the gap is not geographic. WA's small and medium businesses match the country exactly. The whole 12 point deficit sits in an enterprise layer that is 78% resources companies.
The Take: Western Australian businesses score 8.3 points below New South Wales businesses in our benchmark data, and the obvious explanation is only half right. This is not a Perth problem. WA's small and medium businesses match the rest of the country almost exactly, and the whole gap sits in one layer of the state's economy.
That layer is resources. WA's mining and METS sector accounts for 39% of gross state product in 2024-25, according to the state government's own Invest and Trade WA figures. Eighteen of the 23 enterprise-scale WA companies we have scored dig things out of the ground. They sell to procurement teams in Asia who were never going to read a landing page.
How do Australian states compare on marketing performance?
Western Australia averages a Marketing Score of 56.5 across 44 scored businesses, against 64.8 in New South Wales and 64.4 in Victoria. The national average across 721 Australian businesses is 63.8.
South Australia carries only 12 scored businesses, so treat that row as directional. The ACT (5) and Tasmania (1) are too thin to rank and are left out. Western Australia's 44 is enough to see a shape, not enough to settle an argument.
Queensland is the quiet story in that table. At 62.9 it sits under Sydney and Melbourne but well clear of the west, and in a like-for-like comparison against NSW and Victorian businesses in the same industries, Queensland runs 2.9 points behind across 42 industries. Close enough that a Brisbane operator should ignore it.
Is the Western Australian gap just mining?
Mostly, and this is where the finding turns useful. Split WA by company size and the deficit collapses into a single band.
A medium-sized company in Perth lands within a tenth of a point of a medium-sized company anywhere else in the country. A small one lands within six tenths. There is no west coast penalty at those sizes. There is a 12 point hole at the top.
Eighteen of those 23 WA enterprise companies are miners or oil and gas producers. That sector averages 54.4 across Australia whatever state the head office is in, so this is a commodity pattern wearing a Perth postcode rather than a geographic one. WA miners average 54.1 against 57.8 for their Sydney and Melbourne equivalents, a real but small state effect sitting on top of a very large sector effect.
Western Australia's enterprise businesses score 12 points below enterprise businesses in the rest of Australia, while its small and medium businesses score the same
Take mining and oil and gas out of Western Australia entirely and the remaining 26 businesses average 58.2. Better, still 5.6 points under the national figure. So sector concentration explains most of this without explaining all of it. Something smaller is happening underneath, and with 26 businesses left after the cut we are not going to prove what it is from this data. We are flagging it rather than claiming it.
What should a business in Perth or Adelaide do with this?
Two things, and the first one is permission to stop worrying.
If you run a small or medium business in Western Australia, 56.5 is not your benchmark. It is a figure dragged down by iron ore. Your actual peers are the medium businesses on 62.2, which is the national number to a rounding error. Holding yourself against the state average will make you feel worse than the evidence supports, and it will point you at problems you do not have.
The second thing is real and it is worth acting on. Western Australia and South Australia both land on 50.9 for Data & Tracking against a national 58.5, the widest state-level gap of the six dimensions. Conversion Efficiency shows the same shape, with WA 9.0 points back. A company that cannot see which pages and enquiries turn into revenue will spend the same money as one that can and get less for it. That has nothing to do with what the state exports.
Methodology
Scoring runs across six weighted dimensions, combining machine-observed signals with structured research into each company's public marketing footprint, then benchmarking against others in the same industry. The figures here cover 721 Australian businesses marked "Done" across 70 industries, scored as at May 2026.
Three limitations. State reflects the registered head office rather than where a company trades, so a WA-headquartered national retailer counts as WA. New South Wales and Victoria make up 81% of the dataset, which mirrors where Australian head offices concentrate rather than any sampling choice. The samples outside the east coast are also small at 44 in WA, 12 in SA, 5 in the ACT and 1 in Tasmania. This finding is publishable because it survives both a company-size control and a sector control, not because 44 is a comfortable number. Full methodology at how we score.
Stated plainly: the interesting part is not that Western Australia ranks last. It is that last place belongs almost entirely to companies that have never needed marketing to win a customer, while the number gets read by thousands of WA businesses that do. Averages built on a lopsided economy mislead the people living inside them. Compare yourself to your industry and your size, never your postcode. Hub shows where a business sits against its own industry across all six dimensions.
Two related reads: why conversion gets worse the longer a sale takes, and which Australian industries actually own their brand positioning.
Frequently asked questions
Which Australian state has the best marketing performance?
New South Wales leads with an average Marketing Score of 64.8 across 348 scored businesses, narrowly ahead of Victoria on 64.4 across 234. Queensland follows at 62.9. South Australia and Western Australia sit lowest at 57.2 and 56.5, though the South Australian sample is only 12 businesses and should be read as directional.
Why do Western Australian businesses score lower on marketing?
Because of what sits at the top of the state's economy rather than because of the state itself. Eighteen of the 23 enterprise-scale WA companies in our dataset are resources businesses, and that sector averages 54.4 nationally regardless of location. WA's medium businesses score 62.2 against 62.1 for the rest of the country, and its small businesses 53.7 against 54.2. The deficit is 12 points confined to the enterprise layer.
Does a Perth business need to market differently to a Sydney business?
Not on this evidence. Once you control for company size, Western Australian businesses perform in line with the rest of Australia at every level except enterprise. That enterprise result is a resources-sector effect rather than a location one. The practical difference is measurement maturity, where the west trails the national average by roughly 7.6 points.
How is a state average calculated in this dataset?
Each business is assigned to the state of its registered head office, then state figures are the unweighted mean of every scored business in that state. Because head offices cluster in Sydney and Melbourne, the two east coast states carry 582 of the 721 businesses, so smaller state figures move more with each additional company scored.