The digital marketing space continues to change rapidly. What’s effective now may not be as potent tomorrow. It’s important that practitioners from all walks of life stay up to date on the latest marketing statistics and trends.
To make sure you have the information you need to grow your business in the coming year, we’ve compiled these marketing statistics that define every sector of digital marketing. Whether you’re looking for SEO statistics, content marketing statistics, or social media statistics, you’ll find them here.
Check out these statistics on digital marketing to stay at the top of your industry!
B2B Marketing
What works for business-to-business digital marketing can differ for business-to-consumer.
- B2B buyers read a reported 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision. (Marketing Charts)
- 89% of B2B researchers gather information about potential purchases through the internet (Google)
- Of the average 13 pieces of content buyers reported consuming, an average of 8 came directly from the vendor, with the remaining 5 being from third-party sources. (Marketing Charts)
- B2B marketers are expected to personalize their content to more than one decision-maker, with almost two-thirds (63%) of teams being composed of at least 3 decision-makers. (Marketing Charts)
- Between February and March 2020, the number of B2B brands offering webinars grew by 36%, from 245 to 332. (Statista)
- During a 2019 survey conducted among B2B marketing professionals in the United States, it was found that 50% of respondents believed e-mail to be the most effective channel in producing a high return on investment. (Statista)
- 46% of marketers stated that they were planning to increase their B2B content marketing spending in the following 12 months, out of which 12% planned to increase it by more than 9%. (Statista)
- 41% of B2B businesses conduct their marketing activities in-house (Statista)
- Half of B2B marketing teams outsource at least one content marketing activity (CMI)
- The average MQL to SQL conversion rate is 13% (Implisit)
- 7 in 10 B2B buyers watch videos throughout their sales journey (Google)
- 4 in 5 B2B leads from social media come through LinkedIn (LinkedIn)
Marketing Automation
Automation has become one of the most important aspects of digital marketing and for good reason. It can help deliver better personalization and minimize low-value overhead. Here are the newest marketing automation stats to guide your decisions.
- Automation is the fourth most prioritized investment area for businesses. (Statista)
- 76% of marketers see a positive ROI within a year. (Marketo)
- Lead generation is considered the top goal of marketing automation. (Marketo)
- Three-quarters of all companies use marketing automation (Social Media Today)
- The marketing automation software market was estimated at USD 6.08 billion in 2019 and is expected to be USD 16.87 billion in 2025, registering at a CAGR of 19.2% through the forecast period (2020-2025). (Research and Markets)
- For automated cart abandonment emails, the conversion rate stood at 33.89% in 2020. (Statista)
- The top three marketing automation solutions chosen by global industry professionals as of July 2020 were Hubspot, Adobe Marketing Cloud, and Oracle Marketing Cloud, accounting for slightly more than 48.5% of the market. (Statista)
- 36% of marketers planned to explore automation and AI as a marketing and sales strategy in 2020. (SageFrog)
Content Marketing
Content plays a key role in the success of digital marketing. These content marketing statistics show what works now with content marketing.
- Generating quality leads is the main goal of 79% of marketers in 2021 (eMarketer)
- 46% of B2B marketers planned to increase their marketing spend in 2020 vs the previous year, 12% of those by more than 9%. (Statista)
- 96% of the most successful content marketers say that content marketing has helped them build credibility and trust with their audience (CMI)
- 95% of the B2B service and product buyers admit that they view content as a trustworthy marker when evaluating a business (Demand Gen Report)
- 87% of marketers believe that content marketing helped meet their brand awareness goals in 2020. (Statista)
- Design and visual content is the biggest challenge for 23.7% of content marketers. (HubSpot)
- User-generated content on Facebook affected up to 26.4% of purchase decisions vs 1.9% for Twitter in 2020 (eMarketer)
- Video is the #1 form of media used in content strategy, overtaking blogs and infographics. (HubSpot)
- In 2020, US adults spent 7 hours 50 minutes consuming digital media per day, up 15% (59 minutes) over the average daily time spent in 2019. (Marketing Charts)
- Most marketers measure success with content marketing through sales numbers. (Hubspot)
- 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (HubSpot)
- 75% of B2C marketers think their organization is successful with content marketing. (Marketing Profs)
Creative Marketing
From branding strategies to creative hiring and compliance, to new and fresh ideas for engaging your audience, here’s what to pay attention to.
- Most companies planned to add new hires to their creative marketing teams in the first half of 2020. (Creative Group)
- 55% of marketing agencies said their top goal is to increase creative output & project bandwidth. The second most common strategic goal for agencies is maintaining the current book of business during economic uncertainty, with 46% of agencies reporting that goal. (Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey).
- The COVID-19 crisis has largely created more work and communication for creative teams. Over 50% of surveyed marketing leaders said they were busier than ever following the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020. (Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey)
- 54% of marketing leaders said their biggest cause of delays in creative production is due to having a bigger volume of projects/requests than their team can handle. (Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey)
- 42% of marketing leaders said not getting feedback & comments from internal stakeholders in a timely fashion is the top cause of project delays. (Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey)
- 52% of marketing teams go through 3-5 versions of an asset before it is considered final. 20% of teams require 5-10 versions. (2020 Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey)
- 48% of marketing agencies said that change requests that come in after a project has been approved by another stakeholder is the biggest challenge in their client review process. (2020 Ziflow Creative Production Benchmark Survey)
- 78% of all creative work is subject to at least one type of compliance. (Ziflow, 2018)
- Spending on VR for business is expected to reach $9.2 billion by 2021, outpacing its use for leisure. (FinancesOnline)
- 56% of digital media professionals think programmatic advertising will be the most vulnerable to brand risk incidents in 2021. (eMarketer, 2020)
- Video projects have the longest average project review turn around time of any media type, taking about 65 days to complete. (internal ZIflow benchmark data analysis, May 2020)
- User-generated content on Facebook influences purchasing decisions for up to 25.3% of people.(eMarketer)
Video Marketing
With video becoming more and more popular, it’s important to pay attention to the right video marketing statistics to learn how to better use this content type to reach, inform, and nurture your audience.
- US adults spend 2 hours 13 minutes watching videos per day, up from 1 hour 46 minutes in 2019 (eMarketer)
- The most commonly-created types of videos are explainer videos (73%), social media videos (67%), presentation videos (51%), sales videos (41%), and video ads (41%). (Wyzowl)
- 70% of YouTube viewers watch videos for “help with a problem” they’re having in their hobby, studies, or job. (Think With Google)
- 87% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. (Wyzowl)
- In a 2018 HubSpot survey, 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support. (HubSpot)
- Live video is the third most-used social media marketing tactic. (HubSpot)
- 93% of marketers who use video say that it’s an important part of their marketing strategy. (Wyzowl)
- Video projects have the longest average project review turn around time of any media type, taking about 65 days to complete. (internal ZIflow benchmark data analysis)
- 94% of video marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. (Wyzowl)
- 72% of the most popular youtube video thumbnails examined featured a human face, and 88% were colorful (Best SEO Companies)
- Social engagement videos are among the top four video types that marketers invest in today. (HubSpot)
- Videos are among the most popular content types B2B brands collaborate with influencers on (67%). (Top Rank Marketing)
- As of April 2020, only 12.8% of branded video posts on Facebook were live videos. In comparison, 87.2% of the branded video posts were pre-recorded. (Statista)
- YouTube is the fourth most-used social media platform by marketers (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter came 1st to 3rd). (HubSpot)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When done right, search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategic investment that delivers passive compounding results – rankings, traffic, leads, and sales – for years to come. Here’s what you should know about SEO:
- 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (Sparktoro)
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)
- 39% of purchasers are influenced by a relevant search. (Think With Google)
- The #1 result in Google’s organic search results has an average CTR of 31.7%. (Backlinko)
- Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication. (Ahrefs)
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines. (HubSpot)
- 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google. (Ahrefs)
- 52.2% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. (Statista)
- 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. (Think With Google)
- About 45% of global shoppers buy online and then pick up in-store (Think With Google)
- If they had to choose only one tactic for link-building, 50% of SEO pros say they would pick content creation and outreach, and 23% say they would pick guest posts. (LinkDoctor.io)
- More than half of SEOs (55.2%) felt that they’re not ready for the upcoming Google Page Experience Update for 2021. (LinkDoctor.io)
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the highest ROI marketing channels. These email marketing statistics show how businesses are using email to drive results.
- 43% of marketers say personalization is the most important element to improve for effective email campaign optimization. (Ascend2)
- 87 percent of marketers use email marketing to disseminate their content (Content Marketing Institute).
- For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42 (DMA).
- 81% of SMBs still rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel, and 80% for retention (Emarsys).
- The average email open and click-through rates are 18.0% and 2.6% respectively. (Campaign Monitor)
- Mobile-friendly email is the second most-used tactic by email marketers to improve their performance. (HubSpot)
- 43% of marketers say design is the most important attribute to test prior to launching email campaigns, while 36% say it’s deliverability. (Ascend2)
- Over 20% of marketers say that email design improves their email engagement. (HubSpot)
- Roughly 80% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement over the past 12 months. (HubSpot)
- Marketers say the most effective automated series to use for email engagement are welcome/thank you messages and survey/feedback messages. (Ascend2)
- 81.2% of the US population will use email in 2024, an estimated 277.7 million. (eMarketer)
- Nearly 44% of US adults say email ads are ineffective. (eMarketer)
- Apple iPhone and Google Gmail are the two most popular clients for opening emails in 2020. (Litmus)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
While SEO involves getting more qualified organic traffic to your website, SEM involves paid search marketing tactics, such as Google and Bing Ads.
- Advertisers are expected to spend $99.22 billion on search in 2024 (eMarketer)
- Most of that spending will go to placements on mobile devices, with the share growing to about two-thirds by 2024. (eMarketer)
- In 2020, Google’s ad revenue amounted to 146.92 billion US dollars (Statista)
- Amazon’s advertising revenue was USD 12.75 billion in 2020. (Statista)
- Amazon is the third most popular advertising platform behind Facebook and Google. (eMarketer)
- The average Amazon PPC conversion rate is 9.47%. (AdBadger)
- 74% of brands say PPC is a huge driver for their business. (State of PPC 2019/2020)
- 64% of brands are planning to increase their PPC budget in the next 12 months. (State of PPC 2019/2020)
- PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors. (Unbounce)
- 62% of marketers stated they will increase their PPC budgets for the following year. (Hanapin)
- Google Ads’ Display Network reaches 90% of internet users via 2 million websites. (Google)
- 53% of paid clicks are made on mobile devices. (PowerTraffick)
Conversion Rate Optimization
Driving traffic is just the first step in the digital marketing equation. The next step is to get this traffic to take action. Here are some of our favorite conversion rate optimization stats this year.
- 3.32% of e-commerce website visits via tablet devices were converted into purchases in Q2 2020. (Statista)
- In March 2020, 88.05% of online shopping orders were abandoned. (Statista)
- Automotive had the highest cart abandonment rates out of all measured categories with a 96.88% abandonment rate. (Statista)
- 50% of shoppers will abandon carts because of high extra costs like shipping, tax, and fees. (JivoChat)
- The highest average conversion rate by traffic source is paid search (2.9%). (Smart Insights)
- The average conversion rate in Google Ads on mobile across all industries is 4.1% on the search network and 0.6% on the display network. (Wordstream, 2020)
- Automated welcome emails sent by e-commerce players had a conversion rate of 51.9% in 2020; (Statista)
- Automated cart abandonment emails had a conversion rate of 33.89% in 2020. (Statista)
- The average conversion rate for landing pages is 9.7% (Unbounce)
- Conversion rates drop by 4.42% for every extra second of page-load time (Portent)
- Companies spend just $1 on conversion rate optimization for every $92 spent on customer acquisition. (Source: Econsultancy)
- 55.%% of companies plan to increase their CRO budget. (CXL)
Social Media Marketing
Despite the fact that search engines deliver better leads, the role of social media cannot be ignored.
- Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide boasting roughly 2.8 billion monthly active users as of Q4 2020. (Statista)
- Facebook is the primary content distribution channel for marketers today. (HubSpot)
- Each person spends an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes on social networks and messaging. (GlobalWebIndex)
- In 2019, over 87% of video marketers on LinkedIn described the platform as an effective video marketing channel. (Wyzowl)
- 18% of marketers currently use Facebook Groups. (HubSpot)
- As of the fourth quarter of 2020, Pinterest had 459 million monthly active users worldwide. (Statista)
- Instagram is the social channel with the second-highest ROI among marketers. (HubSpot)
- When examining B2B advertising, social media advertising was used by 83% of marketers and ranked second in success (29%) behind search engine marketing (33%). (CMI)
- 57% of consumers will follow a brand to learn about new products or services while 47% will follow to stay up to date on company news.
- In 2020, 86% of B2B organizations outsourced content creation and 30% outsourced content distribution.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile traffic has now surpassed desktop, and it’s not going to slow down. These digital marketing stats show us what to expect with mobile marketing.
- 80% of the internet users own a smartphone. (McFadyen Digital)
- US adults spend an average of 3 hours, 23 minutes per day on mobile devices in 2018. (Statista)
- Ericsson Mobility Report predicting a 25% increase in mobile traffic by 2025. (Ericsson)
- Mobile devices are used for over 40% of online transactions.
- More than 60% of B2B buyers report that mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase. (JoshMDawson)
- 46% of people would not purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience. (LinkedIn)
- 50% smartphone users are more likely to expect to purchase something immediately while using their smartphone. (Think with Google)
- Google owns 96% of mobile search traffic.
- In a survey conducted in February 2020, responding marketers in the United States indicated that 13.5% of their marketing budget was devoted to mobile marketing. (Statista)
- In 2019, mobile advertising spending worldwide amounted to 189 billion U.S. dollars and it is expected to surpass 240 billion dollars by 2022. (Statista)
- Mobile banner advertising is projected to reach approximately 152.6 million U.S. dollars by 2025, up from roughly 63 million U.S. dollars registered in 2017. (Statista)
- If the mobile page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, 53% of people will leave it. (Search Metrics, Clever Tap)
eCommerce Marketing
If you have an online store or are planning on creating one, you’ll find these eCommerce marketing statistics useful for improving sales:
- Up to 70% of shoppers abandon online shopping carts. (Statista)
- 28% won’t buy when they are required to create an account to checkout. (Baymard)
- Most checkout flows contain around 15 form fields for users to fill out, as opposed to the ideal 7-8 fields. (Baymard)
- US click-and-collect eCommerce sales are expected to grow 60.4% to $58.52 billion (eMarketer)
- Amazon will account for 50% of all US eCommerce sales by 2021 (Statista)
- Search and navigation are the most important site elements for online shoppers (Statista)
- In 2019, e-retail sales accounted for 14.1% of all retail sales worldwide. This figure is expected to reach 22% in 2023. (Statista)
Wrapping Up
Since the digital marketing industry is always changing, you must keep up-to-date with the most recent research and trends.
If these help you, they’ll likely help someone else! Feel free to pass these along to a marketing team member who may need a little pick-me-up, or mention us on Twitter or Instagram with your favorite digital marketing statistic.