by Ruchi Gupta / February 19, 2024 / growth & marketing tips
If you’re seeking up-to-date insights on the digital marketing landscape, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we will explore the latest digital marketing statistics, the ins and outs of Email marketing, PPC, SEO, E-commerce, influencer marketing, and more. Expect to find a comprehensive overview of facts, figures, and trends that matter.
So, let’s get started and dive into what makes digital marketing tick today.
Key Findings
- Digital marketing to grow by 13.1% CAGR, hitting $670 billion by 2028.
- Short-form videos lead ROI at 10%, influencer marketing at 7%, social media DMs at 6%.
- 92.9% of marketers use social media for brand awareness.
- Email marketing yields $36 ROI per $1 spent.
- 70% of B2C businesses implement a content marketing strategy.
- 53% prioritize keyword ranking for SEO success.
- 5% of marketing budgets allocated to influencer campaigns.
- Podcasts achieve a 7% average ROI.
General Digital Marketing Statistics 🌐
How big is the digital marketing industry?
The global digital marketing market reached $318 billion in 2021, a 14% growth from the previous year. Things are not the same for the traditional marketing industry – although it registered some growth in 2021 (6%) to $239 billion, it is generally trending downward[1].
What is the growth rate of digital marketing?
The digital marketing market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.1% between 2024 and 2032, which places the size in 2028 at over $670 billion[2]. This expansion rate is more than twice what the traditional marketing market is expected to manage between 2022 and 2030 (5.52%)[3]. If the prediction holds, the digital advertising industry will be twice as valuable as the traditional market and is expected to reach approximately $1.099 trillion by 2032.
What percentage of the marketing budget do companies spend on digital marketing?
Digital marketing gobbles up the largest share – 53.8% of the overall marketing budget for companies in the US[4].
How much do businesses spend on digital marketing?
Businesses spent 8.2% of their annual budget on digital marketing campaigns as of March 2023. This value is a massive change (a 45% drop) from September 2022, when at least 15% of the companies’ budget was dedicated to digital marketing. If this is worrying, you’d be gobsmacked to learn that at least 20.2% of the company budget went to digital marketing campaigns as of February 2022[4].
What is the ROI of digital marketing?
We may not know the average ROI of digital marketing, but we know that short-form video content (Facebook reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, etc.) has the highest ROI (10%). Influencer marketing generates the second-highest ROI (7%), and social media DMs (direct messages) come in third (6%)[5].
What digital marketing strategies are marketers leveraging?
Most marketers (33%) think short-form video content is the most effective strategy on which to build marketing campaigns. There are no surprises here, seeing that this approach also yields the highest ROI[6].
Another considerable chunk (32%) believes mobile-friendly website design is the holy grail for optimum engagement, whereas 30% favor creating content that reflects their brands’ values.
How many digital channels do marketers utilize?
A typical marketer implements an omnichannel digital marketing strategy whereby 81% leverage at least three digital channels. Most marketers (34%) are comfortable with three marketing channels, and only a tiny minority use one (8%) or five (10%)[7].
What are the most common metrics that digital marketers use to measure effectiveness?
Sales/revenues are the most used metric (69.9%) to evaluate the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign. Other most-used metrics include digital/web/mobile performance (55.6%), content engagement (43.4%), lead generation (40.3%), and lead conversion (36.9%)[4].
Social Media Marketing Statistics 📱
What percentage of companies’ marketing budget goes to social media spending?
Businesses spent 17% of their marketing budget on social media as of March 2023. The spending is a significant rise from 14.5% in September 2022. In fact, marketers anticipate that spending will rise sharply to 20.3% in the next 12 months and 26.4% in the next five years[4].
How important is social media to marketers?
Asked what is their organization’s primary approach to marketing, nearly 70% of marketers pointed to social media. The closest competitor was SEO (40%)[8].
Regarding social media as a digital marketing channel, 82% of marketers said they rely on it as the primary advertising channel. 80% said the primary channel was websites[8].
Why is social media a critical part of digital marketing?
Nearly 60% of the world’s population (5.04 billion) use social media. As such, there is no better medium for marketers to reach as many eyes and ears as possible[9].
What tactics are marketers using in social media marketing campaigns?
62% of marketers report using social listening in their social media marketing campaigns. Social listening refers to when brands monitor and analyze what is being said about their brands, products, etc., on specific social media platforms.
If they’re not social listening, marketers use hashtags (48%) to drive engagement. The other common tactics businesses deploy are posting live videos (46%) and using augmented reality (19%).
How exactly do marketers use these social media platforms?
A typical digital marketer uses social media for brand building and brand awareness. Interestingly, the share of marketers that agree with this claim has grown from 88.2% in 2019 to 92.9% in 2023.
If not this, marketers often use social media platforms to promote brands through contests and coupons or acquire new customers[4].
What are the most popular social media platforms for digital marketing campaigns?
Most marketers (64%) prefer Facebook as the primary platform for social media marketing. The key reason for Facebook’s popularity lies in its high ROI, which is 22%. Other sites with a substantial ROI are YouTube (16%), Instagram (16%), TikTok (16%), and LinkedIn (7%)[5].
Despite YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok having an identical ROI, most marketers (58%) prefer Instagram over the other two – YouTube (57%) and TikTok (42%).
If we go back a few months to 2021, one observes that Pinterest has fallen off a cliff regarding preference by marketers. In 2021, about 22% of marketers favored Pinterest as a social media marketing channel. Fast forward to 2023, and the platform is not among the most popular sites, having been replaced by TikTok[8].
What economic sector spends the most on social media marketing?
Business-to-customer (B2C) companies spend the most on social media marketing (22.2%). This figure is expected to rise to 24.7% next year and 29.1% in the next five years.
On the opposite side are business-to-business (B2B) companies, whose social media spending is 14.2% of the total marketing budget, which could increase to 17.0% in the next year, and 23.5% in the next half-decade[4].
Email Marketing Statistics 📧
Email marketing ROI
With brands earning $36 on average for every $1 spent, email marketing is one of the most profitable investments a marketer can make[10].
How many people read emails?
Marketers must create high-quality, engaging emails to reach the channel’s full potential. Only 29.4% of email subscribers read emails (or spend at least eight seconds engaging with the email content). The rest either skim (41.1%) or merely glance (29.5%) at the content and proceed to other businesses[11].
How many emails are sent and received daily?
The number of emails sent and received per day (daily traffic) worldwide reached 347.3 billion in 2023, a 4.3% growth from the previous year. While email technology is a little dated in the digital universe, the worldwide daily email traffic is expected to maintain a constant growth rate of above 4% up to 2026, with the daily email traffic expected to reach 392.5 billion in the same year[12].
How has the read rate of emails changed over time?
But even as email marketing presents an unmatched investment in connecting with customers, the read rate for emails is falling off a cliff. In 2018, subscribers spent an average of 13.4 seconds with a brand’s message. The rate is down to 9.0 seconds in 2022[11].
What is the most popular email client?
Most brands use Apple Mail (51.04%) as their default email client, ahead of Gmail (28.48%) and Outlook (4.24%)[11].
What are the most effective tactics for email marketing?
Message personalization is the most leveraged tactic (27%) to extract the full potential of email marketing. Some brands prefer mobile-friendly emails (24%), whereas others pursue the subscriber segmentation (20%) approach to drive engagement[8].
Which tools do brands use to send emails to subscribers?
The most used tool for sending emails is MailChimp. Constant Contact, Salesforce, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), and GetResponse are the other tools in the top five rankings[8].
How many emails are opened on average?
13.1 billion email opens were recorded in 2021. That makes it an average of 1.01 billion monthly opens. However, the opens declined by one billion (to 12.1 billion) in 2022[11].
What is the best time of day for brands to send emails?
The most popular email open time is 10 am across most European countries and Canada. Americans and Australians prefer to do it an hour later (11 am)[11].
But if you want your emails to languish in subscribers’ inboxes, try sending them at 3 am in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, or 4 am in Australia, Spain, and Canada.
What about the best month for subscriber engagement?
Subscribers engage more with emails during the holiday months of November and December. Conversely, subscribers are not ready to engage with email messages in the year’s opening months, although it worsens in May[11].
The best day of the week for positive engagement with email messages
Tuesday is the best day for sending marketing emails. However, you’d get the least engagement if you sent the same message on Friday or Saturday[13].
Will email disappear as a digital marketing channel?
Email as a digital marketing channel is here to stay – 77% of marketers report more engagement with email messages[8].
In fact, only 9.6% of small businesses plan to decrease spending on email as a critical marketing channel, and 57.2% plan to bump up the budget allocation to email marketing[14].
Discover more email marketing statistics. Or view the latest marketing automation data and trends.
Content Marketing Statistics 📈
What objectives guide content marketing strategies?
The primary goal for business-to-customer (B2C) marketers who leverage content marketing strategy is engagement and growing new audiences[15].
For business-to-business (B2B) companies, the top three goals when leveraging a content marketing strategy are boosting sales/converting customers, building relationships with new customers, and increasing brand awareness[16].
B2C Content Marketing Statistics
How many B2C businesses have a content marketing strategy?
70% of B2C businesses have a content marketing strategy[17].
What factors contribute to the success of a B2C content marketing strategy?
The top three factors contributing to B2C content marketing success are: the value the content provides, website changes, and adapting to changes brought forth by the pandemic[17].
What is the most popular content type that B2C marketers use?
Most B2C marketers use short articles/posts (83%) in their content marketing strategy. Most of the pieces are 3000 words or less.
The second most popular content type is video (61%)[17].
But which content type has the best ROI?
60% of B2C marketers say short articles (fewer than 3,000 words) produced the best results in 2022. This was followed by videos (53%) and virtual events/webinars (51%)—no wonder these content types are among the top five most popular among marketers[17].
What metrics do B2C marketers use to measure the performance of their content?
67% of B2C marketers rely on website engagement to provide the most insight into content performance. Other primary metrics include conversions (65%), email engagement (63%), website traffic (62%), and social media analytics (58%)[17].
What are the most commonly used channels and platforms for distributing B2C content?
More than 89% of B2C marketers use their organization’s website to distribute content. The second most used content distribution channel is blogging (68%), followed by email newsletters (67%)[17].
When they are not using owned media to distribute content, B2C marketers use other paid or non-paid platforms to get their content to their audience. Of the B2C marketers who used non-paid social media platforms, most use Facebook (88%), LinkedIn (78%), and Instagram (74%) to distribute content. The primary reason for these social media platforms shining is because their ROI was the highest, with Facebook (63%) leading, followed by LinkedIn (53%) and Instagram (39%).
What percentage of the total marketing budget is allocated to B2C content marketing?
Most brands (27%) dedicate 10%-24% of the total marketing budget to B2C content marketing. Only 4% have the entire marketing budget spent on this market strategy, whereas 3% spend nothing[17].
B2B Content Marketing Statistics
What content type do B2B content marketers leverage the most?
Most (89%) B2B marketers use short articles or posts with 1,500 words or less in their content marketing strategies. Other marketers (75%) prefer videos of any length or format, and others (67%) leverage case studies more[18].
What channels do B2B marketers prefer for content distribution?
Nine in ten B2B marketers use their organization’s website to distribute content, while 78% leverage blogging platforms. 69% deliver newsletters to their email subscribers[18].
Interestingly, fewer marketers (67%) used paid content distribution channels in 2023 than in the previous year (81%).
Also, Facebook (56%) is no longer the most popular paid social media platform for content distribution – it was surpassed by LinkedIn (78%).
What content type has the best ROI in B2B marketing?
But when talking about returns, most B2B marketers (48%) say face-to-face delivery of content (in-person events) produces the best results. 47% said virtual events (webinars and online courses) have the best ROI, whereas 46% trust the ROI of research reports more. However, print magazines or books produce the worst ROI[18].
What technologies do B2B marketers use to manage content?
Most (84%) B2B marketers use analytics tools (such as dashboards and web analytics) to manage content. Notably, social media analytics/publishing use decreased from 80% in 2022 to 71% in 2023. The same is true about email marketing software use, which is 68% in 2023, unlike 75% the previous year[18].
How many organizations translate their B2B content?
66% of brands translate their content into different languages, and 46% use in-house teams (regional offices) to accomplish the goal[18].
In addition to translation, 73% of organizations localize their content, and similarly, most (82%) use in-house teams to approach the localization.
Do brands measure the performance of their B2B content?
Most (81%) organizations track content performance in 2023, unlike 75% in 2022[18].
While at it, the most commonly used metrics to measure content performance are web traffic (86%), email engagement (83%), and website engagement (83%).
What percentage of the marketing budget is committed to B2B content marketing?
46% of brands dedicate 10-49% of the total marketing budget to B2B content marketing. Only 2% created a marketing budget entirely committed to B2B content marketing, whereas 4% of brands did not have a content marketing budget[18].
What are the biggest challenges that B2B marketers face when implementing a content marketing strategy?
Most (61%) organizations admit that creating content that appeals to different stages of the buyer’s journey is the toughest nut to crack. They also find it challenging to align content efforts across sales and marketing (50%), and the third challenge is developing consistency with measurement (43%)[18].
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Statistics 🎯
How many marketers invest in SEO?
69% of marketers invested in SEO in 2021, up from 64% the previous year[8].
What are the most popular tactics for SEO marketing strategy?
Most marketers (71%) build their SEO strategy on strategic keywords. The second most leveraged tactic is localization (50%), then mobile optimization (48%)[8].
How do marketers measure the success of their SEO strategy?
Keyword ranking (53%) is the most used metric to evaluate the success of SEO strategies. Marketers may also track organic traffic (51%), measure the time spent on a page (50%), or track the click-through rate (CTR) (45%)[8].
What are the most effective strategies marketers use for ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs)?
The top three SEO strategies for ranking on SERPs are[19]:
- Optimizing on-page content around keywords (39%)
- Optimizing content for search intent (29%)
- Optimizing images for SEO (27%)
Discover more SEO statistics or check out our collection of SEO tips guaranteed to improve your rankings.
Influencer Marketing Statistics 🤳🏻
Influencer marketing ROI
Influencer marketing provides the most robust ROI for B2C brands (11%). The tactic drove more revenue for B2C businesses in 2021 than short-form videos (8.5%), permanent social content (7.5%), and SEO (7.4%)[20].
How much do marketers spend on influencer marketing?
Marketers spent 5% of their marketing budget on influencer campaigns in 2022. This was significantly lower than 11% in 2021 and 9% in 2020. However, 23% of marketers intend to bump the spending up to 40% of their marketing budget in 2023[21].
What is the typical amount of money that brands expend on influencer marketing?
Most brands (43%) spend less than $10,000 annually on influencer marketing. Those who spend more than $500,000 annually are the minority, 11%[21].
What channels provide the best returns for influencer marketing?
The top channels with the best ROI for influencer marketing are[21]:
- TikTok, 42%
- Instagram Reels, 34%
- YouTube Shorts, 19%
- SnapChat Spotlights, 6%
What size of influencer (by follower count) do marketers prefer to work with?
Most (39%) brands work with nano-influencers (those with followers between 1,000 and 10,000). 30% are most likely to partner with micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers). Only 12% of marketers are open to working with mega/celebrity influencers[21].
How do brands pay influencers?
41.6% of brands compensate influencers with cash. The subsequent most common compensation is free products (29.5%). Additionally, 17.7% of brands gave discounts on their products to influencers, while 11.2% entered influencers in a giveaway draw[21].
What is the most common measure of success in influencer marketing?
For starters, most brands (71%) measure the ROI on influencer campaigns in 2023, up from 65% in 2020[21].
Regarding the metrics for evaluating success, most brands (49.6%) track impressions/reach/views.
What channels do brands use to engage in influencer marketing?
55.5% of brands use TikTok to discover and engage with influencers. Last year (2022), TikTok was in third place behind Instagram and Facebook, but it now takes first place ahead of Instagram (50.8%), Facebook (42.1%), and YouTube (38.3%)[21].
How many influencers do brands work with on average?
60% of brands utilize up to 50 influencers per campaign. Some brands (12%) take their campaigns to the next level by working with more than 1,000 influencers[21].
Podcast Marketing Statistics 🎙️
How many people are familiar with podcasting?
79% of the US population (about 226 million people in 2022) are familiar with podcasting. In comparison, only 46% of the population were familiar with podcasting a decade ago[22].
How many people listen to podcasts?
More Americans (62%) listened to podcasts in 2022 than ever – 57% in 2021, 33% in 2015, 29% in 2012, and 11% in 2006[22].
Where do people listen to podcasts most often?
59% of podcast listeners most often do it at home, and the other most common location is in the car (20%)[22].
What device do podcast listeners most commonly use?
73% of podcast listening is done on smartphones. The other most used option is desktop/laptop (13%)[22].
What is the average ROI of podcasts as a digital marketing channel?
Podcasts have an average ROI of 7%, putting them in the top six media formats with the highest ROI. No wonder podcasts are the fifth most used media format in digital marketing campaigns ahead of case studies. The most used media formats in digital marketing campaigns are[5]:
- Video, 50%
- Images, 47%
- Blog posts, 33%
- Infographics, 30%
- Podcasts, 28%
- Case studies, 28%
More marketing statistics:
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