500+ Marketing Statistics & Trends Important to Small Businesses in 2020
- Roshan Saund
- Mar 25, 2020
- 38 min read
A Brief Introduction
The digital marketing landscape is an ever-shifting one driven by rapid technological changes. In marketing, this is particularly evident in the constant innovations in marketing automation.
Because of the nature of the modern marketing ecosystem, businesses, especially small and local ones, need to be aware of the latest industry statistics to outdistance competitors. Why?
Having such information readily-available allows you to truly understand the current state-of-play, what is working, what isn’t, and most importantly, how customers are reacting to marketing efforts.
When you understand how the industry is behaving, you can craft a more fortified marketing strategy and better-targeted campaigns because you have the appropriate data to make the most informed decisions.
This positions you to leapfrog other businesses.
Remember however, these numbers alone will not be enough. Every business is unique, so you must compare the data provided herein with your own customer data (e.g. Google Analytics reports and social media platform analytics) to take appropriate action.
Below, we’ve broken the statistics and trends down by categories so you can find the numbers you want to see more easily.
Trends
Social media
Websites
Email
SEO
Paid advertising and PPC
Content marketing
Video
Blogging
Mobile
Word of mouth
Consumer behaviour
Money, budgeting and time
Tools, platforms and assets
Trends
The overarching trends of the small business industry provide you with the foundational understanding of how the market is behaving, and will behave in the foreseeable future.
In short, trends are crucial as they will likely take hold quickly and become an established part of your customer journey.
Transparency and Privacy
Today, there is an ongoing shift away from mass marketing in favour of a more personal approach. However, to create these experiences involves the collection, storage and use of our personal data is a subject.
This has continually received widespread publicity - much of it often negative due to data breaches, hacks, misuse and the rise of ‘fake news’.
This has created a post-truth society where trust in brands and media is at an all-time low.
Therefore, as a business, you must shift from mass marketing to more individual, personalised content marketing underlined with established GDPR, privacy and cookie policies.
Targeting and Segmentation
Even with stricter data protection rules, people are now being marketed to from so many angles that it can become overwhelming for them.
If you want to stand out from the herd then, you must offer a more personal approach. How can you do this? Utilise super targeting and segmentation.
Identify the products/services your customers are most interested in, the actions taken on websites, progress through sales funnels, and demographics.
Use Google Analytics, social media analytics, and social paid ads/google ads analytics to understand your audience and target advertising accordingly.
Employ service tools such as Sendinblue to enable you to continue to automate repetitive tasks while maintaining that all-important personal touch.
Powerful Customer Service
You will see the core importance of great customer service later in this post when we look at customer behaviour statistics.
For now, two important statistics to know are that 73% of customers fall in love with a brand and remain loyal because of friendly customer service. And, 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service.
How can you remain accessible to customers?
Use chat windows and chat bots
Keep a tab on your direct messages and comments on social media
Have strong FAQ pages
Respond to customers with personalised messaging
Digestible, Quality Information Diets
Though we live in a digital age with an expectation of technological reliance, many individuals are trying to reduce their digital consumption and footprints.
People are now more conscious of the time they spend in the digital world, and the time they spend interacting with smart devices. This has led to the emergence of digital wellness or wellbeing where we track our device screen times, and where products such as Google’s Digital Wellbeing are becoming increasingly popular.
What does this mean for marketing your small or local business? With this shift to spend less time with technology, SEO algorithms that once used to favour high content volume, are now much more geared towards quality information that provides the answers people are seeking.
You should therefore focus on nurturing high quality followers by consistently putting out content that is useful, informative and demonstrates your expertise on a subject.
Social Media Commerce
Some platforms, such as Instagram, are now allowing people to buy products in the same way they can make customer queries.
In fact, consumers are now using Instagram in a similar way to a business website and we expect this trend to continue into next year. To implement ecommerce effectively on social:
Add ‘buy’ buttons to your social media posts.
Make sure you follow guidelines to creating sales posts that convert - i.e. appealing enough to stand out in a busy news feed.
A responsive website optimised for mobile that allows people to purchase on-the-go.
Additional important trends you can’t ignore:
Automation of marketing activities
Consumable video content
Live streaming
Influencer marketing
Voice search
Using AR/VR
Science-based marketing
Integration of AI
Social Media Statistics
Social media can be found everywhere today. For many people, social media is their daily source of entertainment, socialisation, and even news consumption.
With over 40% of the world's population now on social media, it’s paramount your business devises an effective social media strategy to reach your target audience.
Use the statistics below to guide your social media strategy.
General Statistics
97% of digital consumers have used social media in the past month.
84% of people with access to the internet use social media.
50% of the global population is using social media: that’s 3.8 billion people (an increase of 9.2% since 2019).
India has had the biggest increase in social media users since 2019, with 130 million new users, a 48% year-over-year increase.
China owned the second-largest increase in social users in 2019, with 15 million (up 1.5%).
90% of Americans between 18-29 use social media.
Last year, people spent 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media every day, across devices (that means about 1 of every 3 hours spent on the internet is on social platforms).
Worldwide, people aged 16–24 spend closer to 3 hours a day on social.
In 22 out of 46 markets surveyed by GlobalWebIndex, time spent on social decreased or stayed the same.
1 in 4 internet users have tracked their screen time or capped time for certain apps.
Time spent on social increased by 1.4% in 2019, compared to 6% in 2018 (and 15% in 2016).
99% of users in 2019 accessed social media on mobile.
The average social media user has 8.3 different social accounts.
This number lifts to 9.4 social accounts for people aged 16-24.
43% of internet users use social media for work purposes.
43% of internet users use social media when researching things to buy.
Finding “funny and entertaining” content is the fastest-growing reason for using social.
60% of people say they’ve watched a video on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram in the last month.
63% of people say messaging apps are where they feel most comfortable sharing and talking about content.
WhatsApp (1.6 billion users) and Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion) are the 3rd and 4th biggest social platforms, respectively.
50% of marketers say that the shift to private social channels have them rethinking their content strategy.
Instagram Statistics
Instagram has more than 1 billion monthly active users.
89% of users are outside the U.S.
The country with the highest Instagram percentage reach is Brunei.
Instagram ads reach 928.5 million people.
500 million people open Instagram Stories and Instagram Explore every month.
50.9% of Instagram users are women, and 49.1% are men (these are the only genders listed).
35% of people on Instagram are between 25 and 34 years old.
Instagram is the world’s 7th most-visited website.
Instagram is the second-most downloaded free app in the Apple app store.
Instagram is the 10th most popular Google query.
People spend an average of 6 minutes and 35 seconds on Instagram each time they visit.
55% of U.S. Instagram users say they don’t watch TV on a weekly basis.
average engagement rate for video posts: 1.87%.
average engagement rate for photo posts: 1.11%.
average engagement rate for all post types: 1.49%.
#instagood continues to be the second-most popular hashtag of all time on Instagram. (Of course, the number one is #love.).
92% of all Instagram users say they’ve followed a brand, clicked on their website, or made a purchase after seeing a product/service on Instagram.
The average business posts to Instagram 1.7 times per day, and posts 13.1 Stories per month.
The average follower growth rate for a business account is 2.5% per month.
Businesses post 79% photos and 21% videos to their feeds, on average.
Instagram is currently hiding like counts and video views in 7 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.
62% of people say they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.
The heart love sticker is the most popular Giphy sticker in Stories.
Brand Stories have an 85% completion rate.
Instagram represents 10.7% of social referral share to ecommerce sites.
How-to tutorials are the most popular form of Instagram video content.
Stories stickers enhance video performance 83% of the time.
60% of businesses on Instagram Stories use an interactive element every month.
Facebook Statistics
Facebook has 2.5 billion monthly users.
1.95 billion of those users can be reached by ads (that’s 32% of everyone in the world over the age of 13).
69% of U.S. adults use Facebook.
Only 10.1% of Facebook users are in the U.S. or Canada.
44% of people reachable by ads on Facebook are women, and 56% are men (again, these are the only genders listed).
32% of people on Facebook are between the ages of 25 and 34.
74% of high income earners use Facebook.
Seniors are the fastest-growing group of Facebook users.
Facebook is the fifth-most downloaded free app in the App Store.
“Facebook” is the world’s top Google search query.
Facebook is the world’s 3rd most visited website, after Google and YouTube.
People spend an average of 11 minutes and 26 seconds on Facebook each time they visit it.
There are more than 10 million Facebook Groups, used by 1.4 billion people monthly.
79% of Facebook users access the platform only by phone; 19% access via phone and computer; and 1.9% only use a computer.
Video posts earn the highest engagement of any type of content on Facebook.
140 million businesses use Facebook and its related apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram).
58% of people in the U.S. say they’ve become more interested in a brand after seeing it in Facebook Stories (300 million people use Facebook Stories every day).
26.7% of Facebook Pages use paid media.
The average organic reach for a Facebook post is 5.17% of a Page’s likes, while the average paid reach is 28.1% of total reach.
In 2019, people and businesses sent 10x as many messages to each other via Facebook Messenger than they did in 2016—over 20 billion every month.
64% of people say they’d rather use Facebook to message a business than call or email.
In 2018, 56% of people said they are already Facebook messaging businesses across their buying journey.
The most talked about moment on Facebook is #internationalwomensday.
90 million small businesses use Facebook.
The average monthly change in page likes is just 0.13%.
87.1% of U.S. marketers will use Facebook marketing in 2020.
Twitter Statistics
As of 2020, Twitter has 152 million monetizable daily users (up 21% year over year).
In the United States, slightly more women than men use Twitter. That’s standard across almost all social networks. But it’s interesting to note that the ratio has shifted since 2015, when more men used Twitter than women.
However, in Great Britain, 59% of Twitter users are men, while 41% are women.
Internationally, the trend follows Great Britain. 57% of global Twitter users are men, while 42% are women.
22% of U.S. adults use Twitter.
20.4% of Twitter’s daily users are based in the U.S., and the rest are international (Japan, Russia, and the U.K. round out the platform’s top markets).
Twitter has 145 million monetizable daily active users.
Twitter’s monetizable audience is 62% men and 38% women.
29% of Twitter users are between 25 and 34 years old.
43% of 30-49-year-olds Twitter users use the platform to receive news.
Twitter is the world’s 6th most-visited website.
People spend an average of 10 minutes and 22 seconds on Twitter each time they visit it.
80% of tweets come from 10% of Twitter users, in the U.S. (Those users are statistically more likely to be women who are democrats and who tweet mostly about politics).
In related news, @BarackObama took @KatyPerry’s top spot for follower count in 2020.
The most popular emoji on Twitter in 2019 was the laugh-cry face (lol).
Twitter users are more likely to prefer “culturally relevant” brands (47% versus 39% of the general U.S. population).
Twitters users also believe that inclusive, transparent brands are more relevant (60% versus 50% of the general population).
Twitter users linger 24% longer over ads than users on other platforms.
Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement.
Tweets with video get 10x more engagement.
Twitter users have above average incomes. Thirty percent of Americans who earn $75,000 or more use Twitter.
32% are college graduates, while 25% have some college. 18% of Twitter users have a high school education or less.
Among those who consume news on Twitter, 45% have college degrees.
More than a quarter (26%) of U.S adults who identify as black use Twitter, while 24% of white-identified U.S adults, and 20% of Hispanic-identified U.S. adults use Twitter.
59% of white, American Twitter users use the platform to receive news, compared to 39% of non-white users.
Twitter’s site referral traffic is up 6%, year-over-year.
Twitter users are more likely to like brands that are inclusive and transparent.
Youtube Statistics
YouTube has more than 2 billion users visiting every month (and that doesn’t count people who aren’t logged in).
YouTube is the world’s 2nd most visited website, after Google.
YouTube is the world’s 3rd most common Google search query.
33% of the world’s population (over the age of 13) use Youtube.
45% of YouTube users are women, 55% are men.
81% of U.S. internet users between the ages of 15 and 25 use YouTube.
15% of YouTube’s traffic comes from the U.S.
Only 33% of popular YouTube videos are in English.
People watch 1 billion hours of video on YouTube every day.
70% of YouTube watchtime happens on mobile.
YouTube views on connected TV screens have increased 39%.
People spend an average of 23 minutes on YouTube each time they visit it.
In Q4 2019, Alphabet broke out YouTube’s ad revenue for the first time ever: over $15 billion, or 9% of its total revenue for 2019.
70% of what people watch on YouTube is determined by the YouTube algorithm.
80% of people who watched a YouTube video as part of their buying journey did so early on.
70% more YouTube users are engaging with creators and channels.
Each visitor spends 11m 24s per day on YouTube, on average.
Each visit to YouTube involves 6.5 pageviews, on average.
10% of the most popular YouTube videos draw 79% of views.
When choosing what to watch, whether a video relates to a viewer’s interests is 3x more important to people than whether it has a famous actor.
Likewise, relevance to personal interests is 1.6x more important to viewers than production value.
Watch time for videos on “which product to buy” doubled between 2017 and 2018.
70% more YouTube users are engaging with creators and channels.
LinkedIn Statistics
LinkedIn has 675 million monthly users, gaining two new members every second.
12% of the world’s population (over 13 years old) is on LinkedIn.
57% of LinkedIn users are men, and 43% are women.
70% of LinkedIn’s users are outside the U.S., including 211 million users in Europe, and 179 million in Asia Pacific.
61% of LinkedIn’s users are between 25 and 34 years old.
30 million companies are using LinkedIn.
97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing.
89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation.
62% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn generates leads (that’s twice as many as the next social platform).
Cost per lead on LinkedIn is 28% lower than on Google AdWords.
30% of a company’s engagement on LinkedIn comes from employees.
Employees are 14 times more likely to share content from their employers than other types of content on LinkedIn.
57% of LinkedIn’s traffic is mobile.
LinkedIn has 15x more content impressions than job postings.
Engagement has increased 50%, year over year.
Users are 60% more likely to engage with a coworker than another connection.
4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”.
An ad on LinkedIn can reach 12% of the world’s population.
94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing.
59% of sales professionals count on social platforms to sell.
Sponsored InMail has a 52% open rate, on average.
Snapchat Statistics
Snapchat reports 218 million daily active users, as of early 2020 (up 17%, year over year).
61% of Snapchat users are women, and 38% are men.
90% of Americans between 13 and 24 use Snapchat.
After the U.S., Snapchat’s biggest markets are India, France, and the U.K.
82% of people on Snapchat are 34 or younger.
Users spend an average of 30 minutes on Snapchat every day.
75% of Snapchat users engage with augmented reality every day.
20% of snaps use a lens that was created in Lens Studio by brands or users.
Users are spending 35% more time in Snapchat’s Discover section every day.
Snapchat users are 60% more likely to make an impulse purchase.
38% of Snapchat users aren’t on Instagram at all.
72% of Gen Z users on Snapchat are not reachable by TV ads.
Pinterest Statistics
Pinterest has 335 million monthly users (up 26%, year-over-year).
Pinterest has doubled in size since 2016 (when they had 160 million users).
72% of Pinterest users are women, 20% are men, and 8% don’t specify their gender.
Pinterest is growing faster internationally (35% growth) than in the U.S. (8% growth).
41% of Pinterest users are between the ages of 25 and 34.
Pinterest clocked 6x as many video views in 2019, compared to 2018.
85% of Pinterest use happens on mobile.
Pinterest users have doubled the number of pins in three years, from 100 billion in early 2017 to 200 billion in early 2020.
75% of people on Pinterest are “very interested” in new products (compared to 55% of users on other social platforms).
People on Pinterest are 29% more likely to try a new product within 10 months of launch.
Retail brands see a 2 times higher return on ad spend on Pinterest, compared to other social platforms.
Pinterest is most popular with women—especially mothers.
High-income households are twice as likely to use Pinterest as low-income households.
600 million of Pinterest’s monthly searches are visual.
Related Pins account for 40% of engagement on Pinterest.
97% of all searches on Pinterest are unbranded.
Shopping is a top priority for 48% of Pinterest users.
85% of Pinners put visuals first when shopping for apparel and furniture.
With 321 million searches, end-of-year holidays mark Pinterest’s busiest season.
More than 56 million Pinners actively engage with home content.
9.5 million Pinners actively engage with financial services content.
91% of Pinners in the market for tech/telecom purchases decide to buy after seeing content on Pinterest.
With a +5,961% increase in climate change protest signs, Pinners are thinking about the environment.
TikTok Statistics
TikTok was the most-installed app in Q1 of 2019.
800 million monthly active users, making it the 6th most-used app.
60% of Tiktok’s users are in China.
69% of Tiktok’s users are between 16 and 24 years old.
Users spend 46 minutes per day on the app.
People on Tiktok are 1.8x more likely to want brands to be “young” (they are also more likely to want brands to be “trendy/cool” “exclusive” and “bold”).
Website Statistics
Your website is essentially the heart of your online presence. It is almost an unrestricted platform for your business to portray its desired message to your audience, and to present your brand and product as you want it to be seen by your target customer.
Use the statistics below so you can see what to do and what to avoid, which will help you build and design the best website that delights your audience.
Less than two-thirds (64%) of small businesses have a website.
By 2019, 94% small business websites will be mobile friendly.
Among small businesses without a website, 58% plan to build one in 2018.
Small businesses cite cost (26%), irrelevance to industry (27%), and social media (21%) as key reasons behind their decision not to have a website.
94% of first impressions relate to your site’s web design.
Among small business websites, 81% are mobile friendly.
50% of consumers are deterred from using a local business if the contact information on their website is not up to date.
51% of people think "thorough contact information" is the most important element missing from many company websites.
Once your page loads, users form an opinion in .05 seconds.
75% of people have judged a company’s credibility based on its website design.
73% of companies invest in design to help their brand stand out from competitors.
66% of people prefer to look at a beautifully designed website if given 15 minutes to consume content.
Once on a company's homepage, 86% of visitors want to see information about that company's products/services.
Once on a company's homepage, 64% of visitors want to see the company's contact information.
Once on a company's homepage, 52% of visitors want to see "about us" information.
After reaching a company's website via a referral site, 50% of visitors will use the navigation menu to orient themselves.
After reaching a company's website via a referral site, 36% of visitors will click on the company's logo to reach the homepage.
47% of website visitors check out a company's products/services page before looking at any other sections of the site.
89% of consumers shop with a competitor after a poor user experience.
74% of users are more likely to return to mobile-friendly websites.
83% of people expect a website to load in 3 seconds or less.
47% of people expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less, and after three seconds, 53% of people will click the “back” button.
39% of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load.
Users spend 88% more time on pages with videos.
Increasing your website loading speed can prevent the loss of 7 percent of possible conversions.
34% of consumers are more likely to make an unplanned purchase after receiving personalised content.
Email Marketing Statistics
Email is a contemporary communication method you can’t ignore but it involves many working parts.
To alleviate the stress of it all, keep the statistics below on-hand when you’re planning a new campaign or readdressing your existing email marketing funnel.
81% of small businesses rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel.
80% of small businesses rely on email for customer retention.
While 26% of SMBs polled use email marketing for sales, just 7% use email as a brand-building tool.
In 2019, global email users amounted to 3.9 billion users. This figure is set to grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023.
For every $1 you spend on emails marketing, you can expect an average return of $42.
In the UK, every £1 spent on email marketing has an ROI of £38.
The average open rate for a welcome email is 82%.
Welcome emails are incredibly effective: on average, 320% more revenue is attributed to them on a per email basis than other promotional emails.
The general average email open rate is 20.81%.
Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
Sending three abandoned cart emails results in 69% more orders than a single email.
Adding videos to your email can increase click rates by 300%.
49% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis.
49% of all emails are opened on mobile devices.
Consumers who purchase products through email spend 138% more than those that don’t receive email offers.
Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share content on social media than leads who came through another channel.
80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention (the next closest channel? Social media, identified by just 44% of those same professionals).
77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email (versus direct mail, text, phone, or social media).
Men and women are equally likely to convert from an email opened on a desktop - but women are more likely to convert on a tablet, and men are more likely to convert on a phone.
73% of millennials identify email as their preferred means of business communication.
The Apple iPhone leads email client market share with 31%, followed by Gmail at 22% as of May 2017 (calculations based on 1.29 billion opens).
About 73% of 18-24 year olds use their phones to check email (PDF).
When a prospect or customer who opens an email on a mobile device opens that same email again on another device, they are 65% more likely to click-through to your site/offering.
People say they prefer HTML emails, but plain-text emails actually get higher open rates.
49% of digital marketers indicate that the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) has had no discernable impact on their company's email marketing program.
The average number of legitimate business emails received each day has remained static since 2015, but the number of spam emails that bypass security filters (spam that actually hits your inbox) has risen from 12 emails per day in 2015 to 16 emails per day in 2017.
Nonprofits lose about $15k/year in donations due to spam filters blocking fundraising campaign emails from prospects' inboxes.
Segmented email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.32% higher than non-segmented campaigns.
Click-throughs are 100.95% higher in segmented email campaigns than non-segmented campaigns.
The use of emoji in email marketing messages increased 775% from 2015 to 2016 alone - 4 years ago.
The percentage of emails containing GIFs rose from 5.4% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2016.
49% of businesses use some form of email automation.
Pet and animal services have the highest email open rate.
According to the DMA, the four most important email marketing metrics (as identified by advertisers) are: CTR, Conversion rate, Open rate, and ROI.
Checking email is a complementary activity. People do it while watching TV (69 percent), in bed (57 percent), and on vacation (79%).
Using the word "Donate" in your subject line can reduce open rate by 50% or more.
The average email opt-in rate across all verticals is 1.95%.
The average open rate for businesses in the Daily Deals industry is 15% - the cross-industry average? 20%.
Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind only colleague recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders.
86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes.
CTRs are 47% higher for B2B email campaigns than B2C email campaigns.
59% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective chanel in terms of revenue generation.
56 percent of brands using emoji in their email subject lines had a higher open rate.
Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email.
SEO Statistics
Strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases both the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through unpaid search engine results. However, as a small business, you have to compete for online visibility with:
other small businesses in the local market
big corporations that use their vast reach and big budgets to saturate the market
online-only options with low overhead and innovative features
SEO is therefore especially important to small businesses who must fight for their rank to be seen by their target audience. The statistics below highlight this statement, and show you what to focus on when it comes to SEO for your business.
93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
25-35% more clicks occur on business listings with a website.
Google currently holds 90.1% of the total search engine market share.
46% of all Google searches are looking for local information.
72% of consumers that did a local search visited a store within five miles.
97% of people learn more about a local company online than anywhere else.
88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.
61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site.
By 2021, mobile devices will influence more than $1.4 trillion in local sales.
18% of local smartphone searches led to a purchase within a day, whereas only 7% of non-local searches led to a sale.
78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase.
“Near me” or "close by" type searches grew by more than 900% over two years.
72% of computer or tablet users and 67% of smartphone users want ads that are customised to their city or zip code.
By using location-based coupons on mobile can lead to a 9916% increase in incremental mobile revenue.
Local searches result in purchases 28% of the time.
Search result information will send 70% of consumers to a physical store.
92% of searchers will pick businesses on the first page of local search results.
Global retail ecommerce sales will reach $4.5 trillion by 2021.
4 in 5 consumers use search engines to find local information.
3 words total are used in the typical search query.
80% growth has been measured in “best” mobile searches in the past two years.
300 million photos were shared on Google Maps last year.
500-600 times each year, Google changes its search algorithm.
230 characters for snippet length is now average compared to 160 in recent years.
50% of first page Google results were secure (https) websites.
61% of marketers list improving SEO and search engine rankings as their top goal.
57% of U.S. travellers want brands to tailor their information based on past behaviours or individual preferences.
50% of people search for promotions or discounts online.
81% of people perform some type of online research before making a large purchase.
75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.
Leads from search engines have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (ex. cold-calling, direct mail, etc.) have a 1.7% close rate.
70-80% of people ignore paid search results, choosing to only click on organic search results.
Voice search currently accounts for 10% of total searches.
Paid Advertising and PPC Statistics
Social paid advertising and PPC are pay-to-play playgrounds and competition across advertising platforms is ever-increasing. Because of this, it’s paramount that you have a firm understanding of how the territory behaves.
If you don’t, you risk wasting your advertising budget, and failing to gain the ROAS you seek.
The statistics below provide you with industry benchmarks as well as important figures you need to know to safeguard your ad spend. Don’t be disheartened by some of the figures, paid ads and pay-per-click are still highly profitable.
Where benchmarks are given, we have included the averages across all industries but it is important to research the performance of ads according to your industry. For example, you can click here are the Facebook Ad benchmarks broken down by industry.
Facebook Advertising
Small businesses typically spend between $500-$1,500 per month on Facebook ads.
94% of Facebook Ad revenue is from mobile.
49% of Facebook advertisers say generating leads is their most common goal for their Facebook ad campaigns.
The average cost per click (CPC) on Facebook Ads is $1.68 across all industries.
The average click-through rate (CTR) on Facebook across all industries is 0.89%.
The average conversion rate (CVR) on Facebook Ads is 9.11% across all industries.
The average CPA on Facebook across all industries is $19.68.
25.1% of Facebook business pages are using paid media.
52% of Facebook advertisers monitor their performance daily versus 48% who say they only monitor weekly.
In 70% of tests, vertical ads have an incremental boost in brand lift and a 3 to 9 point increase in ad recall.
AdEspresso found that the cost-per-click for conversions dropped down to $0.55 in 2019, down from $2.55 in Q1 of 2018.
The average cost-per-click on Facebook is $1.86.
The average cost-per-thousand-views on Facebook is $11.20.
A study by Kinetic found that carousel ads had a 10x increase in clicks compared to non-carousel ad units.
A Wordstream study found that across all industries, the average click-through rate on Facebook ads is 0.90%.
The same Wordstream study found that the average conversion rate on Facebook ads is 9.21%.
Wordstream also found that the average cost-per-action is $18.68.
Cost-per-clicks are most expensive on Fridays and cheapest on Sundays.
Cost-per-like campaigns are the cheapest during Q1.
In one experiment conducted by AdEspresso, they found that mobile ad placements outperformed desktop by over 45%.
An experiment conducted by Buffer found that spending $5 per day on Facebook ads yielded 9 page likes on their Facebook page, 1 click to a landing page, and 787 new people reached.
Adding a call-to-action button to your Facebook ad boosts click-through rate by 2.85x.
According to data from Wordstream, legal boasts the highest average click-through rate out of any industry at 1.61%.
The same Wordstream analysis found that Employment & Job Training suffers from the lowest click-through rates at 0.47%.
26% of people who click on ads report making a purchase.
A test conducted by AdEspresso found that changing the call-to-action from “Sign Up” to “Learn More” improved click-through rate on an ad by 22.5%.
However, the same test found that the “Sign Up” call-to-action resulted in a 14.5% higher conversion rate.
According to OkDork, most ads pushing someone to purchase a product convert at 0.1%-0.2%.
OkDork found that using ads to collect email addresses convert around 20%.
A survey of Australian Facebook users found that 48% claimed to have made a purchase after watching a company’s video.
Instant Experience ads on Facebook load 15x faster than a mobile site outside of Facebook.
Facebook recommends making the image size on single image ads to be 1200 x 628 pixels.
Facebook recommends making the image size on carousel ads to be 1080 x 1080 pixels.
5 power words to get higher response from your ads: You, Free, Because, Instantly, New.
After analyzing 752,626 Facebook ads, AdEspresso found that the median length of the headline is 5 words.
The same AdEspresso analysis found that the average ad text contains 14 words.
Facebook has 11 different variations of actions which ads can be used to help advertisers: Boost posts, Promote your Facebook page, Send traffic to your site, Increase conversions on your site, Get app installs, Increase app engagement, Reach people located near your business, Boost attendance to your event, Claim an offer, Get video views, Collect leads.
Facebook will usually reject an ad image that contains more than 20% text.
The top 3 most commonly used call-to-action buttons on Facebook ads are Learn More, Shop Now, and Sign Up.
1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger monthly.
People are engaging in 20 billion messages with businesses every month.
According to Chatbots Magazine, eCommerce stores pairing an abandon cart chatbot with Facebook Messenger have seen a 7-25% increase in revenue.
A study conducted by Social Media Examiner found that interest amongst marketers in Messenger ads fell to 41% in 2019, down from 61% in 2018.
126.3 million U.S. mobile users accessed Facebook messenger in 2018.
59% of U.S. Facebook Messenger users access the app at least once per week.
The average Facebook user clicks on 8 ads each month.
Over 70% of ad breaks that are 15 seconds or less are viewed to completion.
In a survey amongst mobile shoppers in the US, 30% cited video as the best way to find out about new products.
500 million people watch videos daily on Facebook.
85% of the Facebook videos are consumed without the audio.
Facebook users are 1.5x more likely to watch video on their mobile devices than on desktop.
Live broadcasts now account for every 1 in 5 videos on Facebook.
A study by Kinetic found that video ads produce the lowest effective cost per click compared to other ad types.
Tests conducted by Facebook found that adding captions to a video ad boosted view time by an average of 12%.
Facebook has found that 65% of users who view the first 3 seconds of a video will continue to watch it for at least 10 seconds. 45% of users will continue watching for 30 seconds.
One Facebook video ads study found that 41% of videos were incomprehensible without sound.
Facebook has found that 80% of users react negatively to videos that auto-play with sound.
Native Facebook videos have an average engagement rate of 6.3%.
65% of brand video posts uploaded to Facebook are native videos.
Videos on Facebook garner an average of 89.5 shares.
Twitter Advertising
Median CPC in Q2 of 2019 was $0.33.
Median CPM in Q2 of 2019 was $4.97.
Median CTR in Q2 of 2019 was 1.55%.
Linkedin Advertising
65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn paid ads.
Median CPC in Q1 of 2019 was $3.99.
Median CPM in Q1 of 2019 was $7.85.
Median CTR in Q1 of 2019 was 0.18%
Youtube Advertising
43% of new customers buy something they saw in a YouTube ad.
Median CPC in Q1 of 2019 was $2.54.
Median CPM in Q1 of 2019 was $7.50.
Median CTR in Q1 of 2019 was 0.30%.
PPC (pay-per-click) Advertising e.g. Google, Bing
The average click-through rate in AdWords across all industries is 3.17% for search and 0.46% for display.
The average cost per click in AdWords across all industries is $2.69 for search and $0.63 for display.
The average conversion rate in AdWords across all industries is 3.75% for search and 0.77% for display.
The average CPA in AdWords across all industries is $48.96 for search and $75.51 for display.
Traffic brought through PPC advertising yields 50% more conversions than organic advertising.
Three-fourths of people (75%) say paid search ads make it easier to find the information they are searching for on a website or search engine. One-third of people (33%) click on a paid search ad because it directly answers their search query.
Display advertising has proven to increase traffic to websites by 300%.
53% of paid clicks are made on mobile devices.
Of all mobile customers, 70% call their target business directly through Google Ads.
Bing’s average CPC is $1.54, 33% lower than Google Ads.
65% of people click on ads when making purchases.
92% of online paid ads go unnoticed by users.
41% of clicks in Google searches go to the top three sponsored ads.
Paid advertising returns $2 for every $1 spent – a 200% ROI.
In 2016, 50% of UK-based internet users could not tell the difference between paid ads and organic results.
Users who click on PPC ads on Google are 50% more likely to make a purchase than those that come to the same website through organic results.
The average click-through rate for Google ads is 3.17%.
On average, it costs $2.69 per click for search and $0.63 per click for display to advertise on Google Ads.
The average yearly cost of PPC for SMEs is between $108,000 and $120,000.
52% of online shoppers who click on or view PPC ads call that advertiser right after browsing.
49% of people said they click on text ads; 31% on Shopping ads; and 16% on video ads.
63% of people said they’d click on a Google ad.
The average person is served over 1,700 banner ads per month, but only half of them are ever viewed.
Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%.
Google Ads’ competitive rate of 87% allows your advertisement to fairly promote your products or services making you a competitor to those in similar industries.
Local Services ads by Google receive 13.8% of local SERP clicks.
The presence of Local Services ads affects the number of clicks for all other SERP types.
When LSAs are present, 25.3% of all clicks are on paid results. When LSAs are absent, this is 14.6% – a difference of 10.7%.
78% of local mobile searches result in offline purchases.
Mobile Advertising
Marketers and advertisers are putting 51% of their budget into mobile ads.
Both desktop and mobile ads deliver branding effectiveness, but mobile ads perform better.
Google drives 95% of all paid search ad clicks on mobile.
Two-thirds of consumers can recall a specific brand they have seen advertised on mobile in the last week.
60% of consumers click on mobile ads at least weekly.
By 2019, mobile advertising is expected to represent 72% of all U.S. digital ad spending.
87% of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from mobile.
Content Marketing Statistics
If you follow our blog, or social media, or even if you don’t, without a doubt you would have heard the saying ‘content is king’.
In 2020, this statement holds truer than ever in the digital marketing realm with content continuing to be a vital tactic for bringing in traffic and encouraging conversions.
In order to be successful at content marketing, you need to ensure that you’re taking into account more technical aspects like SEO in order for your content to standout in an industry where content is being produced en masse.
Read the statistics below to understand why content is regarded so highly, and discover the latest trends and advances in the content marketing arena to stay on top.
86 percent of organisations said in a recent survey that content marketing had helped them reach their brand awareness goals.
Consumers spend over 5 hours per day on their smartphones consuming content of all types.
In the long run, content marketing ROI can be up to three times as compared to paid search.
Content marketing on average is 60% cheaper than other marketing techniques.
3 out of 4 consumers prefer informative content over an advert to learn about a product or brand.
Content builds an image: 4 out of five consumers end up with a positive view of a brand after learning about it via helpful content.
Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising.
For content marketing, conversion rates are six times higher than other marketing techniques.
Content marketing is 60% cheaper than all other types of marketing.
Lack of strategy is the biggest challenge for content marketing, followed by lack or unavailability of data to plan ahead.
Ad blocker are active on more than 10 billion devices, a solid case to go for content marketing.
YouTube is the most popular channel among users and the biggest target for content marketers for the last 2 consecutive years.
9 out of 10 consumers now prefer brands that are authentic and have a good reputation on social networks when consuming content and learning about products and services.
B2B content marketers are better at documenting their content marketing strategy. 69% of them successfully do it.
B2B content marketers love creating visuals and more than half of them incorporate video content marketing into their content marketing strategy.
B2B content marketers are very much focused on tracking the success of their content, with most monitoring weekly and even over 25% check their metrics on a daily basis.
Around 90% of B2B organisations have analytics tools in place to monitor their content marketing results.
When it comes to content consumption, more than half of B2B buyers first read a few pieces of relevant content before making any contact with a supplier.
Similarly, more than half of B2B buyers have a preference for mobile-optimised content over desktop.
Most B2B buyers are likely to share video content and text of graphics.
Just like any other content out there, only 7% of content produced by B2B companies wins external backlinks.
More than one third of B2B content marketers acknowledge online communities as the best segment to target for promotion.
Most B2B content marketers acknowledge the value of repurposing and republishing content in different formats and 9 out of 10 actually focus on repurposing their existing content than producing new content.
7 out of 10 of B2B companies acknowledge that they are pouring more investment in content measurement, data gathering and analytics.
Half of the B2B content marketers are also giving more priority to identify and market to the audience that are relevant than general.
Video Marketing Statistics
As the nature of marketing continues to evolve, video content becomes more and more prominent.
It makes sense. After all, as a visual species, humans find videos more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there.
From the statistics provided here, you’ll see that video marketing is no longer an option, but a necessary part of your marketing strategy.
81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year.
6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television.
Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year.
By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017.
78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day.
A Facebook executive predicted that their platform will be all video and no text by 2021.
YouTube is the second most popular website after Google.
Users view more than 1 billion hours of video each day on YouTube.
59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read text.
75% of all video plays are on mobile devices.
Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video.
People are 1.5 times more likely to watch video on their mobile phones.
92% of users watching video on mobile will share it with others.
By 2020 there will be close to 1 million minutes of video crossing the internet per second.
65% of people use YouTube to help them solve a problem. Want to build a house or remove weird parasites from your eye? YouTube might have the answer. (Google)
Social media posts with video have 48% more views. (HubSpot)
45% of Twitter users want to see more videos from celebrities. (Twitter)
90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device. (Twitter)
Over 1.9 billion people use YouTube. That’s about one-third of the internet. (YouTube)
YouTube has 23,946,561 subscribers
62% of people said they were more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story.
Facebook has over 8 billion video views per day.
75 million people visit Facebook’s video platform every day.
Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined.
Video promotions are now equally as popular as photo promotions on Facebook.
Snapchat users watch 10 billion videos each day.
Video campaigns on LinkedIn have 50% view rates.
Social video gets shared 1200% more than text and images combined.
Mobile video ad spend is expected to be around 72% of the total digital ad spend this year.
81% of businesses prefer to use Facebook for their video marketing.
Videos attach 300% more traffic and help to nurture leads.
A website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it includes video.
Including a video on your landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%.
Nearly 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.
Video increases organic search traffic on a website by 157%.
25% of companies publish videos every week.
85% of consumers want to see more video content from brands.
65% of executives have gone to the marketer’s site and 39% have called them on the phone after watching a marketing video.
97% of marketers say video has helped users gain a better understanding of their products and services.
52% of marketers say video is the type of content with the best ROI.
Adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%.
50% of viewers aged 18-34 said they would stop what they were doing to watch a video from their favuorite creator.
On average, people spend 2.6x more time on pages with video than without.
64% of consumers will make a purchase after watching branded videos on social platforms.
Video is expected to make up 82% of internet traffic by 2021.
Videos under two minutes long get the most engagement.
85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound, while 60% of Instagram Stories are watched with the sound on.
Google Chrome blocks autoplay ads as a way to make the 82% of consumers that hate autoplay stick around.
33% of viewers will stop watching a video after 30 seconds, 45% by one minute, and 60% by two minutes.
65% of viewers skip online video ads as soon as possible.
93% of marketers use video.
73% of B2B marketers say video positively impacts their ROI.
Blogging statistics
As the statistics show in this section, getting your blog heard online is no simple feat to accomplish - it’s a long-run game that requires heavy commitment, especially if you want to monetize your blog.
To make things tougher, it can be difficult to keep up with the constantly changing stats and facts about blogging.
That’s why we’ve compiled the numbers below - so you’re aware of the trends and statistics you need to drive more traffic to your blog, and to build your subscriber list.
Each month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages.
There are about 70 million posts being published each month by WordPress users.
77 million new blog comments are generated by readers each month.
71% of WordPress sites are written in English.
The average blog post takes 3.5 hours to write.
Bloggers who write articles of 2,000+ words are far more likely to have strong results.
46% of bloggers edit their own work, while 54% have editors or have at least shown their work to someone else to review.
43% of people admit to skimming blog posts.
36% of readers prefer list-based headlines.
Websites that also have a blog are shown to have 434% more indexed pages.
Companies who blog get 97% more links to their websites.
Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information.
66% of bloggers today are publishing a few times per month, rather than a few times per week back in 2014.
77% of internet users read blogs.
Internet users in the US spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email.
The “how-to” headline—a close cousin to the listicle—is the third most popular headline preference at around 17%.
Only 38% of bloggers are updating older articles.
34% of bloggers say that updating content produces strong results.
Around 5% of bloggers don’t have access to analytics.
Titles with 6-13 words attract the highest and most consistent amount of traffic.
SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.
72% of online marketers describe content creation as their most effective SEO tactic.
Businesses that blog experience twice as much email traffic as businesses who don’t.
Having a hyphen or colon in the headline increased click-through rates by 9%.
Making your headline 6-8 words can increase your CTR by 21%.
Over 50% of bloggers report that it has gotten harder to get traffic from Facebook over the past two years, and nearly one-fifth say it has gotten harder to get traffic from Google.
Over the past year, there’s been a 93% increase in blogs using promotional techniques to drive traffic to their post including paid ads.
60% of blogs write 1-5 guest posts per month.
3% of blogs write over 100 guest posts per month.
Only 6% of bloggers publish the majority of their original content as guest posts.
62.96% of readers perceive blogs with multiple authors to be more credible.
79% of editors say guest content is too promotional.
Guest content is in higher demand in the summer months of June, July, and August.
66% of marketers reported using blogs in their social media content in 2017.
59% of people will share an article without reading it first, or ever.
LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for delivering content and securing audience engagement.
95.9% of bloggers promote their blog posts via social media.
Tumblr had 456.1 million blog accounts as of January 2019.
69% of bloggers say they use social share buttons.
Articles with images get 94% more views as opposed to those with no visuals.
71% of bloggers report using visuals as part of their marketing strategy.
Using photos of real people instead of stock photos can result in a 35% conversion increase.
43% of consumers increasingly want video content from marketers.
19% of bloggers are now including video in their typical posts.
45% of bloggers who add audio to their posts such as podcast see better results.
Video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.
32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their businesses.
Mobile Statistics
It was only five years after the first iPhone that mobile web traffic surpassed desktop traffic. Since then, smartphone usage has skyrocketed, proving the world we live in is truly a mobile one.
In order for your marketing strategy to thrive therefore, it must be optimised for mobile experiences to tap into the huge mobile base available for targeting.
If you want a mobile marketing strategy that maintains fast pace with the industry, you should consider the statistics below.
68 percent of companies have integrated mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy.
90 percent of buyers who had an excellent mobile experience would buy from the same vendor again.
3/4 of smartphone owners turn to mobile search first to address their immediate needs.
70 percent of mobile searches result with an online action within an hour.
Nearly 1/3 of all mobile searches are related to location.
US adults spend an average of 3 hours, 23 minutes per day on mobile devices in 2018.
70% of smartphone users have bought something in a store after using their phone to discover more information.
83% of mobile users say that a seamless experience across all devices is very important.
52% of companies use a simple template that works for all devices.
51% of customers say that they use mobile devices to discover new brands and products.
69% of smartphone users also say that they are more likely to buy from companies with mobile sites that easily address their questions or concerns.
89% of people are likely to recommend a brand after a positive brand experience on Mobile
46% of people say they would not purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience.
57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.
In 2017, 95% of active Facebook user accounts accessed the social network via a mobile device.
As of 2016, 80% of its users access Pinterest through a mobile device.
85% of the time users spend on Twitter is on a mobile device.
60% of LinkedIn traffic comes from mobile devices.
39% of companies create a mobile responsive email template.
64% of email recipients prefer to open emails on mobile devices.
Leading marketers are more than three times as likely as the mainstream to be significantly increasing their investment in mobile customer experience.
If a mobile page takes longer than three seconds to load, 53 percent of people will leave it.
Mobile is responsible for an average of more than 40 percent of revenue in leading B2B organisations.
Mobile marketing can speed up B2B time by 20 percent.
More than 60 percent of B2B buyers report that mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase.
92 percent of executives own a smartphone used for business, with 77 percent reporting they use their smartphone to research a product or service for their business.
79 percent of keywords overall and 47 percent of keywords in positions 1-20 rank differently in search on mobile and desktop SERPs.
Word of Mouth Statistics
Competition is fierce in the marketing world. Simply having a strong presence and a beautifully-designed website is no longer enough to make you stand out. This is where the influence of word of mouth comes into play.
In today’s hyper-connected world, a single recommendation can have far greater impact than a large-scale integrated marketing campaign. Why? One simple word - trust.
Just check out the first statistic below.
92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.
74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions.
88% of consumers placed the highest level of trust in word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know.
75% of people don’t believe adverts, yet 90% trust suggestions from family and friends and 70% trust consumer reviews.
Brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity receive 3x as much word of mouth marketing as less emotionally connected brands.
28% of consumers say word of mouth is the most important factor in strengthening or eroding brand affinity.
64% of marketing executives indicated that they believe word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing.
70% of respondents in a survey are planning to increase their online word of mouth marketing spend, and 29% will increase their offline word of mouth marketing spend.
82% of marketers use word of mouth marketing to increase their brand awareness, but 43% expect WOMM to improve their direct sales.
Consumer Behaviour Statistics
With new emerging technologies and the rollout of 5G approaching, digital disruption is changing the way consumers purchase products and interact with brands. As consumer expectations continue to rise, it is becoming increasingly difficult for small businesses to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
The statistics below have been gathered in order to help you better understand the increasingly-demanding internet consumer. If you understand the online behaviours of consumers in regards to marketing and online purchases, you can target your offers to be more appealing to customers.
33% of customers are most frustrated by having to wait on hold. 33% are most frustrated by having to repeat themselves to multiple support reps.
50% of shoppers believe their feedback doesn't go to anyone who can actually act on it.
40% of customers want customer service reps to take care of their needs faster.
A customer is four times more likely to switch a competitor if the problem they're having is service-based.
90% of customers rate an "immediate" response as important or very important when they have a customer service question. 60% of customers define "immediate" as 10 minutes or less.
87% of consumers believe that companies need to provide a more consistent customer experience.
35% of customers expect to be able to contact the same customer service agent through any communication channel.
73% of consumers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do when providing customer service.
An NPS® promoter score has a customer lifetime value that's 600% - 1400% higher than a detractor.
70% of the customer's journey is based on how the customer feels they are being treated.
Your online conversion rate can improve by roughly 8% when you include personalised consumer experiences.
On average, customer service agents only ask for a customer's name 21% of the time.
71% of consumers (age 16 - 24) believe that a quick response from your service team can drastically improve their customer experience.
On average, companies that invest in their customer experience also observe an improvement in employee engagement by roughly 20%.
61% of internet users do research on a product online before making a purchase.
Money, Budgeting and Time Statistics
As a small or local business, the time and money required for marketing efforts to be successful is likely a huge determining factor in whether you invest in it or not.
In order to give you a sense of what businesses typically spend on marketing, not just in terms of money, but other factors such as time, we’ve compiled some figures you’ll find useful below.
The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you’re doing less than $5 million a year in sales and your net profit margin—after all expenses—is in the 10 percent to 12 percent range.
37% of small businesses plan to increase their digital marketing spend in the next 12 months.
More than one quarter (28%) of small businesses spend less than $500 on a website.
Most small businesses (47%) spend less than $10,000 on digital marketing.
50% of SMBs spend less than $300 per month on online marketing.
Data shows that the average small business invests about 1 percent of its revenues into advertising.
The most recent CMO survey indicated that marketing budgets were expected to grow by 8.7% in the next year, nearly reaching an eight year high.
The Gartner CMO Spend Survey for 2019-2020 found that 61% of CMOs expected their marketing budgets to increase in 2020.
Marketing spending as a percentage of revenue tends to fluctuate, but generally hovers between 6.5% to 10%.
The latest CMO survey showed 9.8% of revenue for the average marketing spend, with B2C service companies devoting 15.6% of revenue to marketing, and B2B product companies spending only 8.6% of revenue.
In 2020, the average firm was expected to allocate 45% of their total marketing budget to online.
Search engine marketing will capture the largest share of online spend with online display (banner ads, online video, etc.) taking the second largest share.
Online video will represent the highest growth category, with the anticipated investment more than doubling 2016 numbers by 2021.
Social media advertising investments will continue to grow, with a 17% compound annual growth rate from 2016 to 2021. Social media spending overall averaged 11-12% of total marketing budget in the August 2019 CMO Survey.
Mobile marketing has grown to a point that it’s no longer tracked separately in the forecast and it’s presumed to be considered across all channels.
Digital marketing is pacing at an 11% compound annual growth rate between 2016 and 2021 with the biggest growth occurring in online video.
Investment in paid search, display advertising, social media advertising, online video advertising and email marketing is predicted to account for 46% of all advertising by 2021.
Tools, Platforms, and Assets Statistics
Today, there are hundreds of social media platforms used across the globe and thousands of software tools on the market to choose from.
Feeling like a child staring up at a thousand vibrantly-branded candy bars being forced to choose one? Use the data below to discover how other businesses are driving their marketing efforts.
59% of marketers say inbound produces the highest quality leads for their sales team.
61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.
59% percent of small business leaders express difficulty implementing and rolling out new technologies.
96% of SMBs say they use social media in their marketing strategy.
Almost 90% of marketers say their social marketing efforts have increased exposure for their business, and 75% say they’ve increased traffic.
61% of small businesses invest in social media marketing.
25% of small businesses invest in online marketing.
17% are investing in search engine optimization (SEO).
26% are investing in email marketing.
50% of small business owners use two or fewer software platforms or applications in their marketing.
80% of small businesses do not invest in content marketing, and experts warn that they are missing a key marketing opportunity.
Email, website, and social media are the top three marketing tools used by small businesses: 54% use email, 51% have a website, and 48% use social media.
Less than 30% of small businesses use website analytics, call tracking, or coupon codes. 18% of small businesses admit to not tracking anything.
56% of those with a website say their website has a responsive design
73% of businesses are investing in design to differentiate their brands online.
Conclusion
Statistics and trends are critical in marketing because:
they illustrate the current state of play
show you how the industry is behaving, and will behave in the future
allow you to see what works, and what doesn’t work
helps you allocate your budget
confirm actions that earn the best returns before you execute
To get the most out of the data we’ve collected here:
don’t get overwhelmed with all the figures
examine the basics first - money, budgeting and time statistics, and tools, platforms and assets statistics
Then focus on those areas that bear greatest significance to your marketing operations first
revisit your current marketing strategy and weigh it in against those statistics most relevant to your business
create a plan of action to improve on your current position based on the relevant statistics
If you’d like help understanding how these statistics inform your strategy, or, if you’d like to discuss strengthening your marketing campaigns based on what you’ve read, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re happy to be of service to you.
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