Key Insights
Essential data points from our research
Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less
82% of marketers actively use content marketing
72% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement
For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42
Segmented campaigns have led to a 760% increase in revenue
Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%
54% of social browsers use social media to research products
71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family
91% of millennials trust reviews from influencers as much as friends and family
86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool
93% of marketers say video has won them a new customer
Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%
Marketers who document their strategy are 313% more likely to report success
Acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one
80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences
Content Marketing & SEO
- 1Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less
- 282% of marketers actively use content marketing
- 372% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement
- 4The first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates
- 5Marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI
- 661% of online users in the US have purchased a product after reading a blog recommendation
- 7Articles with a word count between 2,250 and 2,500 earn the most organic traffic
- 8Updating and republishing old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%
- 953% of all trackable website traffic comes from organic search
- 1060% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads
- 11Conversions are almost 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%)
- 12Compounding blog posts make up 10% of all blog posts and generate 38% of overall traffic
- 1369% of marketers invested time in SEO in 2021
- 14Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more lead growth than small businesses without blogs
- 1595% of B2B buyers consider content as trustworthy when evaluating a company and its offerings
- 1647% of buyers view three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep
- 17Companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month get 3.5x more traffic than those that publish 0-4 posts
- 1870% of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than a traditional advertisement
- 19Websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages
- 20Long-form content generates 77.2% more links than short articles
Interpretation
Treat content as your smartest, cheapest salesperson: content marketing produces over three times as many leads as outbound at 62% less cost, delivers almost six times the conversions of non‑adopters, makes bloggers 13 times more likely to see positive ROI, and when you publish long, frequent, SEO focused posts, refresh older pieces, and keep pages very fast you compound trust, links, indexed pages and organic traffic into dramatically better demand and sales.
Email & Automation
- 1For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42
- 2Segmented campaigns have led to a 760% increase in revenue
- 3Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%
- 435% of marketers send their customers 3-5 emails per week
- 578% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months
- 6Email marketing automation generates 320% more revenue than non-automated emails
- 7Adding videos to your email can increase click rates by 300%
- 849% of consumers said that they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis
- 980% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention
- 10Emails with personalized subject lines generate 50% higher open rates
- 1181% of SMBs rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel
- 12Transactional emails have 8x more opens and clicks than any other type of email
- 1320% of retail, e-commerce, and CPG companies use email marketing to personalize content for their audiences
- 14Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity
- 1563% of companies using marketing automation outperform competitors
- 16Interactive email content increases the click-to-open rate by 73%
- 1799% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking 20 times a day
- 18Only 20% of email subscribers open emails that don’t contain an emoji in the subject line, implying emojis can boost engagement
- 19Mobile clients account for 41.6% of email opens
- 20Cart abandonment emails have a 45% open rate
Interpretation
Email is the marketing workhorse you ignore at your peril, returning about $42 for every dollar spent while segmentation can boost revenue by 760 percent and automation generates 320 percent more revenue plus a 14.5 percent lift in sales productivity and helps 63 percent of companies outperform competitors, welcome and transactional messages command dizzying opens of 82 percent and eight times the opens and clicks of other emails, cart recovery and weekly promos resonate with customers who largely want weekly offers and deliver a 45 percent open rate, personalized subject lines raise opens by about 50 percent and only 20 percent of subscribers open emails that do not contain an emoji, videos and interactive content multiply click rates by roughly 300 percent and 73 percent respectively, more than 40 percent of opens happen on mobile and nearly everyone checks their inbox daily, which is why 81 percent of small businesses and most marketers rely on email and send several messages a week as engagement continues to climb.
Social Media & Influencer
- 154% of social browsers use social media to research products
- 271% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family
- 391% of millennials trust reviews from influencers as much as friends and family
- 498% of marketers say Instagram is the most influential platform for influencer marketing
- 5User-generated content (UGC) posts shared to social channels see a 28% higher engagement rate than standard company posts
- 6LinkedIn generates 80% of B2B leads from social media
- 749% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations
- 8Brands make $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing
- 983% of people use Instagram to discover new products or services
- 1073% of marketers believe that their efforts through social media marketing have been somewhat effective or very effective for their business
- 11Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content
- 1289% of marketers say influencer marketing ROI is comparable to or better than other marketing channels
- 1390% of Instagram users follow a business
- 14Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images
- 1550% of consumers follow brands on social media to learn about new products or services
- 1696% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles
- 17Stories on Instagram convert at a rate of 15–25% for direct swipes
- 18Facebook ads reach 2.11 billion people globally
- 1964% of consumers will make a purchase after watching a branded social video
- 20Micro-influencers have 22.2 times more buying conversations than typical consumers
Interpretation
Bottom line, social media is simultaneously your research aisle, recommendation engine and short sales funnel: over half of social browsers use it to research products, Instagram is where most discovery and influencer impact happen, millennials trust influencers like friends, positive social experiences drive strong word-of-mouth, UGC and visuals lift engagement dramatically, influencer campaigns return roughly $5.20 per dollar and micro-influencers spark far more buying conversations, while LinkedIn owns B2B lead gen—so if you’re not investing in authentic, visual, influencer-led social strategies, you’re simply leaving discovery, trust and revenue on the table.
Strategy & CX
- 1Marketers who document their strategy are 313% more likely to report success
- 2Acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one
- 380% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences
- 4Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don't focus on customers
- 573% of companies with "above average" customer experience perform better financially than their competitors
- 6A 5% increase in customer retention can increase company profitability by 75%
- 728% of marketers say that "closing the loop" (attributing conversion directly to marketing) is their top marketing challenge
- 893% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service
- 9Marketers spend about 26% of their budgets on marketing technology
- 10Only 42% of marketers say they are able to measure their full customer journey
- 1188% of marketers say their growth strategy relies on collecting first-party data
- 12Companies with a strong omnichannel engagement strategy retain an average of 89% of their customers
- 1361% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site
- 1466% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations
- 1557% of direct-to-consumer buyers say they have made a purchase from a new brand after seeing an ad on social media
- 16Agile marketing adoption has been shown to increase speed to market by 53%
- 1784% of marketers say they used AI in 2020, up from 29% in 2018
- 1887% of consumers check online reviews for local businesses in 2020
- 19Brands that blog generate 67% more leads than those that do not
- 20By 2023, 60% of CMOs will slash the size of their marketing analytics departments by 50% due to failed ROI goals
Interpretation
These stats read like a strategy test: document your plan to triple your odds of success, stop paying five to twenty‑five times more to acquire customers when a small lift in retention can spike profits, prioritize personalization, mobile, reviews, blogs and omnichannel experiences to turn buyers into loyal repeat customers, measure and close the loop with first party data and AI rather than relying on vanity metrics, and use agile, focused martech to accelerate results before you gut your analytics team.
Video & Visuals
- 186% of businesses use video as a marketing tool
- 293% of marketers say video has won them a new customer
- 3Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%
- 4Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text
- 587% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website
- 696% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service
- 754% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support
- 8Utilizing a custom thumbnail increases play rate by video by 34%
- 9Interactive video generates 66% more engagement than linear video
- 1088% of marketers plan to allocate more budget to video in the future
- 11Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement
- 124x as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it
- 13Companies using video enjoy 41% more web traffic from search than non-users
- 14Infographics are liked and shared on social media 3x more than any other type of content
- 15People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations
- 1639% of customers call a vendor after watching a video
- 17Live video creates 10x more engagement than pre-recorded video
- 18Visuals with color increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%
- 1962% of people said they were more interested in a product after seeing it in a Facebook Story
- 20Presentations with visual aids are 43% more persuasive than those without
Interpretation
Taken together, the data is unmistakable and a little brutal: consumers overwhelmingly prefer short, well-crafted video and vivid visuals, which boost message retention, traffic, engagement and conversions far beyond text alone, so brands that want real growth should prioritize interactive, live and thumbnailed videos plus shareable infographics and illustrations and fund them accordingly.
