Sit back and join us for a journey through 50 recent digital marketing statistics that combine to tell a captivating tale of change, innovation, and generational preferences in an industry that changes faster than Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg could ever have envisioned in “Around The World in 80 Days.”
Statistics exploring each of the B2B, influencer, content, and social media flavors of marketing combine to tell a captivating and unique story of how digital marketing has evolved over the past year, and offer us a great opportunity to better understand which trends the numbers are pointing to for the future.
We’ve arranged this numerical journey of various insightful digital marketing statistics to build up from those with the smallest percentage to the highest, and we hope you’ll gain a generous helping of new ideas through this lighthearted statistical look at where marketing is, and where it’s heading.
Why should digital marketers care about these statistics?
We’ve combed through a vast number of reports, studies, surveys, polls, and other types of data, and these are 50 of the most inspiring statistics that are both from high-caliber sources — including the Pew Research Center, Nielsen, NPR, Edison Research and Umass Dartmouth — and which give insight into where digital marketing is today and where it’s heading in the future.
Bring On The 50 Digital Marketing Stats
1.
- 4% of B2B marketers have any kind of influencer marketing program. (Source: Brian Solis, Altimeter Group Influencer 2.0 Report)
Brian Solis is a leader in the world influencer marketing, and our CEO Lee Odden has an extensive and fascinating new video interview about Brian’s latest book and marketing in general, which you can watch here to learn more: “Brian Solis on Lifescale – How to Live a More Creative, Productive and Happy Life Plus Improve Your Marketing.”
We’ve also explored the value of influencer marketing in the B2B world in recent pieces such as “Why Always-On Is Always Better for Driving B2B Influencer Marketing Success,” “5 Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019,” and “The Next Level of Influence: 30 Essential Influencer Marketing Statistics,” each a helpful look at how you can join the four percent if you’re not already a member of this elite but growing segment.
We also recently had the honor of being named by Forrester as the only B2B marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability on its latest “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report.”
2.
- 5% of B2B content marketers use predictive technology to nurture their audience.
(Source: CMI / MarketingProfs 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends Report)
At the other end of the scale, the following chart from the report shows that email and educational content are the most-used methods content marketers use to nurture audiences.
3.
- 8% of the U.S. digital advertising market will belong to Amazon by the end of 2019.
(Source: eMarketer 2019 forecast data)
4.
- 10% of consumers make purchases using smart speakers or home assistants.
(Source: Adobe Branded Content Survey 2019)
5.
- 11% of marketing budgets are spent on mobile. (Source: The CMO Survey, 2019)
6.
- 13% of CMOs and CMO equivalents are people of color. (Source: Association of National Advertisers CMO Scorecard Survey 2018)
7.
- 14% of U.S. consumers are confident that the social media industry keeps their data secure. (Source: SAS Data Privacy Survey)
8.
- 17% of lead-generation marketers use chatbots. (Source: HubSpot State of Email Lead Capture 2019)
With their rising implementation, we even placed chatbots in the number three spot on our list of “6 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019,” along with other artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
Microsoft’s Purna Virji has been involved in improving both chatbots and voice search, and during the last Pubcon Las Vegas conference I covered her fascinating presentation in “How to Optimize Customer Experience with AI – Top Tips from Microsoft’s Purna Virji.”
9.
- 18% of Americans 18+ now own a Smart Speaker, some 43 million people. (Source: NPR / Edison Research Smart Audio Report 2018)
10.
- 19% of all purchases are caused from word-of-mouth, with 90% influenced from word-of-mouth. (Source: Talk Triggers, Jay Baer / Daniel Lemin, 2018)
Such recommendations from friends were also shown to be the second most effective way that consumers find out about a new brand or product before buying, as shown in the following Animoto chart.
11.
- 24% of overall marketers are running ongoing influencer programs. (Source: Brian Solis, Altimeter Group Influencer 2.0 Report)
B2B brands stand to benefit from collaborating with influencers, and we recently worked with B2B experts Whitney Magnuson of IBM, Rani Mani of Adobe, Luciana Moran of Dun & Bradstreet, Martin Jones of Cox Communications, and Konstanze Alex, PhD of Dell, to share some of their advice on running successful ongoing influencer marketing programs, in “How Can B2B Brands Benefit from Collaborating with Influencers? Let’s Get the Scoop from the Experts.”
Working with B2B influencers allows our brand to have a constant pulse check with purchase decision-makers. @konstanze @dell Click To Tweet12.
- 24% of the U.S. population will listen to at least one podcast monthly by 2022. (Source: eMarketer, August 2018)
This statistic helps make clear that if your brand is looking to reach new audiences, there’s never been a better time to add podcast creation to your content marketing toolkit.
The New York Times has just published a piece looking an new survey results showing the biggest increase in podcast listeners yet, with one in three in the U.S. tuning in to at least one podcast every month, as shown below.
Our own Joshua Nite digs into why B2B content marketers should care about podcasts, with the details you need to know to get started, in “B2B Podcasting: What, Why and How.”
“Your target audience is likely spending a significant amount of time listening to podcasts already. And those who already listen to at least one podcast are likely to be on the lookout for more.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites Click To Tweet13.
- 25% of consumers are annoyed by content that is too personalized. (Source: Adobe Branded Content Survey 2019)
14.
- 26% of American adults admit to being online “almost constantly.” (Source: Pew Research Center January, 2018 Survey)
15.
- 28% of words on an average webpage are actually consumed. (Source: Nancy Harhut & Associates, 2018)
Knowing how to best make use of those words that will be read is key to content marketing success, and BuzzSumo and Backlinko recently studied the performance of key elements in blog posts, pulling statistics from 912 million posts, as shown below.
16.
- 32% of marketers are not confident in their knowledge of artificial intelligence. (Source: EverString / Heinz Marketing 2018 Report)
17.
- 37% of B2B organizations expect their marketing spend to increase in 2019. (Source: Spiceworks 2019 State of IT)
18.
- 38% of U.S. adults expect brands to reply within an hour on social media. (Source: Clutch 2018 Survey)
19.
- 40% of LinkedIn members visit each day. (Source: The Social Media Manager’s Guide to LinkedIn)
20.
- 45% of consumers abandon content not displaying well on their device. (Source: Adobe Branded Content Survey 2019)
21.
- 46% of marketers segment demand generation activities by personas. (Source: CMI Using Content Marketing Survey 2018)
Audience research trends were recently the subject of a survey from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, with some of the results shown below.
22.
- 47% of Instagram users watch Stories at least weekly. (Source: SimilarWeb / Recode, 2018)
The use of the popular “stories” format has grown on Instagram, and stories have made their way to most other major social media platforms. With this move comes an increased need for guidance in making most of the format, especially among B2B marketers.
How 200 leading global brands are utilizing the stories format was the subject of a Buffer study, with the format’s growth on various social media platforms shown in the following chart.
We’ve explored this in “What You Need to Know About Instagram Stories for B2B Marketing” by our own Nick Nelson, who also looked into how best to use Facebook Stories, with his helpful “The Future of Connection on Facebook: How Stories May Change the Marketing Game.”
Much like #FacebookStories, #InstagramStories offer a nascent playground for #B2BMarketing. If you’re looking to experiment with new channels as you peer ahead to 2019, these both stand out as great opportunities. - @NickNelsonMN Click To Tweet23.
- 47% of dads in the U.S. with a household income of $100K+ use Pinterest. (Source: MarketingDive Pinterest analysis, May 2018)
24.
- 50% of buyers plan to spend more on social media video advertising in the next 12 months. (Source: IAB Video Ad Spend Study, April 2018)
Statistics consistently show video’s increasing effectiveness in social media marketing, whether it’s live video on Twitter, or video’s growth on LinkedIn, as we explored during the last Content Marketing World conference in “Allen Gannett Shares His Secrets to Racking Up Millions of LinkedIn Video Views #CMWorld.”
Live video has now also made its way to LinkedIn (client), with the launch of LinkedIn Live to build on the success of its standard video offerings, which were already the fastest-growing format on the platform.
Video has the power to deliver compelling messages, as shown in the following image from Digital Vidya.
25.
- 50% of marketers say producing content consistently is a top challenge. (Source: CMI / MarketingProfs 2019 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends)
26.
- 53% of marketers who haven’t already implemented artificial intelligence in some fashion plan to do so in the next 12 months. (Source: Provoke Insights Study 2018)
27.
- 57% of B2B organizations focus on paid search to drive lead generation. (Source: Spiceworks 2019 State of IT)
28.
- 65% of teens say that Instagram is the best way for brands to reach them. (Source: Piper Jaffray Taking Stock with Teens Spring 2018 Survey)
This statistic points out the importance of knowing where your particular audience is most likely to spend time, so that you have the best chance of reaching them. It’s worth comparing the social media channels your business uses to make sure they align with where your audience will be.
Buffer recently released its 2019 State of Social report, offering an in-depth look at what digital marketers are focusing on and an examination of trends and how the industry is changing, with data such as the chart below.
29.
- 67% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in the following year. (Source: Milkwhale, Buying Under the Influence, 2018)
30.
- 68% feel their social life would suffer without Facebook. (Source: The Atlantic survey, June 2018)
31.
- 68% of bloggers publishing daily report strong results. (Source: Orbit Media 2018 Blogging Trends Survey)
32.
- 69% of agencies always or frequently use storytelling. (Source: CMI Agency Content Marketing 2019)
33.
- 69% of consumers prefer chatbots for quick communication with brands. (Source: Salesforce 2018 State of Chatbots Report)
Artificial-intelligence-powered chatbots have seen a rise is use, with 85% of customer service interactions expected to use the technology by 2020 (Gartner). MarketingProfs and Headway Capital took a look at implementing chatbots for Facebook Messenger, as partially shown below.
34.
- 70% of millennials on Twitter have commented on companies’ customer service. (Source: Sprinklr / Twitter 2018 U.S. Adults Survey, AdWeek)
35.
- 70% of B2B marketers say their number one digital marketing objective is generating more or higher-quality leads. (Source: DemandWave Survey)
36.
- 71% of digital marketers use employee ambassadors or want to for future campaigns. (Source: Sprout Social Index 2018)
37.
- 71% of people say they find sponsored videos on their Facebook feed to be relevant or highly-relevant to them. (Source: PROMO Online Video Statistics and Trends 2018)
38.
- 72% of brands had influencer marketing in their budget for 2018. (Source: Brian Solis, Altimeter Group Influencer 2.0 Report)
39.
- 73% of millennials are less likely to buy from brands with negative comments on social media. (Source: Sprinklr / Twitter 2018 U.S. Adults Survey, AdWeek)
40.
- 75% of millennials and GenZers expect “seamless handoffs between departments and channels, and contextualized engagement based on earlier interactions.” (Source: Salesforce Trends in Customer Trust 2018)
41.
- 79% of marketers say they will run a holiday campaign on social this year. (Source: Animoto 2018 State of Social Video Marketer Trends)
42.
- 79% of CMOs rate social media as an extremely or very important media channel. (Source: Nielsen CMO Report 2018)
Even among firms on the Inc. 500, social media has remained a major factor over the past several years. A recent study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth took a close look at how these top firms utilize social media, as shown below.
Study data of smaller firms has also shown the importance of social media marketing, such as the infographic from ZipSprout that MarketingProfs examined recently, as partially shown below.
43.
- 80% of people would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog post. (Source: Uscreen — Where’s Video Going? 2018)
The prominence of both standard and live video has continued to expand, with some five billion videos viewed daily on YouTube alone, and a recent report and infographic from Renderforest digs into some of the numbers behind the growth, as shown below.
44.
- 82% of consumers of online business content have purchased a company’s products or services as a result of content marketing. (Source: Clutch Content Marketing Survey, August 2018)
45.
- 82% of buyers wish B2B had the creativity associated with B2C. (Source: Propeller Insights / WHM 2019, MediaPost)
Now here’s a statistic that hits home for us, as we have recently been working hard to extoll the merits of bringing the creativity and energy often associated with B2C into the world of B2B.
In fact, we dedicated an entire guide to just this subject, with our “Break Free of Boring B2B Guide,” featuring more than a dozen top B2B Marketing Exchange speakers from firms including Google, 3M, Demandbase, Fuze, and others.
Check out the guide below, or click here to view the full-screen Break Free from Boring B2B experience.
46.
- 87% of B2B audiences find content online through search engines. (Source: Clutch — How B2B Audiences Engage Study 2018)
47.
- 90% of Pinterest users say the platform helps them decide what to purchase. (Source: Gfk research data 2018, MediaPost)
48.
- 95% of B2B buyers view content as trustworthy while evaluating a company and its offerings. (Source: iScribblers 2018)
49.
- 375% — The increase since 2013 in millennial travelers’ use of Instagram. (Source: Portrait of American Travelers 2018-2019, MMGY Global, MarketingDive)
50.
- 636.3 — The number of minutes the average American will spend daily with media in 2018. (Source: Publicis / Zenith 2018 Media Consumption Forecast, MediaPost)
A Sum Greater Than The Parts — Digital Stats Wisdom
I encourage you to use these digital marketing statistics to create meaningful experiences that inspire, and to help guide and shape your campaigns, as industry knowledge backed by quality research can infuse your work in any area of marketing with both new energy and possibilities.
You can also keep up with new statistics and research by following the TopRank Marketing blog, which recently celebrated its 15th year of covering digital marketing, or come see us in person at an upcoming conference.
Our CEO Leo Odden will be presenting this week at inOrbit 2019 on March 14 – 15 in Slovenia, followed by Clever Content Conference 2019 on April 9 – 10 in Denmark, and at Content Marketing Conference in Boston on April 16 – 19, each a great opportunity to learn how to best put those statistics to use.
