100+ Must-Know Digital Marketing Stats for Smarter Decisions

Yup—101. Making data-driven decisions is that important to us. Whatever you decide to pursue in 2023, make sure it’s right for your business. Leaning heavily into data will help you do that. 

It’s time again to map out your 2023 marketing plan. The Big Leap team is here to take some of the load off by offering up-to-date statistics that help identify lucrative opportunities for your brand. 

Even though the last few years were anything but normal, there’s still a wealth of insights to gain. If there is one conclusion to draw from this year’s marketing trends, it’s that every business needs to invest in digital marketing. 

The eight pillars of digital marketing that help grow your business and achieve your online objectives are:

1. SEO
2. Paid Advertising
3. Content Marketing
4. Email
5. MA
6. Social
7. Conversion Rate Optimization
8. Reputation Management

Here are 101 digital marketing stats about these pillars so you can get a clearer image of what your marketing strategy should look like next year. We start with general digital marketing statistics to give you the lay of the land, then hit the ground running with specific facts for each pillar. We’ve even sprinkled in some success stories to help you stay inspired. 

DIGITAL MARKETING: AN OVERVIEW

As Director of Content Marketing Carrie Haney puts it, good digital marketing for businesses is “all about delivering results that matter, results that bring growth, and results that drive up revenue and create sustainable success.” 

Achieving these requires tapping into strategy, agility, and customization. Here are four data points that can help guide your roadmap this coming year: 

1. Marketing strategy and planning are the top areas marketers are investing in for their innovation initiatives. (Gartner)
2. Referrals, social media, and email marketing are the top three sources of qualified marketing and sales leads in the B2B space. (Sagefrog Marketing Group)
3. Marketers are looking into hosting hybrid events to accommodate those who wish to attend digitally. These events involve technologies such as AR and VR. (Stefanini)
4. The top five marketing channels in 2022 have been social media, website/blog, email marketing, content marketing, and influencer marketing. (Hubspot)

SEO

If you want to show up to those who matter most to your business, you must have SEO. By implementing the right technical and local SEO best practices onto OyBoy’s site, Big Leap helped OyBoy achieve a 990.9% increase in new site visitors and a 95.4% jump in organic traffic.

So yeah, SEO is pretty important. We’ll let these stats do the rest of the talking: 

1. 93% of online experiences start with a search engine. (Forbes)
2. 77% of B2C marketers use SEO, and 66% of B2B marketers use SEO. (Hubspot)
3. Google currently has 83.84% of the global search engine market share. (Statista)
4. The #1 organic result on Google gets an average click-through rate of 27.6%. (Backlinko)
5. Meanwhile, 67.6% of all search engine clicks go to the first five organic results. (Zero Limit Web)
6. Title tags with 40 to 60 characters have the highest CTR. (Backlinko)
7. Mobile searches account for over 58.99% of all web traffic worldwide. (Statista)

PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC)

When paired with SEO, PPC can bolster your long-term organic goals and build brand authority. Financial lead generation business Round Sky took advantage of this lucrative combination, which earned them a 3400% increase in ranking keywords and a 38.46% boost in organic traffic. 

How can you bolster your PPC efforts next year? Get brainstorming with these insightful stats: 

1. 66% of B2B marketing professionals have seen ROI from paid social media efforts. (Sagefrog Marketing Group)
2. Google Ads results that carry purchasing keywords (e.g., “buy”, “purchase”, etc.) receive 65% of clicks. (WordLead)
3. PPC ads can boost brand awareness by 80%. (Google)
4. 65% of all high-intent searches bring in a PPC ad click. (WebFX)
5. For every $1 spent on Google Ads, businesses can earn average revenue of $2. (Google)
6. You are 70% more likely to convert site visitors with retargeted display ads than regular display banners. (Social Media Today)
7. 52% of PPC clicks come from mobile devices. (Lunio)
8. 69.57% of online shoppers are likely to abandon their shopping carts. With retargeting ads, 26% of those shoppers are likely to return and complete their purchase. (Drip)
9. 40% of businesses believe their PPC budget is lower than it should be. (WordStream)
10. 75% of people click on ads because they expect ads to help them find the right information they’re looking for. (Clutch)

CONTENT MARKETING

There is no SEO without content. Period. High-quality content drives the traffic SEO brings and encourages users to take the next step. When fintech company Paystand launched a content marketing strategy to bolster its SEO efforts, the business won 290 new leads and a 52.46% boost in conversions. 

1. 90% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. (Demand Metric)
2. The top three content marketing trends are interactive content, behind-the-scenes content, and brand-value content. (Hubspot)
3. Blogs give sites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. (Comalytics)
4. Video is still the most commonly used content marketing format, followed by blogs, images, and infographics. (Hubspot)
5. The top three metrics marketers use to measure the success of their content marketing campaigns are sales, web traffic, and social engagement. (Hubspot)
6. Marketing professionals who use video content in their strategy grow revenue 49% faster than marketers who do not. (WordStream)
7. Content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing. (Demand Metric)
8. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, making its ROI significantly higher. (Demand Metric)
9. 62% of businesses outsource their content marketing efforts. (Demand Metric)
10. Marketers typically create content for multiple audience segments. Targeting three audience segments is most common. (Hubspot)
11. 56% of marketers who blog say it’s effective and 10% report blogging as their largest ROI producer. (HubSpot)
12. 92% of marketers report their content is a valuable business asset. (Review42)

EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing is a great way not only to drive your content marketing efforts but also to build brand loyalty and trust. For example, email marketing allowed Redmond Life to stay connected with its growing customer base. By building out automated email triggers and personalized messages, the business earned 25,000 form submissions. 

1. Most marketers send their customers a maximum of two emails within a week. (Hubspot)
2. 37% of brands are increasing their email budget. (Hubspot)
3. The top three email marketing strategies for marketers are message personalization, mobile-friendly emails, and subscriber segmentation. (Hubspot)
4. One of the top technologies marketers use to drive content marketing campaigns is email marketing software. (Content Marketing Institute)
5. 64% of marketers express email engagement provides insights into B2B content performance. (Content Marketing Institute)
6. For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect a $38 return. (Forbes)
7. 84% of survey respondents from B2B organizations express they’ve included email as a marketing tactic, primarily because of its high ROI. (Smart Insights)
8. CTA buttons—as opposed to text links—in emails increase click-through rates by 28%. (Campaign Monitor)
9. The average open rate for emails in North America is 23.53%. (GetResponse)
10. Tuesday is usually the day with the highest click-through rate, which is 2.4%. (Campaign Monitor).
11. 42.3% of people will delete an email if it’s not optimized for mobile. (SaleCycle)
12. 77% of organizations have seen an increase in email engagement rates during 2021. (Hubspot)
13. The top three impactful strategies for email marketing campaigns are subscriber segmentation, message personalization, and email automation campaigns. (Hubspot)
14. 63.33% of businesses reduce the frequency of emails sent to subscribers based on their engagement levels. (Databox)
15. The top three reasons businesses use email are to improve customer loyalty/retention, increase revenue, and generate leads. (Hubspot)

MARKETING AUTOMATION

Connect with more people on a more personal level with marketing automation (MA). Sounds too good to be true? Take this success story—when CBD company Hemplucid leveraged MA to drive its email marketing efforts, the business boosted its revenue by 144%. 

MA leans into technology to automate your lead-nurturing process and prioritize your marketing and sales tasks. 

1. 76% of all companies use marketing automation. (Hubspot)
2. 80% of marketing automation users experience a boost in the number of leads using MA software. (Invesp)
3. The top three areas marketing automation is being used for are task management, content automation, and chatbots. (Hubspot)
4. Gartner estimates a 15% savings on creative production with marketing automation. (Hubspot)
5. Marketing automation generates 451% more qualified leads. (Annuitas Group)
6. 77% of consumers want unique content at each stage of their buying journey. Marketing automation simplifies this process. (Salesforce)
7. Hubspot is the most popular automation platform among B2B marketers. (Sagefrog Marketing Group)
8. Marketers are allocating about 26% of their budget towards marketing automation. (Hubspot)
9. Business leaders believe the greatest benefits of marketing automation are lead generation and operational efficiency. (Instapage)
10. Nearly a third of surveyed marketers reported that marketing automation initiates closer relationships between sales and marketing. (Liana Technologies)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media offers numerous opportunities to engage and connect with your target audience. Take health and wellness business InvoSpa as an example. Using strategic hashtag and influencer tactics, InvoSpa gained a 329% increase in Instagram engagement and a 500% jump in Facebook followers. 

1. There are 4.65 billion active users on some form of social media. (Statista)
2. The average person spends up to three hours a day on social media. (GlobalWebIndex)
3. 42% of social media browsers use a social media platform to research a product. (GlobalWebIndex)
4. 63% of marketers strongly agree that social media is very important to their business. (Statista)
5. 94% of B2C marketers use Facebook, and 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn. (Statista) 
6. 83% of B2B marketers utilize social media and social media advertising as part of their overall marketing strategy. (Sagefrog Marketing Group)
7. Social media marketers’ most common posting frequency is 3-4 times a week. (Hubspot)
8. The top three areas where marketers are increasing their social media investments are live streaming, short-form video content, and VR + AR. (Hubspot)
9. The top three goals marketers aim for via social media are advertising products/services, increasing brand awareness, and improving revenue/sales. (Hubspot)
10. 82% of marketers repurpose content across their social channels. (Hubspot).
11. 71% of consumers who’ve had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend that brand to friends and family. (LYFE Marketing)
12. The best time to post for high engagement on Instagram and Facebook is during the middle of the weekdays (Monday-Friday), between 10 am and 4 pm. (Sprout Social)
13. 62% of users report higher interest in a brand after seeing it on Facebook stories. (Social Media Today)
14. 60% of TikTok users are Gen Zers. (Social Media Today)
15. 25% of vertical full-screen TikTok videos receive a 25% higher watch-through rate. (Social Media Today)
16. 80% of Instagram users say how-to videos are their favorite, and 90% of them follow a business on the platform. (Social Media Today)
17. 94% of podcast listeners are more active on social media than the general population. (FinancesOnline) 

CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

How successful is your site in reeling in conversions? Are visitors taking the action you want them to take? Conversion rate optimization (CRO) helps you identify opportunities to turn more visitors into qualified leads.

When Urban Orthodontics tapped into CRO practices (e.g., improving site speed and user interface), our client was able to nab a 109% increase in conversion rates.

1. The average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%. The top 25% of high-performing sites have an average conversion rate of 5.31%, and the top 10% boast an average conversion rate of 11.45%. (WordStream)
2. Mobile conversion rate in 2021 was 2.1 to 2.3%. (Statista)
3. Meanwhile, desktop users have a conversion rate of 3.8%. (Statista)
4. “Paid search and organic search deliver the highest conversion rates and lowest bounce rates.” (Episerver)
5. The more landing pages you have, the more leads you can earn. Businesses with 40+ optimized landing pages get 12 times more leads than those with only 1-5 landing pages. (Hubspot)
6. CRO tools have an ROI of 223%. (Wordstream)
7. Only 17% of marketers use A/B tests on their landing pages to improve conversion rates. (Hubspot)
8. 71% of companies conduct two or more A/B tests each month. (Invesp)
9. CTA buttons are the most popular site component for A/B tests. (Invesp)
10. Personalized CTAs convert 202% better than normal CTAs. (Hubspot)
11. Landing pages with a slow page load time can produce a 7% decrease in conversion rate. (Neil Patel)

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

Don’t let negative online listings get you down—take full control of your business’ reputation. With the right reputation management strategies, you can illuminate your company’s true value and foster genuine trust with your target audience. 

Skincare company NuSkin leveraged quality content to bury negative search results and push their positive listings up to the top 10 results on the SERP (search engine results page).  

1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 81% of consumers trust the advice of their friends and families over a business. (Hubspot)
2. However, 49% of shoppers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. (BrightLocal)
3. Of all your avid customers, 59% will walk away from your brand after several bad experiences, and 17% of them will leave after just one bad experience. (PwC)
4. 73% of customers only read reviews published in the past month. (Thrive My Way)
5. 62% believe they’ve seen a fake review for a local business in the past year. (BrightLocal)
6. 17% of the average local marketer’s time is spent on online reputation management. (BrightLocal)
7. 92% of online consumers will look at a product review before making a purchase. (OptinMonster)
8. 89% of consumers are inclined to come back to a business that responded to all of their customers’ reviews. (BrightLocal)
9. 47% of worldwide internet users say they leave an online review at least once a month. (GlobalWebIndex)
10. 96. 65% of U.S. consumers feel a positive experience with a brand is more influential than good advertising. (PwC)

Gear Up for 2023 with Big Leap

We know, there’s A LOT to be done to prepare for next year. But don’t worry, that’s where Big Leap comes in.

Prepare the right way for 2023 by contacting our trusted team of marketers. Centered on driving long-term results for our clients, we will strategically build the holistic marketing strategy your business deserves. 

Big Leap knows good marketing takes time, and we’re here to help you every step of the way.