100+ digital marketing statistics for 2021
At The Loop, we’re experts in all things digital marketing, including content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing.
But things move fast and are always evolving in the digital marketing world, which can make it difficult to stay on top of the trends. Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.
Digital Marketing Statistics
78% of marketers say they have a small marketing team of between one and three people, most often a writer, social media manager, and SEO specialist.
On average, people see up to 5,000 ads per day.
53% of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead generation.
The 500 most popular search terms make up just 8.4% of all search volume.
A majority of pages (91%) see no organic search traffic from Google.
Mobile display ad spend reached $61 billion in 2020, up 22% from 2019.
Across the globe, digital ad spend is expected to reach $389 billion this year.
Just 3 in 5 marketers believe their strategy is effective.
40% of marketers say proving the ROI of their marketing activities is their biggest challenge.
More than half of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when searching on their phone – and 76% who search on their phones want to visit a business the same day.
One in three people respond to text message CTAs and 47% of those end up making a purchase.
Mobile devices now generate about half of all website traffic globally.
Mobile advertising spending will surpass $280 billion dollars by next year.
Google sees an estimated 3.5 billion searches each day.
Over half of shoppers say they use Google to research an online purchase.
SEO Statistics
Google sees over 3.5 billion searches each day.
93% of all online interactions start with a search engine.
3 in 4 SEO experts charge a monthly retainer fee, most often between $500 and $1,000.
Most SEO experts (88%) charge $100-$150 per hour and $500-$1,000 per project.
75% of those using a search engine will never go further than the first page of search results. ever get past the first page of search results. In fact, the first result in Google’s organic search results sees an average click-through rate (CTR) of 31.7% and three times as many backlinks as those in positions two through ten.
Overall, the first five organic results see 68% of all clicks.
SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than social media.
The average page in the top 10 search results is over two years old.
Some of the most searched words in Google are Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, Gmail, eBay, and Walmart. That said, less than 1% of keywords are responsible for 60.67% of all searches.
50% of searches contain at least four words.
67% of marketers say SEO is the most effective way to grow content strategy.
Less than 6% of pages will rank in the top 10 results within a year of publication.
More than 3 in 4 marketers say SEO is better than PPC for generating sales.
85% of marketers rely on website analytics and SEO tools for campaign tracking, and Google Analytics is the most-used tool.
More than half of all websites are lacking a collection of backlinks.
70.87% of queries with more than 10,000 monthly searches consist of only one or two words.
Long content receives 77.2% more backlinks than short articles.
Less than 1% of Google clicks occur on the second page.
Yelp appears in the top five search results for 92% of Google web queries that include a city and business category.
Content Marketing Statistics
60% of marketers say content marketing is important to their overall strategy, and 62% will increase their budget in the next year.
70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, and 78% of companies have one to three content specialists.
“Content Marketing Strategy” is the most frequently searched term related to content marketing.
Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing but generates three times as many leads.
73.6% of domains have reciprocal links.
The most common measures of content marketing success are total sales, web traffic, and lead generation.
SMBs spend an average of $10,000 per year on content marketing; one in six enterprise-level organizations spend upwards of $10,000,000.
Just 1 in 5 marketers create original research and studies.
The average cost of buying a link is $361.44, compared to $77.80 to publish a guest post.
Companies with blogs see 67% more leads per month than those without. The three most popular content formats are blog posts, case studies, and customer success stories. More than 80% of blog traffic comes from desktops.
Articles that are longer than 3,000 words get 3x the traffic, 4x the shares, and 3.5x the backlinks than shorter ones. Listicles get twice as many shares as other formats.
Over half of companies say updating old content has proven the most efficient content marketing tactic.
18% of marketers choose WordPress as their CMS. On average, users produce about 70 million new posts and 77 million new comments every month.
Social Media Statistics
There are over 3.6 billion people who use social media and the number is projected to increase to 4.41 billion in 2025. On average, users spend 2 hours and 22 minutes on social media every day.
The most popular networks, ranked by the number of users, are Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger.
94% of marketers use social media for content distribution.
90% of marketers say Instagram is the most important social media platform for influencer marketing.
Facebook reported nine million active advertisers in Q2 of 2020, which accounted for 92% of total revenue.
Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, and 500 million of them use Instagram Stories.
Twitter is home to 187 million monetizable daily active users.
LinkedIn has more than 722 million users in over 200 countries and territories.
96% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic content distribution and 83% for paid social. It is the most-used platform in both content distribution types.
Posts with 1,900–2,000 words perform the best in terms of views and engagement on LinkedIn.
Social media ads saw an average CTR of 1.3% in Q2 2020, up from 1.2% in 2019.
Social media advertising is used by 83% of marketers and ranked second in success behind search engine marketing.
Posts and stories are the most effective types of influencer marketing.
Facebook ad spend totaled more than $31 billion in 2020, up 5% from 2019.
Paid Search and PPC Statistics
More than 1 in 4 internet users have an ad blocker.
With 96% of brands using it, Google Ads is the most popular PPC network. The platform can increase brand awareness by up to 80%.
On average, businesses typically make $3 for every $1.60 spent on Google Ads.
About 97% of Google’s total revenues come from Google Ads, with 96% of brands spending money on the platform.
92% of consumers are blind to online ads.
On average, the yearly cost of PPC is between $108,000 and $120,000.
As of 2020, the average PPC salary is $49,941 per year.
74% of brands call PPC a huge driver for their business, and 64% plan to increase their budget in the next year.
At over $54, the most expensive AdWord is ‘insurance.’
Legal services have the highest CPC ($6+) while advocacy and nonprofit groups have the lowest ($2 or less).
The average cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads is $2.69 on the search network. This drops to $0.63 on the display network.
49% of people are most likely to click on a text ad.
46% of internet users can’t tell the difference between paid and organic search results.
About four times as many people will click a paid search ad on Google (63%) than on any other search engine. This includes Amazon (15%), YouTube (9%), and Bing (6%).
One in three people will click on a paid search ad simply because it directly answers their search query.
Users who arrive at a business site from paid ads are more likely to buy than those who came from an organic link.
Video ads are clicked 73% more often than traditional banner ads.
Email Marketing Statistics
Gmail accounts for 27.8% of all email readers.
On average, email users check their inboxes 20 times a day.
Both consumers and marketers say email is their preferred method of communicating, and 75% of marketers say email provides the best ROI. On average, every dollar spent on email marketing returns $42.
40% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the most important source of success in their content marketing plan.
Words such as “help,” “free,” “reminder,” and “% off discount” are most likely to negatively impact the open rate of an email.
Tuesdays see the highest email open – and unsubscription – rates.
Segmented email campaigns have a 14% higher open rate and 75% higher click rate compared to non-segmented email campaigns. Personalized subject lines receive a 50% higher open rate.
You are up to six times more likely to get a click from an email than from a tweet – and including a video can increase that by up to 300% while social sharing buttons increase CTR by 158%.
Mobile devices account for 2 out of 5 of opened emails.
69% of email recipients say they can tell if an email is spam just by the subject line.
An estimated 347 billion emails will be sent and received by the end of 2022.
At The Loop Marketing, we’re experts at guiding brands’ digital marketing strategies. Contact us today to get started.