113 Digital Marketing Statistics for 2026

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If you’re wondering, “What’s working in 2026?”, we’re going to answer this question with data from different consumer surveys and industry reports. Let’s look at the latest digital marketing growth statistics to see where this field is headed.

Digital Marketing Industry & Budget Statistics

As digital marketing grows, so do the budgets behind it. The digital marketing statistics below confirm this and reflect some other trends in marketers’ approaches and customer preferences:

1. The global digital advertising industry is projected to reach $1.16 trillion by 2030, with a CAGR of 15.4% from 2025 to 2030. (Grand View Research)
2. Digital display is expected to expand at a 15.5% CAGR by 2030, outpacing search at 12.2%. Growth speed differs, market weight does not. Search accounts for 40.9% of the global digital advertising and marketing market. (Global Industry Analysts)
3. In 2026, over 75% of marketers expect to maintain or raise budgets for search and display advertising. (HubSpot State of Marketing)
4. In 2026, 60% of small businesses plan to raise marketing budgets, focusing on content marketing and digital advertising. (Clutch)
5. Planned budget increases vary by channel. Content marketing leads with 45%, digital advertising follows at 43%, branding stands at 41%, and sponsorships with strategic partnerships reach 35%. (Clutch)
6. More than 50% of company marketing budgets are directed toward paid media and technology investments. (Hostinger)
7. 35% of marketers plan to raise influencer marketing spend, while 42% expect to maintain current investment levels. (Hubspot)
8. Mobile ads are expected to take up 70% of overall advertising expenditure by 2028. (Hostinger)
9. By 2026, marketing job openings are forecast to increase by 10%, faster than the general labor market. (ZipRecruiter)
10. Digital marketing is identified as the fastest-growing job skill, supported by a projected 6% increase in roles by 2032. (Forbes’ online marketing statistics)
11. Studies show AI is often used to cut roles instead of improving team capacity. This leads to workloads increasing, burnout rises, and talent loss affects long-term delivery and pipeline stability. (AMA’s Future Trends in Marketing 2026 report)
12. A skills readiness gap persists across modern digital roles, with Deloitte reporting that 66% of managers see recent hires as unable to keep up current and shifting job requirements, so it is important you cooperate with a proactive team. (Deloitte Insights)
13. Responses from CMOs and marketing leaders across North America, the UK, and Europe show marketing spend holding steady at around 7.7% of overall revenue in 2025. (Gartner)
14. Keeping up with cross-platform buyer behavior remains difficult: 71% of marketers report challenges understanding how and where audiences interact with brands, based on HubSpot research. (Hubspot Marketing Overview)
15. Roughly 20% of marketers identify data-driven marketing as a top difficulty, according to HubSpot’s 2026 findings, pointing to challenges with modern tools and trend analysis. (Hubspot)
16. Data analytics, AI literacy, and general tech fluency are projected to remain among the most sought-after and rapidly expanding skill sets globally through 2030. Data analytics & interpretation remain a core demanded skill for marketers. (World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report)
17. 50% of marketers say they actively invest in content marketing. (SeoProfy)
18. 37% of B2B companies still rely on cold calling. (Dux-Soup)
19. Around 60% of businesses have already embraced AI for marketing purposes. (SeoProfy)
20. Marketer focus in 2026 centers on lead quality and MQLs at 39%, then lead-to-customer conversion at 34%. digital marketing ROI (31%), customer acquisition cost (30%), and lead generation volume (29%) complete the top metrics list (HubSpot).

ROI & Conversion Statistics

ROI and conversion numbers show what really pays off. Some channels bring traffic, others bring customers, and the gap between them is often bigger than expected. Our digital marketing statistics help see these differences clearly and compare performance. Below, the data shows where conversions happen and which channels deliver return:

1. Email ranked among the top ROI digital channels in 2025. 30% of companies reported returns of $36–$50 per $1 spent, while 35% reported $10–$36 per $1. (Litmus)
2. Top ROI performance is led by website, blog, and SEO at 27%. Email marketing records 22% and ranks 5th overall. (HubSpot)
3. Social media shopping tools are cited by 23% of marketers as a major ROI driver, while 29% point to them as a leading use case for personalization and segmentation. (HubSpot)
4. Mobile messaging is identified by 14% of marketers as a strong channel for personalization and segmentation, while 11% rank it among their highest ROI drivers. (HubSpot)
5. 32% of companies use PPC as a channel to support direct-to-consumer sales. (Hostinger)
6. About 80% of businesses depend on pay-per-click advertising to grow their businesses. (Cropink)
7. Effective PPC optimization is associated with average returns of $2 per $1 of ad spend, equivalent to a 200% ROI. (WordStream)
8. In 2026, video ROI is most often tracked through views (67%) and engagement (63%), followed by leads or clicks (52%) and direct sales (32%). (Wyzowl)
9. Video content drives purchase intent for 85% of people. (Wyzowl)
10. Multi-touch attribution usage by company size in 2025 is reported at 44%, 40%, 38%, 33%, 42%, and 73% across different size segments. (CaliberMind)
11. The top barrier to effective marketing measurement in 2025 is data integration, cited by 65.7% of marketers. (CaliberMind)
12. 90% of consumers are willing to share some form of personal data in exchange for more personalized service. (PWC)
13. 53% of consumers say sharing personal information is worthwhile when it improves the smoothness of brand interactions. (PWC)
14. Google’s methodology for estimating economic impact assumes that each $1 invested in Google Ads produces $2 in business revenue. (Google)
15. SEO delivers an average return of 8x, while PPC generates a lower return at around 4x under comparable conditions. (SeoProfy)
16. The absence of SEO often leads to heavier reliance on paid advertising, pushing ad spend increases to around 400%. (Lyfe)
17. The overall Google Ads conversion rate averaged roughly 7.52% across industries in 2025. (WordStream)
18. The average conversion rate for organic search across sectors is approximately 2.7%. (Thunderbit)
19. Leads generated through SEO close at a rate of 14.6%, compared to 1.7% for outbound marketing efforts. (SeoProfy)
20. Email marketing delivers an average conversion rate of approximately 2.6% across industries. (Ruler Analytics)
21. Well-optimized landing pages can achieve conversion rates of up to 11.45% or more, significantly surpassing the average of 2.35%. (Tenet)
22. A lack of personalization causes frustration for 71% of shoppers. (EcommerceBonsai)

SEO & Organic Search Statistics

According to SEO statistics, search engines continue to be the first stop for consumers with questions, problems to solve, and products to buy. But search has gotten smarter, and it’s now less about keyword stuffing and more about answering real questions searchers have. Overall, SEO continues to play a central role in marketing success. The digital marketing statistics below prove it:

1. In 2025, Google dominated the global search market, with 89.62% of traffic across all devices, while Bing accounted for only 4.04%. (Statista)
2. 72% of people use Google search when looking for local businesses. (SeoProfy)
3. Currently, around 1.3 billion websites exist globally, though just 15% are active, while 85% are inactive. (Siteefy)
4. The top Google search result captures an average of 39.8% of all clicks. (Hostinger)
5. When asked why people leave websites, 88.5% of respondents blamed slow loading speeds, and 73.1% cited poor mobile responsiveness. (SeoProfy)
6. User behavior data shows that the average amount of time spent on an individual page view ranges from 52 to 54 seconds. (Forbes)
7. Websites that appear first in search results typically load in 1.65 seconds. (Backlinko)
8. According to Hubspot’s digital marketing stats, more than 92% of experts report current or planned adoption of SEO optimization for traditional and AI-based search engines. (Hubspot)
9. 91% of marketers said SEO helped improve their website performance and marketing objectives in 2024. (SeoProfy)
10. Most marketers report that mobile devices generate more than half of their total annual traffic. (Hubspot)
11. Focus areas that SEO professionals worldwide prioritize are content strategy/production (13.5%) and data analysis (10%). (Statista)
12. A key challenge cited by SEO teams is the growing presence of ads, AI Overviews, product carousels, and rich features in Google SERPs, reducing above-the-fold visibility for organic results. (SEOFomoHub)
13. Search engines are used by 32.9% of users aged 16+ to discover new brands, products, and services. (HubSpot)
14. Search engines serve as the starting point for 68% of online activity. (Intergrowth)
15. The SEO software market is projected to grow by USD 40.05 billion, at a CAGR of 21.3% between 2024 and 2029 (forecast period 2025–2029). (Technavio)
16. The most popular SEO tools are Google Search Console, which is used by 93% of respondents; Screaming Frog, which is used by 88%; and Semrush, which is used by 67%. (Aira)
17. CTR for classic search links falls from 15% to 8% in sessions where an AI summary is present, a 47% decline in CTR. (Pew Research Center)
18. Zero-click sessions occur on 26% of pages that include an AI summary, compared to 16% on classic SERPs. (Pew Research Center)

Content & Video Marketing Statistics

Value matters more than volume in both video and content marketing. Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines decide which articles and videos earn visibility across an overcrowded web. The content and video marketing statistics below point to one constant: results come from knowing who you’re speaking to, creating content that actually helps, and proving expertise through substance:

1. The content marketing industry will grow by $539.3 million, with a CAGR of 13.9% from 2024 to 2029. (Technavio)
2. B2B content marketing challenges are led by conversion-focused content at 40%, resource limits at 39%, and measurement issues at 33%. Other challenges include content quality and volume at 28%, differentiation at 24%, buyer-journey alignment at 23%, teamwork at 21%, audience insight at 20%, strategy at 16%, sales alignment at 15%, tech at 8%, and compliance at 6%. (CMI)
3. According to Meetanshi digital marketing statistics, content marketing is part of the overall strategy for 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers. (Meetanshi)
4. 63% of survey respondents say they turn first to a company’s website when searching for information, reinforcing it as the main content hub. (Isoline)
5. Blog content length averages just under 1,400 words per post. (Orbit Media)
6. Average blog post length rose from 808 words in 2014 to a peak of 1,427 words in 2023, then declined to 1,394 words in 2024 and 1,333 words in 2025, indicating a reversal of the decade-long growth trend. (Orbit Media)
7. 65% cite content relevance and quality as the primary driver of content marketing impact, with team skills and capabilities close behind at 53%. (Content Marketing Institute)
8. B2B marketers name their top content marketing challenges as creating content that drives action at 40%, resource constraints around time, people, and budget at 39%, and difficulty measuring content effectiveness at 33%. (Content Marketing Institute)
9. Among B2C marketers, 84% rely on stronger content quality to compete more effectively. (Adam Connell)
10. 35% of organizations operate without a dedicated content marketing team. Team sizes of 2–5 people are most common at 32% overall, while 23% operate with a single dedicated content marketer. Larger teams are far less typical, with only 6% reporting 6–10 people and 4% reporting 11+ dedicated content roles, skewing heavily toward large enterprises. (Searchendurance)
11. 42% of customers say impersonal content causes frustration. (EcommerceBonsai)
12. An average of 4.5 content assets are consumed before responders initiate contact with a supplier. (Isoline)
13. The average individual watches online video for roughly 17 hours each week. (Social Shepherd)
14. 61% of B2B content marketers report higher investment in video in 2025 compared to the previous year. (Statista)
15. 67% of marketers who do not currently use video plan to start video marketing in 2026, while 33% do not plan to adopt it. Year over year, the share dropped by 1%, while overall intent to adopt video marketing stayed nearly unchanged. (Wyzowl)
16. Short-form video is already used by over 60% of companies as part of their content strategy, making it the most widely adopted format. Its adoption rate significantly exceeds that of blog posts at 34% and long-form video at 38%. (Hubspot)
17. Video-enhanced emails deliver an average conversion rate of 5.25%. (Backlinko)
18. Purchase intent rises for 88% of consumers after watching a video about a product. (Zebracat)
19. YouTube advertising exposure covered 45.5% of the global online population in early 2025. (Datareportal)
20. More than half of global B2B buyers, at 55%, consider video the most valuable form of content. (Isoline)

AI & Emerging Technology Statistics

As marketers adopt AI, they are seeing results that felt out of reach just a few years ago. Campaigns are becoming smarter, targeting is more precise, and creative output moves faster than ever. At the same time, concerns remain around overdependence on AI, algorithmic bias, and maintaining an authentic brand voice while trying to rank in AI Overviews and other LLMs. The following AI marketing statistics highlight how these shifts are playing out in practice:

1. By 2030, AI marketing tools are predicted to influence 45% of the world’s economy. (Edelman)
2. 68% of marketing executives said they got a return on their AI investment. (HubSpot)
3. About 73% of consumers express trust in content produced by AI. (SeoProfy)
4. 56% of marketers say the internet is now saturated with AI-generated content, while 65% report that consumers are becoming better at recognizing it. (Hubspot)
5. 66% of consumers estimate that AI will overtake traditional search within the next five years. (Search Engine Land)
6. Nearly 24% are actively considering updates to their SEO strategy to account for generative AI in search. (HubSpot)
7. AI is already present in email marketing for 39% of marketers, and an additional 25% report plans to adopt AI for future email campaigns. (Backlinko)
8. According to Salesforce digital marketing statistics, 71% of experts say their strategies for content creation and search visibility have changed due to generative AI. (Salesforce)
9. ChatGPT most often pulls from structured sources, as 61% of cited pages rely on schema markup. (SeoProfy’s ChatGPT ranking guide)
10. As consumers shift toward AI tools, close to 30% of marketers say their search traffic has dropped. (Hubspot)
11. 65% of marketers say consumer expectations have shifted toward faster and more personalized responses driven by everyday AI use, which aligns with the fact that nearly 49% of marketers now use AI to produce personalized content, which made it the most widely adopted trend last year. (Hubspot)
12. As teams try to earn LLM citations, data shows that links placed directly in AI summaries receive clicks in only around 1% of visits. (Pew Research Center)
13. In January, 91.3% of queries triggering an AI Overview were informational, but by October this dropped to 57.1% as commercial and transactional queries gained share. AI Overviews appeared in just 0.74% of navigational searches in January, but that figure climbed to 10.33% by October. (Semrush)
14. Among companies already using generative AI, just 1% believe their investments are already delivering their full potential. (DigitalMarketingInstitute)
15. Internet users referred by AI platforms visit about 4 pages on average, compared with higher engagement from search visitors (+1.2 pages) and overall site traffic (+1.5 pages). (Ahrefs)
16. AI users view fewer pages per unit of session time, averaging 2.27 compared to search and overall traffic, while at the same time spending about eight seconds longer on the site. Despite the longer time spent, AI-referred visitors show weaker engagement signals, with bounce rates 4.1% higher than search users and 5.4% higher than the overall site average. (Ahrefs)
17. Reddit threads, YouTube demos, and forum posts absorb roughly 33% of the traffic left behind by AIO. (Growth Memo)

Consumer Behaviour, Device & Local Search Statistics

Consumer behavior today is fragmented across devices, locations, and moments of intent. People switch between mobile and desktop, rely on local signals, and expect relevance instantly. Digital marketing statistics help trace these shifts and show how search behavior, device choice, and proximity influence real decisions.

1. AI responses and social proof resonate more with younger mobile audiences, whereas older search users prefer traditional organic results and trusted sources. (Growth Memo)
2. As of December 2025, mobile devices account for 54.23% of worldwide web traffic, while desktop usage makes up the remaining 45.77%. (StatCounter)
3. On average, people spend 3h 46m per day online on mobile devices, compared to 2h 52m per day on computers. (DataReportal Digital 2025)
4. HubSpot digital marketing statistics show that 47% of B2B and 47% of B2C marketers have seen increased web traffic from AI-driven search, while 19% are actively building SEO strategies for generative AI. (Hubspot)
5. As of June 2025, only 5.6% of desktop search traffic in the US flows to AI-based LLM search, compared to 94.4% going to classic search platforms. (Datos, reported by WSJ)
6. Concerns around data privacy remain high among EU online shoppers, with 71% worried about personal information being collected without clear awareness or consent. Cookie control is another friction point, as 58% say they find it difficult to manage or block tracking technologies. In addition, 49% fear being pressured into paid subscriptions when they refuse tracking or behavioral analysis. (Ipsos)
7. Trust grows when people know how their data is handled, and this clarity directly affects their readiness to share personal information. Separately, broad acceptance of regulation stands out, with 87% saying strong privacy laws make engagement with AI tools feel safer. (Cisco)
8. As technology and generative AI adoption expands, Deloitte points to rising consumer expectations around transparency, data control, and security. (Deloitte)
9. Maps-first behavior is now a meaningful part of local search, with 15% of users starting directly in Google Maps and map products overall accounting for about 20% of default local-search platforms. After a local search, user actions skew strongly toward validation and planning, as 67% often or always read reviews, 56% check the accuracy of business information, and 49% plan a route before taking the next step. (BrightLocal)
10. AI is beginning to appear as a default option for general search, with 5% of users saying ChatGPT is their primary search platform, a figure that rises to 10% among Gen Z. Beyond default preference, generative AI already plays an active role in search behavior, as 40% of users report actively using generative AI during their search experiences. (BrightLocal)
11. 74% of people consult two or more sources when reading reviews, while 27% rely on a single source only. Use of AI for review discovery remains limited, with just 6% saying they used tools like ChatGPT to find reviews, a decline compared with the previous year. (BrightLocal)
12. In 2026, social media ads rank as the third most important source of brand awareness globally, after search and TV ads. They are especially influential among younger demographics. (We Are Social)
13. People aged 16–34 are the most active average social media users globally and spend more time on these platforms. Social media marketing funnels for this segment tend to move faster from exposure to action. (Datareportal)
14. YouTube reaches the widest age range, with strong penetration across the 18–44 segment, which makes it effective for digital marketing campaigns focused on both brand awareness and consideration. (Datareportal)
15. According to Hostinger social media statistics 2026, 82% of consumers use social platforms for product research, meaning social is now a central touchpoint in purchase decision paths (discovery + consideration stage). YouTube leads product discovery for younger social media users (e.g., Gen Z). Instagram and TikTok are significant for visual product engagement. (Hostinger)
16. Hootsuite social media marketing statistics show that average engagement rates on social media range from 1.4% to 2.8%, depending on the platform. (Hootsuite)

Final Thoughts

Digital marketing statistics in 2026 show clear shifts in where traffic comes from and how users make decisions. Search remains a primary entry point, but AI answers, video, social media platforms, and local platforms now capture a growing share of attention. User behavior varies by device, age, and intent, which makes channel selection and execution more important than volume alone. The data consistently points to channels that build compound value for digital marketing strategy through visibility, trust, and repeat demand.

SEO stands out as the channel with the strongest long-term return on investment. It attracts high-intent users, supports brand visibility, and continues to perform after the core work is in place. This makes SEO a valuable part of digital marketing efforts, especially effective in markets where paid media costs keep rising year over year.

SeoProfy works as a specialized SEO team with 100+ experts across technical SEO, content, local search, ecommerce, and AI-driven search environments. Each project follows a structured, data-driven approach tailored to the business model and market. Our team works across multiple industries and regions, with processes built for scale, control, and predictable outcomes. Contact SeoProfy for a free consultation to explore SEO growth opportunities.

Author

Hanna Zhytnik

As a Content writer at SeoProfy, Hanna Zhytnik creates SEO content grounded in research, data, and ongoing hypothesis testing. With more than 5 years of experience across B2B, SaaS, and ecommerce, she brings both breadth of knowledge and a sharp focus on modern search. Her strength lies in turning complex experiments into clear explanations, bridging the gap between deep SEO practice and accessible content.