Marketing Statistics

1. AD SPEND

Notes: [1.3]–[1.5] are eMarketer forecast figures reprocessed by a secondary aggregator (Amra & Elma); the underlying source is EMARKETER’s Digital/Programmatic/Search Advertising Forecasts, so treat the model, not the aggregator, as authoritative. eMarketer pages themselves are largely paywalled.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

2.1 US platform adoption (% of US adults who say they “ever use” each)

Pew Research Center, National Public Opinion Reference Survey, n = 5,022 US adults, fielded Feb 5 – Jun 18, 2025, published Nov 20, 2025. [4]

Source: Pew Research Center [4]

• Overall: ~313 million social networking users in the US (2025, Statista) [16].
• Globally: 5.79 billion social media “user identities” as of early April 2026, +5.4% YoY; 96.7% of internet users (16+, 54 largest economies) use social monthly; the typical user active on ~6.5 platforms and spending ~18 h 36 min per week on social media (DataReportal, 2026) [6].
• Generational usage (Sprout Social, 2026 data): YouTube and Instagram dominate Gen Z; Facebook leads Gen X and Boomers; TikTok strong among under-30s [5].
• Consumers increasingly bypass search engines: among Gen Z, 41% turn to social media first for information vs 32% who go to Google/traditional search first (Sprout Social, 2026) [5].
• Platform shakeup: Threads reached ~141.5M daily active app users in Jan 2026, surpassing X’s ~125M (TechCrunch via Sprout Social) [5].

3. EMAIL MARKETING METRICS

Email benchmarks diverge sharply by methodology — see the contested-notes section. Two major datasets:

Source: Email Marketing Benchmarks compilation [7]

• ROI: email marketing returns an average of ~$36 for every $1 spent (a 3,600% ROI) — cited to Litmus/DMA, and widely repeated across sources — outperforming other major digital channels [7][15].
• Reach: ~4.59 billion people worldwide use email (~56% of global population), 2025 [7].
• Automation outperformance: automated emails convert ~1.49% vs 0.08% for standard campaigns — roughly 19x higher (Omnisend, 2025) [7]. Automated emails also drive a disproportionate share of revenue.
• Segmented campaigns lift opens ~30% and CTR ~50% vs non-segmented (2026 compilation) [7].
• Note: Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates open rates (estimated +10–15%) by pre-loading tracking pixels; click-based metrics are considered more reliable [7].

4. CONTENT MARKETING

Primary source set: Content Marketing Institute (CMI) & MarketingProfs 16th Annual B2B survey (1,015 B2B marketers, fielded Jun 24 – Aug 14, 2025, for 2026 outlook) [10][13]; Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey [13]; Wyzowl [11].

• HubSpot 2026: website/blog/SEO was the top ROI channel for B2B brands; for B2C brands the best-ROI channels were email marketing, paid social, and content marketing [9].
• Video is the highest-conviction format: 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and 82% of video marketers report a good ROI (Wyzowl 2026) [11].

5. ROI BY CHANNEL

5.1 Agency-reported ROI by channel — FirstPageSage, 2026 Report

Dataset: clients across 25+ B2B/B2C industries, Q1 2020 – Q4 2025, hybrid attribution model. [8]

Source: FirstPageSage [8]

5.2 Commonly cited per-$1 returns (vendor/DMA compilations)

* This specific content-marketing claim traces to an old Demand Metric study and is widely flagged as unverifiable/outdated — see contested section.

6. VIDEO MARKETING

Source: Wyzowl State of Video Marketing 2026, n = 266 (marketers + consumers), surveyed late 2025; 12 years of continuous dataset. [11]

• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool (back to the all-time high; 93% of marketers call video important to strategy) [11].
• 82% of video marketers report a good ROI from video — down from 93% the prior year [11].
• 71% of marketers say videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes are most effective [11].
• YouTube is the most-used (82%) and most-effective (69%) video platform for marketers [11].
• Video content projected to reach 82% of all global internet traffic by 2026 (Cisco via Wyzowl) [11].
• HubSpot 2026: the top-3 ROI-driving content formats are all video — short-form, long-form, and live-streaming [9].

7. INFLUENCER MARKETING

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub size data + eMarketer US spend, 2025–2026. [14]

8. KEY TRENDS FOR 2026

• AI is everywhere but underdelivering: ~95% of organizations use AI for content and it is the #1 budget priority (45%), yet only 39% see improved content performance while 87% report productivity gains — a classic “faster, not necessarily better” gap (CMI/MarketingProfs) [10][13]. AI use for video jumped from ~18% to ~40%+ of surveyed professionals in one year (Wistia) [11].
• Short-form video is the default format: the top-ROI content formats are short-form, long-form, and live video (HubSpot) [9]; >90% of US Gen Z/Millennials consume short-form content frequently [5].
• Social search is eating into Google: especially among Gen Z (41% social-first vs 32% Google-first), and 52% of social users prefer social search to AI chatbots for UGC/personal experiences (Sprout) [5].
• Social platform consolidation: Threads overtook X in daily mobile users; Bluesky added a loyal post-X audience; Meta reasserts dominance on the ad-revenue side [5][1].
• Personalization intent vs execution gap: ~87% of brands plan to increase personalization spend in 2026 while ~68% are still early-stage in implementation [from StackAdapt/Ascend2 via secondary recap] — not independently re-sourced, see contested notes.

9. CONTESTED / STALE / CAUTION FLAGS

• Email open rates are structurally unreliable. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens by an estimated 10–15%, so the 43.46% (MailerLite) vs 21% (Brevo) spread reflects methodology and audience, not conflicting truth. Prefer CTR/CTOR as engagement signals [7].
• “Email = $36 ROI” is an industry mantra, not a measurement. Repeated across Litmus/DMA and most vendor pages, but it is a legacy self-reported construct; current summaries cite $36–$45 and some argue it is inflated. There is no single audited number [7][15].
• “Content marketing generates 3x leads at 62% lower cost” (Demand Metric) is stale and unverified; credible 2026 compilations explicitly exclude it because it cannot be traced to a dated primary source. Treated here as [unverified], not cited to a live source [15].
• Video ROI dropped 93% → 82% YoY (Wyzowl). Not necessarily a decline in effectiveness — it reflects a maturing, more crowded market and changed survey conditions [11].
• Influencer market size varies widely by source (~$32.55B per Influencer Marketing Hub vs divergent estimates elsewhere). Treat as directional [14].
• Forecast figures (ad spend) are models, not results. eMarketer / Madison & Wall forecasts for 2026 carry model uncertainty; earlier 2025 estimates were revised sharply upward mid-year (3.6% → 11% growth), showing how volatile these projections are [2][12].
• Most “current” numbers here trace to 2024–2025 surveys published across 2025–2026. Where a year is ambiguous, the year fielded is the more meaningful date (e.g., Pew’s 2025 survey, CMI’s 2026 report fielded Jun–Aug 2025).

Sources

[1] https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-ad-spending-2026 — eMarketer US Ad Spending 2026 [2] https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-ad-spending-grows-11–2025-amid-economic-volatility — eMarketer US ad spending +11% 2025 [3] https://www.emarketer.com/content/worldwide-total-media-ad-spending-cross-1-trillion-this-year — eMarketer global ad spend crosses 1T [4] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media — Pew Social Media Fact Sheet 2025 [5] https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics — Sprout Demographics 2026 [6] https://datareportal.com/social-media-users — DataReportal Social Media 2026 [7] https://emailmarketingforbusiness.com/statistics/benchmarking-email-marketing — Email Benchmarks 2026 [8] https://firstpagesage.com/seo-blog/marketing-roi-by-channel — FirstPageSage ROI 2026 [9] https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics — HubSpot 2026 Marketing Statistics [10] https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025 — CMI B2B Content 2025 [11] https://wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics — Wyzowl Video 2026 [12] https://www.amraandelma.com/us-digital-ad-spend-statistics — Amra&Elma US Digital Ad Spend 2026 [13] https://christopholivierconsulting.com/content-marketing-statistics — Content Stats 2026 CMI/Gartner [14] https://influencerfee.com/blog/influencer-marketing-statistics-2025 — Influencer Market IMH 2026 [15] https://www.sender.net/marketing-glossary/return-on-investment-roi/statistics — Sender Marketing ROI Stats [16] https://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks — Statista Social Media facts