Digital Marketing Stats in 2021

Digital marketing has never been this important in the business world. Today, if you don’t have an effective digital marketing strategy, you risk lagging behind your competitors.

Plus, it’s an ever-evolving industry. So, there is a high chance that a strategy that used to work for you a few years back, isn’t as effective now.

This makes keeping yourself up to date about the trends in the digital marketing landscape all the more important.

In this article, we’ll show you the trends and statistics so that you can get your business moving in the right direction.

Let’s get started.

Search Engine Optimization Trends

As search engines like Google get more and more popular among internet users, SEO becomes increasingly important.

By implementing SEO strategies for your business website, you can gain more visibility for your website. This would eventually mean more potential customers or leads.

Let’s see some important SEO trends that make it a must for every business out there.

1. HubSpot reports that around 64% of marketers invest their resources actively in SEO

This points to the importance of SEO in this search-engine-driven world. And, if you are not taking SEO seriously, you are doing a marketing blunder.

2. According to BrightEdge, search engine optimization drives more than 1000% organic traffic than social media

This just means that SEO has a lot more potential when it comes to attracting organic traffic. Social media marketing has its own benefits (more on this later).

3. The third trend comes right from the horse’s mouth: 49% of consumers use Google to search and find products for themselves.

It’s clear that Google’s search engine is the go-to choice for most internet users. And, the trend suggests that it’s only going to be more popular in the coming days.

4. Website loading speed is getting more and more important. On average, conversion rates get hurt by 42% with every extra second a site takes to load.

If you are not taking care of your site’s speed, you’d not only hurt your conversions, but search engines like Google will reduce your site’s rank as well.

Ideally, your webpage should load within 3 seconds. A visitor that presses the back button due to slow loading is a lost lead.

5. There is another player in the SEO industry that’s gaining massive popularity, especially in the US market. Statista reports that 45% of US Millennials utilize voice search while shopping online.

After the inception of voice search software like Amazon Alexa, many searchers prefer to use their voice to search the web.

The trend suggests that there would be a sizeable audience of voice searchers in the near future. So, you need to optimize your site for voice-assisted search.

6. The trend of mobile searches has also been on the rise. More and more people tend to use their mobile devices to search Google. Since 2017, mobile searches account for more than half of web searches. This trend is only expected to rise.

This was all about the popular trends in the search engine optimization industry. Let’s now demystify some content marketing statistics.

Content Marketing Trends

Content marketing is using relevant, helpful, and high-quality content to address the pain points of a target audience.

It builds trust for a business and positions it as a credible resource in a particular industry.

The purpose of content marketing is the same as any other digital marketing strategy, and that’s generating leads and converting them.

Let’s talk about some important trends that show the importance of content marketing in the future.

1. A whopping 70% of marketers around the world are investing in content marketing.

If that many marketers are using content marketing to achieve their business goals, it must be an effective form of marketing.

This makes content marketing essential for businesses of all sizes. So, if you are not using it to further your business, you’d be lagging behind your competitors.

2. Content marketing is 62% less costly as compared to traditional marketing. So, if you are on a low budget, content marketing is the ideal way to go.

However, it takes more time to bring the desired results for a business.

3. SEMrush reports that articles that are more than 3000 words get a lot more traffic, shares, and backlinks than shorter ones.

What does that mean for a marketer? This means long-form content that goes into more detail brings better results for a business.

4. Video content is arguably the most loved form of content. It’s immersive and easy to consume, which makes it pretty effective for marketing as well. This is why video is the most common format in content marketing.
5. Moreover, there is another content format that’s been gaining quite a lot of popularity due to its easy-to-consume nature. Many Americans love podcasts as they can listen to them on the go while doing other stuff. According to Edison Research, every month, podcasts reach about 100 million And, the trend of podcasts seems to be rising pretty quickly.

Looking at the trends in the content marketing arena, it’s safe to assume that video, podcasts, and helpful content are the future.

Social Media Marketing Trends

Did you know that there are around 3.78 billion worldwide social media users? As everything moves towards the digital space, the social media audience continues to grow.

This is great news for businesses that are trying to leverage digital marketing to achieve their marketing goals.

The trends we are going to discuss here will help you understand how businesses these days are utilizing social media to achieve their marketing goals.

Let’s uncover some data-driven facts about social media.

1. There are around 2.89 billion users on Facebook as of 2021. That’s more than half of the total social media userbase.

So, it won’t matter what kind of a business you are in, Facebook offers potential customers for every industry.

2. Such a massive audience calls for an equally proportional number of advertisers. Facebook has around 10 million advertisers, most of which are SMEs.

As the e-commerce space continues to expand, absorbing more businesses into it, this trend will continue to grow upwards.

For a digital marketer, this can mean higher competition with time.

Although Facebook is the leading social media platform as far as the number of users is concerned, marketers are using other platforms with great results.

TikTok is the largest growing social media platform in 2021. In February 2021 TikTok had 83 million monthly active users, this is nearing 700 million active users in September 2021. The maturing and explosive growth of TikTok is set to continue and to be Facebooks largest competitor.

The overall social media userbase is expected to reach 3.43 billion by 2023 according to Statista. So, with more and more people scrolling their feeds, the social media marketing industry is going to be even more important in the future.

Video Marketing Trend

One of the most prominent trends in the digital marketing landscape is how video is proving to be so effective for marketers.

Video content is loved by almost every internet user. And, a video doesn’t even have to be entertaining to be effective. It’s easier to grab attention with a video than simple text. Plus, it lets marketers deliver their message in a fun and concise way.

Let’s talk about some important trends to support our argument.

1. 84% of marketers say that video has been helpful for them in generating leads for their business.

That’s a pretty encouraging percentage. But, more importantly, look at this stat:

2. 84% of consumers say a branded video convinced them to buy a product or service.

One of the reasons why video ads work so well is that they engage the viewers well. But, of course, the content needs to be top-notch to drive favorable results.

Moreover, live video has been gaining popularity as well, especially in the online commerce space. As the world becomes more digital, partly because of the pandemic, live shopping is moving into the mainstream quickly.

Email Marketing Trends

Email marketing still remains one of the most impactful ways to grow a business. It still has the highest ROI among all the digital marketing strategies.

This is mainly because of two reasons:

• Email is intimate and personal; it lets you connect with your prospect more effectively
• Email marketing requires very low investment

Let’s talk about some email marketing statistics to help you understand how it fits into the whole digital marketing landscape.

1. By the year 2025, the total number of email users around the world is expected to reach 6 billion.

What does that tell us? This means that email is still pretty relevant and isn’t going to lose its effectiveness as a marketing strategy any time soon.

Have a look at this:

2. Email marketing has an impressively high return-on-investment of about 3800%. Importantly, no other digital marketing strategy even comes close to this.

One thing that makes email marketing stand out from the rest of the strategies is that it’s a disruptive form of marketing.

Imagine yourself scrolling through your social media feed and seeing an ad. You’d most likely keep scrolling down.

Sure, if the ad is compelling enough, you’ll click on it. But, nothing beats an email with a great subject line that disrupts your pattern and talks directly to you.

Advertising Statistics

Getting your brand in front of the right kind of people is the ultimate goal of any business. Advertising helps you achieve exactly that.

By spending some advertising dollars, you can fast-track your business’ growth and recover your investment in no time.

But, due to the ever-evolving digital landscape, there are a few trends that need your attention. Let’s get into them.

1. Adblocking is costing advertisers billions of dollars And, the trend doesn’t seem to take a downturn in the future.

See, internet users aren’t very comfortable with ads popping in their faces while they surf through their favorite webpage.

But, adding value to people’s lives and using detailed targeting effectively can help you get the results that you always wanted.

Where do video ads stand?

2. Spending on video ads is expected to grow 9% annually from 2020 to 2024.

Mobile Marketing Trends

In 2020, there are a total of 3.5 billion mobile users around the world. So, no matter what market you are focusing on, your prospects are browsing the internet on their mobile phones.

It would be a marketing blunder to ignore mobile users. The most important thing is, if your business has a website, optimize it for different devices.

Role of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence continues to grow at a pretty fast rate. It is streamlining many digital marketing processes, allowing marketers to focus on more strategic tasks.

More importantly, it’s bringing great results.

1. By replacing manual customer support, AI chatbots can save marketers up to 30%.

The AI software industry is expected to grow at an unprecedented rate. This will not only save marketers’ time but will also prove to be more effective.

Final Thoughts

Keeping yourself up to date about the latest developments in the digital marketing landscape is important to compete in this arena.

As a marketer, you need to invest your resources in strategies that can bring desired results for your business.

The smart way to keep your marketing efforts focused on the right path is by keeping yourself up to date about any new developments.

For instance, artificial intelligence might not seem like a very big deal right now. But, the trend suggests that it’s going to be a big thing in digital marketing.

In this ever-evolving digital landscape, you need to be on your toes all the time. No matter what industry you are in, or what type of strategies you are focusing on, you need to follow the trend.

If one strategy is working for your right now, doesn’t mean it will continue to work in the future as well.