75+ Digital Marketing Statistics For 2024: Stats, Facts & Trends

Are you looking for the latest digital marketing statistics?

When it comes to running an online business, knowing how the ‘others’ are promoting themselves is a great way to get a leg up on the competition.

After all, when it comes to digital marketing, there’s a lot you can focus on, and this can become quite overwhelming. Not to mention, knowing how those on the receiving end of promotional material feel lends insight into what people want – and what they don’t.

That’s why today we’ve organized an impressive list of digital marketing statistics, ranging from email marketing to SEO, and mobile commerce to conversational marketing.

Once you see how much there is to digital marketing, and all the opportunities that exist for your brand, you’ll want to run back to your overall marketing plan and make some changes so you can grow your business and succeed. 

Editor’s picks

  • Open rates for emails are the highest (at 24%) from 6pm to 11pm. (Annual Email Marketing Report)
  • 72% of people claim that being able to check social media takes the guesswork out of buying a new product. (Influence Central)
  • 67% of marketers use a marketing automation platform to help with lead generation and organization. (Databox)

Email marketing statistics

Email marketing continues to be one of the most affordable and effective digital marketing strategies around. Raking in an average return of $42 for every $1 spent, focusing on email marketing is something all online businesses must do.

Check out some of the most compelling statistics found in Campaign Monitor’s 2019 Annual Email Marketing Report:

  • Automated email campaigns average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than create and send marketing messages
  • 63% of emails are opened on mobile devices
  • Those using Campaign Monitor (which accounts for a small percentage of actual email marketers) sent 31.56 billion emails across 192 countries in 2019
  • Open rates are the highest (at 24%) from 6pm to 11pm

In addition to what Campaign Monitor saw with their own users, Marketing Land surveyed 1200 people and found the following:

  • 80% of people claim that email etiquette plays a big role in whether to interact with a stranger
  • The majority of email marketers rewrite emails to sound more intelligent
  • 28.5% of people find humor in emails perfectly acceptable, while 5.9% find it totally unacceptable
  • 80% of people prefer an email signature with a professional title such as CEO, VO, etc.

In addition, this survey discovered the most common faux pas that people receiving marketing emails find unacceptable:

email campaign faux pas

As you can see, the top three most unacceptable errors include spelling errors, grammatical errors, and no email subject line (people want to know what they’re about to open!). Less concerning is the use of all lowercase subject lines, the use of smiley faces in your campaigns, and the level of conciseness found in email content.   

Social media marketing statistics

You may already know the power that social media networks like Facebook can have on your marketing efforts. But there is more to social media marketing than just using Facebook.

social media channels

Using social media to tap into a broader audience, reach people long after they’ve left your website, and share crucial information related to your brand, is a simple and affordable method.

In HubSpot’s List of Marketing Statistics for 2020, here are the best social media marketing takeaways:

  • 69% of social media marketers plan to increase their use of Instagram
  • Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter reign supreme as the top social media platforms used by marketers
  • Marketers use social media to improve traffic, leads, and fan loyalty
  • Marketers publish to social media networks on average of 3-4 times per week
  • 84.13% of company social media accounts are managed by the owners of the company

When it comes to your potential customers, and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, know that a survey conducted by Influence Central found that:

  • 82% of women consumers say that recommendations found on social media change the way they gather opinions and information
  • 81% of consumers say that product reviews influence the way they shop
  • 72% of people claim that being able to check social media takes the guesswork out of buying a new product 

The survey also went on to report that following social media shares influence the way people shop. In fact 60% of people look to recipes, 57% to photos/videos/images, 53% to testimonials, 51% to reader comments, and 42% look to life hacks when it comes to buying products or services.

Note: You can find more in our dedicated social media statistics article.

Lead nurturing statistics

Lead generation plays a large role in how successful your online business is. After all, it doesn’t matter how much traffic your marketing efforts bring in if no one converts. That’s why focusing on your leads before, during, and after the purchase process is so crucial.

In Databox’s latest survey, it was reported that 40-70% of marketers’ qualified leads aren’t yet ready to buy – which means there’s a lot of work to be done to land a conversion.

qualified leads ready to buy

Because of this, Databox asked 31 marketers what they’re doing to nurture and re-engage leads:

  • Email nurturing – Marketers use email because it’s cost-effective. They use tools such as HubSpot, Drip, and Mailchimp to send and automate email campaigns. It is recommended that you send no more than 2 emails per week. Relevant content, list segmentation, and video are all used to boost engagement.
  • Social media retargeting – Marketers use social media retargeting to stay ahead of leads. It is easy to segment and offers brands a way to present relevant ads to a wide target audience on a consistent basis. Instagram nabs 19% more clicks than the same ads on Facebook or Twitter.
  • Display retargeting – Marketers use display retargeting to showcase relevant ads based on where people are in the buying journey. This method exposes more people to the brand, even if they haven’t subscribed yet.
  • Search retargeting – Marketers use this method because it takes away precious retail space that would normally be taken up by competitors. Since people are seeing ads related to their searches, they are more likely to see your ad and become interested.

Need a little more about lead generation? Check out these statistics:

  • Organizations usually generate about 1,877 leads per month
  • The number of actual customers, however, is around 300 per month
  • 49% of companies claim that increasing customer acquisition is their primary goal
  • 67% of marketers use a marketing automation platform to help with lead generation and organization
  • 70% of those using a marketing automation platform say that the biggest benefit is better-targeted customer communication

SEO statistics

As a digital marketer, you should know that search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to growing your business. After all, high-quality content has the ability to drive traffic to a blog by up to 2,000%.

That said, when 240 SEO experts were interviewed, it was determined that technical SEO and content development were always the priority when it came to SEO. 

seo resource rankings

Here are some quick statistics:

When it comes to SEO, it’s best to try your hardest to appear on the first page of Google with relevant content that will entice searchers to click and buy. Of course, this is much easier said than done, so rounding out your digital marketing efforts is going to help you reach as many people as possible – all at once.

Want to learn more? Check out our full list of SEO statistics, facts, and trends.

eCommerce statistics

A big part of your digital marketing strategy is going to center around your online business. This is especially true if you sell products and services straight from your website. The thing is, you’re going to want to know what makes people tick when it comes to online shopping, and what causes them to buy, so you can target your audience and give them exactly what they want.

According to Statista, the main reason people abandon their online shopping carts is because they find out near the end of the checkout process that the shipping costs are too high (63% of people agree).

Here are the other reasons why:

  • Discount codes don’t work (46%)
  • Orders take too long to ship (36%)
  • Having to re-enter credit card information (30%)
  • Having to re-enter shipping information (25%) 

In addition:

As important as general eCommerce statistics are when it comes to marketing, mobile commerce continues to rise and should be taken seriously by all online businesses too:

Conversational marketing statistics

Providing a stellar customer experience to those you’re marketing to is becoming more ingrained in digital marketing efforts than ever. That’s why we’re including some conversational marketing statistics in this roundup.

For those that have never heard of it, conversational marketing is the process of moving customers through your marketing and sales funnel using real-time conversations. Rather than collect leads and send email campaigns days later, conversational marketing relies on live chats and intelligent chatbots to engage with people while they’re on your website.

According to Drift’s 2019 State of Conversational Marketing, 34% of customers struggle with finding answers to simple questions while shopping online.

customer problems

In addition, this study found:

  • Instant communication is a must – 44% of people want an instant response when talking to a live person online. 42% of people also expect an instant response from chatbots. After that, people expect answers within 5 minutes of first contact, which tells online businesses that communication is the key to landing more sales.
  • The means of communication are changing – Only 14% of people prefer filling out an online form on a website when they have a question, compared to the 86% of people that want to use a chatbot instead.
  • The leaders in chatbot communication are retailers – 40% of people claim to have engaged with an online retailer via chatbot within the last 12 months. Following behind are healthcare providers (22%), utility companies (21%), and entertainment companies (20%).

Because consumers demand to engage with brands in the moment, online businesses are going to need to keep up by improving their conversational marketing efforts.  

Final thoughts

And there you have it! Some of the most compelling and important to remember digital marketing statistics that are designed to help you effectively evaluate your current marketing efforts and make your plan of attack even better moving forward.

Digital marketing as a whole is a huge undertaking for anyone, beginner or seasoned pro. But by diving into some of the most common categories such as SEO and eCommerce, as well as branching out into lesser known categories such as conversational marketing, you stand a fighting chance of pulling ahead of the competition.

Even if you only make minor changes to your marketing strategy every now and then, chances are you’ll see your traffic numbers and sales climb.

So, take a look at what’s working for your business now, and what you want to work on, and get started. The best brands in the world don’t achieve success by staying stagnant, especially when it comes to promoting their brand to their target audience in the online world. 

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