Digital marketing statistics can give you insight into where to focus your efforts for growing your website. Here are some numbers that you need to know in 2021.
Digital marketing covers several fields, including email, social media, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is one of the most important strategies for your website's growth.
We've put together a full list of digital marketing statistics you need to be aware of. They cover everything from email open rates to eCommerce conversion numbers. Understanding these statistics can help you see the effectiveness of your digital marketing.
For each digital marketing statistic, we'll link you to its source and discuss why that number matters. Let's get right to it!
5 email marketing statistics
Almost every type of website can benefit from email marketing. Email gives you a direct line to your users. It lets you share offers, updates, and personalized messages.
Here's what you need to know about email marketing in 2021:
- 49 percent of all users open their emails on mobile devices but one in five emails are not optimized for mobile phones. This results in lower conversion rates, so you should optimize your campaigns for mobile users. We also recommend testing them to make sure they look good.
- Email marketing Return on Investment (ROI) can be as high as 4400 percent. There is no other channel that offers such a high ROI. Email marketing can be remarkably cheap. This is true even if you're sending hundreds of messages to thousands of subscribers.
- Emails with personalized titles get 26 percent more clicks. The easiest way to increase email open rates is to personalize titles. For example, you can add customer names or mention recent purchases.
- A/B testing can improve your ROI by 28 percent. Most modern email marketing services offer A/B functionality and there's little reason not to use it. A/B tests help you determine which campaigns do best with your audience. Then, you can use that information to optimize future messages.
- Average open rates across industries sit at around 17.6 percent. Many email marketers panic when they see one in five subscribers open their messages. However, if you sit at a 20 percent open rate, you're above average!
If you're not doing email marketing yet, now is the time to get started. You can begin by using one of our email marketing integrations:
It can take a while to grow your list to decent numbers. However, the rewards can be worth it if you run A/B tests, segment emails, and personalize titles.
5 social media marketing statistics
Everyone is on social media these days. Over 3.6 billion people are on at least one social media platform and that number continues to grow. For example, Facebook has billions of users:
If you're not marketing on social media, you're missing out. It is the perfect channel to engage in short and fun interactions with your users.
Let's break down some numbers that illustrate how critical social media marketing is:
- Two thirds of American adults use Facebook. If your main audience is in the US, you need to be on Facebook. That means setting up a business page, updating it, engaging with followers, and considering paid advertisements.
- 54 percent of internet users research products using social media. It's common to look for reviews before buying a product or a service online. Social media is one of the first stops when making that research. If you don't have a place for customer feedback, you're missing out on social proof.
- 49 percent of users trust influencer marketing. If there's a social media personality who you like, you may be more open to product or service recommendations from them. Influencer marketing can be an interesting alternative to paid ads, depending on what you're promoting.
- 83 percent of customers use Instagram to look for products and services. Users are likely to research your business on Instagram. They may also find you through related hashtags. If you post regularly on Instagram and engage with your followers, those users are more likely to try your services.
- 82 percent of B2B marketers prefer LinkedIn. If you're selling products and services to other businesses you need to be on LinkedIn. Companies tend to trust this platform more than other social media alternatives. Having a lot of connections on LinkedIn can make your brand feel more trustworthy.
Successful marketing on social media depends on knowing which platforms to focus on. Not all businesses need a presence on every networking site. Ideally, you'll focus on the channels where most of your users are active. Then, you can consider new options as your audience grows.
5 SEO marketing statistics
SEO tactics can make or break websites. Appearing at the top of search results for popular keywords (or even not-so-popular ones) can bring in a lot of traffic to your website:
Content creation and SEO is the best investment that you can make to grow your site. Here are some statistics to back up that claim:
- The first five results in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) get 67.6 percent of all clicks. Ideally, you want your pages to appear among the first results for queries they rank for. If they do, you'll get the lion's share of the traffic.
- 90.63 percent of pages don't get organic traffic from Google. Putting even a small effort into SEO can help differentiate your website from millions of other pages.
- 66.31 percent of websites have zero backlinks. Search engines use backlinks to figure out if your website is trustworthy. If your site doesn't have a single one, you can forget about appearing in the SERPs. As such, you'll struggle to get one of the top spots for competitive searches.
- Only 5.7 percent of pages rank among the top ten results within one year of publication. SEO takes time. Even if you publish amazing visual content, a new website can struggle to rank high in search results. However, if you keep trying, you can reap the rewards for years to come.
Updating and republishing old posts can increase organic traffic by up to 106 percent. A lot of websites struggle with publishing new content regularly. If you have specific blog posts that visitors love, it can be worth it to update them periodically.
For example, you might do this once every year. That way, you can include new information and get more users to see your best content.
Tackling SEO can be frustrating. Unlike other digital marketing tactics, it doesn't give you fast results. A new website can take years of consistent content publication and SEO work before ranking for competitive searches.
There are ways to speed up that process, such as by targeting low-competition keywords. However, SEO is not about instant gratification.
Wrapping up
Most successful digital marketing strategies boil down to being active. For example, you can work on contacting subscribers and sharing content often. It's also important to focus on the right channels (social media, email, and search engines), and test new things continually. If your content isn't getting the results you want, you need to try different strategies.
Email, social media, and search engines are the biggest traffic sources for most websites. That traffic can be organic if you post new types of content often.
Alternatively, you can attract paid sources from advertising. Both approaches are just as valid. So your chosen route will largely depend on your marketing budget.
Do you want to start collecting leads from your website and building an email list? Formidable Forms integrates with popular email marketing solutions, so you can start building campaigns today!
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These are spot-on stats for digital marketing.
Excellent list, helpful for strategizing! I did not know email marketing had such a high ROI over all other social channels, impressive.