50 Marketing Stats and Trends that Should Guide Your Digital Strategy in 2021

If you want to outpace the competition and grow your brand in the coming year, then you must capitalize on the latest marketing trends. Many businesses partner with a digital marketing strategy agency like Insights ABM to ensure that they stay up on the latest advertising .

Whether you rely on a digital marketing strategy agency or decide to go it alone, we want to help you stay on top of the newest developments in the online advertising space. 

With that in mind, our experts have compiled this list of the top 50 marketing stats and trends of 2021.

2021 Video Marketing Trends

Video marketing is becoming increasingly popular for businesses of all sizes. That’s why we wanted to kick things off with a few stats about the importance of video marketing.

1.     Nearly half (43%) of businesses have used video marketing to reduce support calls.
2.     Websites that incorporate videos are 53% more likely to make it to page one of Google search results.
3.     Video content drives conversions 5 times as often as written content alone.
4.     Posted content with videos leads to one-and-a-half times as much search traffic.
5.     Blog posts with videos earn far more backlinks than written content by itself.

YouTube Trends and Stats for 2021

When you think of online videos, YouTube almost certainly comes to mind first. YouTube is the premier way of distributing online video content, as you will see below.

6.     YouTube only ranks fourth in terms of most-used platforms for companies.
7.     YouTube is responsible for over 10% of worldwide internet traffic.
8.     The majority (over 70%) of YouTube views are from mobile devices.
9.     Videos that are subscription-focused tend to rank higher.
10.     Having lots of YouTube shares and comments boosts video rankings on Google.
11.     YouTube likes and views also positively impact Google search rankings.
12.     As user interactions with a video grow, it has better chances of ranking during web searches.
13.     The top 10% of YouTube videos earn nearly 80% of the total views.
14.     Over two-thirds of viewers watch videos that are presented to them from YouTube’s algorithms.
15.     Every minute, users upload 500 hours of video to YouTube.
16.     Nearly three out of every four (73%) U.S. adults use YouTube.
17.     YouTube logs 2 billion users per month.

Google Trends You Need to Know in 2021

Google is the world’s largest search engine. It only makes sense to give Google its own section of stats and trends on our list. 

Read on to find out just how important good search rankings are to the success of your business.

18.     Google is the world’s largest search engine; YouTube is second.
19.     55% of Google keyword searches produce video results, most of which are from YouTube.
20.     Nearly one-fourth (22%) of Google searches return images.
21.     Google’s local 3-pack consumed 33% of user clicks.
22.     Google devoted over one-third of page one results on mobile to its own properties (i.e., Google Maps, Google Ads).
23.     Snippets were featured on 12% of search queries.
24.     Google’s search algorithm places a heavy emphasis on the number of domains linking to a page when it ranks websites.
25.     Google admitted that high-quality backlinks are a top 3 ranking factor.
26.     Most (92%) users stop at page one. The importance of search rankings cannot be overstated.
27.     The top organic (unpaid) result earns nearly one-third of all clicks.
28.     Google’s top three search results consume 75% of total clicks.

Holistic Digital Trends

Google is an unstoppable force that must be leveraged if you want to connect with consumers. Still, we wanted to provide you with some broader stats and trends that were not focused solely on the search engine behemoth.

29.     Google dominates 88% of worldwide search and video traffic. Second place, Bing, only earns 6.18%.
30.     Voice searches were usually 3-5 words and demonstrated an average reading level of a 9th grader.
31.     Social media shares are directly related to voice search rankings.
32.     Over half (60%) of mobile users have tried voice search one time or more in the last year. A staggering 55% of teens use voice search daily.
33.     Nearly three out of four (72%) of people that own voice-activated speakers use them regularly.
34.     Video is the top media for content strategy purposes.
35.     Voice searches currently account for one-tenth of total searches.
36.     Websites with dynamic layouts saw clicks and organic traffic increase by 30-50%.
37.     SEO-focused content drives 10 times more traffic than organic posts on social media.
38.     SEO content is more than 5 times as effective as paid advertising. Organic search results on Google appear to be more trustworthy to users.
39.     Roughly 70% of Google search interactions are from organic traffic.
40.     A staggering 70% or more ignored Google paid ads completely.
41.     Two-thirds of pages never received a single backlink, despite their importance in search rankings.
42.     Google increases organic traffic as a page earns more backlinks.
43.     Over half (53%) of web traffic is from organic searches.
44.     Despite this fact, 90% of websites do not receive organic traffic from Google.
45.     Over one-third (39%) of consumers are influenced by a Google search.
46.     Most eCommerce experiences begin with Google.
47.     Google facilitates 4.7 billion searches daily.
48.     About 15% of those searches are brand-new to Google.
49.     30% of clicks go directly to Google Ads.
50.     Working with a digital marketing strategy agency can drastically improve your return on marketing investment with more clicks, leads, and revenue.

As you can see, there are some exciting trends on the horizon for 2021 and beyond. If you want to elevate the way that you interact with consumers, make sure to use these stats to guide your digital marketing strategies.