500+ Marketing Statistics & Trends Important to Small Businesses in 2020
A Brief Introduction
The digital marketing landscape is an ever-shifting one driven by rapid technological changes. In marketing, this is particularly evident in the constant innovations in marketing automation.
Because of the nature of the modern marketing ecosystem, businesses, especially small and local ones, need to be aware of the latest industry statistics to outdistance competitors. Why?
Having such information readily-available allows you to truly understand the current state-of-play, what is working, what isn’t, and most importantly, how customers are reacting to marketing efforts.
When you understand how the industry is behaving, you can craft a more fortified marketing strategy and better-targeted campaigns because you have the appropriate data to make the most informed decisions.
This positions you to leapfrog other businesses.
Remember however, these numbers alone will not be enough. Every business is unique, so you must compare the data provided herein with your own customer data (e.g. Google Analytics reports and social media platform analytics) to take appropriate action.
Below, we’ve broken the statistics and trends down by categories so you can find the numbers you want to see more easily.
Trends
Social media
Websites
Email
SEO
Paid advertising and PPC
Content marketing
Video
Blogging
Mobile
Word of mouth
Consumer behaviour
Money, budgeting and time
Tools, platforms and assets
Trends
The overarching trends of the small business industry provide you with the foundational understanding of how the market is behaving, and will behave in the foreseeable future.
In short, trends are crucial as they will likely take hold quickly and become an established part of your customer journey.
Transparency and Privacy
Today, there is an ongoing shift away from mass marketing in favour of a more personal approach. However, to create these experiences involves the collection, storage and use of our personal data is a subject.
This has continually received widespread publicity - much of it often negative due to data breaches, hacks, misuse and the rise of ‘fake news’.
This has created a post-truth society where trust in brands and media is at an all-time low.
Therefore, as a business, you must shift from mass marketing to more individual, personalised content marketing underlined with established GDPR, privacy and cookie policies.
Targeting and Segmentation
Even with stricter data protection rules, people are now being marketed to from so many angles that it can become overwhelming for them.
If you want to stand out from the herd then, you must offer a more personal approach. How can you do this? Utilise super targeting and segmentation.
Identify the products/services your customers are most interested in, the actions taken on websites, progress through sales funnels, and demographics.
Use Google Analytics, social media analytics, and social paid ads/google ads analytics to understand your audience and target advertising accordingly.
Employ service tools such as Sendinblue to enable you to continue to automate repetitive tasks while maintaining that all-important personal touch.
Powerful Customer Service
You will see the core importance of great customer service later in this post when we look at customer behaviour statistics.
For now, two important statistics to know are that 73% of customers fall in love with a brand and remain loyal because of friendly customer service. And, 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service.
How can you remain accessible to customers?
Use chat windows and chat bots
Keep a tab on your direct messages and comments on social media
Have strong FAQ pages
Respond to customers with personalised messaging
Digestible, Quality Information Diets
Though we live in a digital age with an expectation of technological reliance, many individuals are trying to reduce their digital consumption and footprints.
People are now more conscious of the time they spend in the digital world, and the time they spend interacting with smart devices. This has led to the emergence of digital wellness or wellbeing where we track our device screen times, and where products such as Google’s Digital Wellbeing are becoming increasingly popular.
What does this mean for marketing your small or local business? With this shift to spend less time with technology, SEO algorithms that once used to favour high content volume, are now much more geared towards quality information that provides the answers people are seeking.
You should therefore focus on nurturing high quality followers by consistently putting out content that is useful, informative and demonstrates your expertise on a subject.
Social Media Commerce
Some platforms, such as Instagram, are now allowing people to buy products in the same way they can make customer queries.
In fact, consumers are now using Instagram in a similar way to a business website and we expect this trend to continue into next year. To implement ecommerce effectively on social:
Add ‘buy’ buttons to your social media posts.
Make sure you follow guidelines to creating sales posts that convert - i.e. appealing enough to stand out in a busy news feed.
A responsive website optimised for mobile that allows people to purchase on-the-go.
Additional important trends you can’t ignore:
Automation of marketing activities
Consumable video content
Live streaming
Influencer marketing
Voice search
Using AR/VR
Science-based marketing
Integration of AI
Social Media Statistics
Social media can be found everywhere today. For many people, social media is their daily source of entertainment, socialisation, and even news consumption.
With over 40% of the world's population now on social media, it’s paramount your business devises an effective social media strategy to reach your target audience.
Use the statistics below to guide your social media strategy.
General Statistics
97% of digital consumers have used social media in the past month.
84% of people with access to the internet use social media.
50% of the global population is using social media: that’s 3.8 billion people (an increase of 9.2% since 2019).
India has had the biggest increase in social media users since 2019, with 130 million new users, a 48% year-over-year increase.
China owned the second-largest increase in social users in 2019, with 15 million (up 1.5%).
90% of Americans between 18-29 use social media.
Last year, people spent 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media every day, across devices (that means about 1 of every 3 hours spent on the internet is on social platforms).
Worldwide, people aged 16–24 spend closer to 3 hours a day on social.
In 22 out of 46 markets surveyed by GlobalWebIndex, time spent on social decreased or stayed the same.
1 in 4 internet users have tracked their screen time or capped time for certain apps.
Time spent on social increased by 1.4% in 2019, compared to 6% in 2018 (and 15% in 2016).
99% of users in 2019 accessed social media on mobile.
The average social media user has 8.3 different social accounts.
This number lifts to 9.4 social accounts for people aged 16-24.
43% of internet users use social media for work purposes.
43% of internet users use social media when researching things to buy.
Finding “funny and entertaining” content is the fastest-growing reason for using social.
60% of people say they’ve watched a video on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram in the last month.
63% of people say messaging apps are where they feel most comfortable sharing and talking about content.
WhatsApp (1.6 billion users) and Facebook Messenger (1.3 billion) are the 3rd and 4th biggest social platforms, respectively.
50% of marketers say that the shift to private social channels have them rethinking their content strategy.
Instagram Statistics
Instagram has more than 1 billion monthly active users.
89% of users are outside the U.S.
The country with the highest Instagram percentage reach is Brunei.
Instagram ads reach 928.5 million people.
500 million people open Instagram Stories and Instagram Explore every month.
50.9% of Instagram users are women, and 49.1% are men (these are the only genders listed).
35% of people on Instagram are between 25 and 34 years old.
Instagram is the world’s 7th most-visited website.
Instagram is the second-most downloaded free app in the Apple app store.
Instagram is the 10th most popular Google query.
People spend an average of 6 minutes and 35 seconds on Instagram each time they visit.
55% of U.S. Instagram users say they don’t watch TV on a weekly basis.
average engagement rate for video posts: 1.87%.
average engagement rate for photo posts: 1.11%.
average engagement rate for all post types: 1.49%.
#instagood continues to be the second-most popular hashtag of all time on Instagram. (Of course, the number one is #love.).
92% of all Instagram users say they’ve followed a brand, clicked on their website, or made a purchase after seeing a product/service on Instagram.
The average business posts to Instagram 1.7 times per day, and posts 13.1 Stories per month.
The average follower growth rate for a business account is 2.5% per month.
Businesses post 79% photos and 21% videos to their feeds, on average.
Instagram is currently hiding like counts and video views in 7 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand.
62% of people say they have become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.
The heart love sticker is the most popular Giphy sticker in Stories.
Brand Stories have an 85% completion rate.
Instagram represents 10.7% of social referral share to ecommerce sites.
How-to tutorials are the most popular form of Instagram video content.
Stories stickers enhance video performance 83% of the time.
60% of businesses on Instagram Stories use an interactive element every month.
Facebook Statistics
Facebook has 2.5 billion monthly users.
1.95 billion of those users can be reached by ads (that’s 32% of everyone in the world over the age of 13).
69% of U.S. adults use Facebook.
Only 10.1% of Facebook users are in the U.S. or Canada.
44% of people reachable by ads on Facebook are women, and 56% are men (again, these are the only genders listed).
32% of people on Facebook are between the ages of 25 and 34.
74% of high income earners use Facebook.
Seniors are the fastest-growing group of Facebook users.
Facebook is the fifth-most downloaded free app in the App Store.
“Facebook” is the world’s top Google search query.
Facebook is the world’s 3rd most visited website, after Google and YouTube.
People spend an average of 11 minutes and 26 seconds on Facebook each time they visit it.
There are more than 10 million Facebook Groups, used by 1.4 billion people monthly.
79% of Facebook users access the platform only by phone; 19% access via phone and computer; and 1.9% only use a computer.
Video posts earn the highest engagement of any type of content on Facebook.
140 million businesses use Facebook and its related apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram).
58% of people in the U.S. say they’ve become more interested in a brand after seeing it in Facebook Stories (300 million people use Facebook Stories every day).
26.7% of Facebook Pages use paid media.
The average organic reach for a Facebook post is 5.17% of a Page’s likes, while the average paid reach is 28.1% of total reach.
In 2019, people and businesses sent 10x as many messages to each other via Facebook Messenger than they did in 2016—over 20 billion every month.
64% of people say they’d rather use Facebook to message a business than call or email.
In 2018, 56% of people said they are already Facebook messaging businesses across their buying journey.
The most talked about moment on Facebook is #internationalwomensday.
90 million small businesses use Facebook.
The average monthly change in page likes is just 0.13%.
87.1% of U.S. marketers will use Facebook marketing in 2020.
Twitter Statistics
As of 2020, Twitter has 152 million monetizable daily users (up 21% year over year).
In the United States, slightly more women than men use Twitter. That’s standard across almost all social networks. But it’s interesting to note that the ratio has shifted since 2015, when more men used Twitter than women.
However, in Great Britain, 59% of Twitter users are men, while 41% are women.
Internationally, the trend follows Great Britain. 57% of global Twitter users are men, while 42% are women.
22% of U.S. adults use Twitter.
20.4% of Twitter’s daily users are based in the U.S., and the rest are international (Japan, Russia, and the U.K. round out the platform’s top markets).
Twitter has 145 million monetizable daily active users.
Twitter’s monetizable audience is 62% men and 38% women.
29% of Twitter users are between 25 and 34 years old.
43% of 30-49-year-olds Twitter users use the platform to receive news.
Twitter is the world’s 6th most-visited website.
People spend an average of 10 minutes and 22 seconds on Twitter each time they visit it.
80% of tweets come from 10% of Twitter users, in the U.S. (Those users are statistically more likely to be women who are democrats and who tweet mostly about politics).
In related news, @BarackObama took @KatyPerry’s top spot for follower count in 2020.
The most popular emoji on Twitter in 2019 was the laugh-cry face (lol).
Twitter users are more likely to prefer “culturally relevant” brands (47% versus 39% of the general U.S. population).
Twitters users also believe that inclusive, transparent brands are more relevant (60% versus 50% of the general population).
Twitter users linger 24% longer over ads than users on other platforms.
Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement.
Tweets with video get 10x more engagement.
Twitter users have above average incomes. Thirty percent of Americans who earn $75,000 or more use Twitter.
32% are college graduates, while 25% have some college. 18% of Twitter users have a high school education or less.
Among those who consume news on Twitter, 45% have college degrees.
More than a quarter (26%) of U.S adults who identify as black use Twitter, while 24% of white-identified U.S adults, and 20% of Hispanic-identified U.S. adults use Twitter.
59% of white, American Twitter users use the platform to receive news, compared to 39% of non-white users.
Twitter’s site referral traffic is up 6%, year-over-year.
Twitter users are more likely to like brands that are inclusive and transparent.
Youtube Statistics
YouTube has more than 2 billion users visiting every month (and that doesn’t count people who aren’t logged in).
YouTube is the world’s 2nd most visited website, after Google.
YouTube is the world’s 3rd most common Google search query.
33% of the world’s population (over the age of 13) use Youtube.
45% of YouTube users are women, 55% are men.
81% of U.S. internet users between the ages of 15 and 25 use YouTube.
15% of YouTube’s traffic comes from the U.S.
Only 33% of popular YouTube videos are in English.
People watch 1 billion hours of video on YouTube every day.
70% of YouTube watchtime happens on mobile.
YouTube views on connected TV screens have increased 39%.
People spend an average of 23 minutes on YouTube each time they visit it.
In Q4 2019, Alphabet broke out YouTube’s ad revenue for the first time ever: over $15 billion, or 9% of its total revenue for 2019.
70% of what people watch on YouTube is determined by the YouTube algorithm.
80% of people who watched a YouTube video as part of their buying journey did so early on.
70% more YouTube users are engaging with creators and channels.
Each visitor spends 11m 24s per day on YouTube, on average.
Each visit to YouTube involves 6.5 pageviews, on average.
10% of the most popular YouTube videos draw 79% of views.
When choosing what to watch, whether a video relates to a viewer’s interests is 3x more important to people than whether it has a famous actor.
Likewise, relevance to personal interests is 1.6x more important to viewers than production value.
Watch time for videos on “which product to buy” doubled between 2017 and 2018.
70% more YouTube users are engaging with creators and channels.
LinkedIn Statistics
LinkedIn has 675 million monthly users, gaining two new members every second.
12% of the world’s population (over 13 years old) is on LinkedIn.
57% of LinkedIn users are men, and 43% are women.
70% of LinkedIn’s users are outside the U.S., including 211 million users in Europe, and 179 million in Asia Pacific.
61% of LinkedIn’s users are between 25 and 34 years old.
30 million companies are using LinkedIn.
97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing.
89% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation.
62% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn generates leads (that’s twice as many as the next social platform).
Cost per lead on LinkedIn is 28% lower than on Google AdWords.
30% of a company’s engagement on LinkedIn comes from employees.
Employees are 14 times more likely to share content from their employers than other types of content on LinkedIn.
57% of LinkedIn’s traffic is mobile.
LinkedIn has 15x more content impressions than job postings.
Engagement has increased 50%, year over year.
Users are 60% more likely to engage with a coworker than another connection.
4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”.
An ad on LinkedIn can reach 12% of the world’s population.
94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing.
59% of sales professionals count on social platforms to sell.
Sponsored InMail has a 52% open rate, on average.
Snapchat Statistics
Snapchat reports 218 million daily active users, as of early 2020 (up 17%, year over year).
61% of Snapchat users are women, and 38% are men.
90% of Americans between 13 and 24 use Snapchat.
After the U.S., Snapchat’s biggest markets are India, France, and the U.K.
82% of people on Snapchat are 34 or younger.
Users spend an average of 30 minutes on Snapchat every day.
75% of Snapchat users engage with augmented reality every day.
20% of snaps use a lens that was created in Lens Studio by brands or users.
Users are spending 35% more time in Snapchat’s Discover section every day.
Snapchat users are 60% more likely to make an impulse purchase.
38% of Snapchat users aren’t on Instagram at all.
72% of Gen Z users on Snapchat are not reachable by TV ads.
Pinterest Statistics
Pinterest has 335 million monthly users (up 26%, year-over-year).
Pinterest has doubled in size since 2016 (when they had 160 million users).
72% of Pinterest users are women, 20% are men, and 8% don’t specify their gender.
Pinterest is growing faster internationally (35% growth) than in the U.S. (8% growth).
41% of Pinterest users are between the ages of 25 and 34.
Pinterest clocked 6x as many video views in 2019, compared to 2018.
85% of Pinterest use happens on mobile.
Pinterest users have doubled the number of pins in three years, from 10