100 Most Useful Inbound Marketing Stats

Looking for a list of the most useful inbound marketing stats? You are at the right place.

Marketing plays a crucial role in any business. When marketing a product or service online, you must use the best tools and strategies based on existing data. 

Conversely, inbound marketing is a technique of attracting customers into buying products and services through branding, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and content marketing. 

With information about a strategy and a tool that you are about to use in marketing, you can be confident to fulfill all your marketing objectives.

In this article, I am going to share some inbound marketing stats that every business owner should be aware of this year.

Here are the 100 crucial inbound marketing statistics that every business should read and understand:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Stats

Search Engine Optimization is the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic that a website attracts. It uses different tools that increase the visibility of a site on multiple search engines. 

SEO is one of the most useful practices by marketers that intend to increase their total business sales. 

Below are some stats on SEO that makes it worth investing in as a business. 

1. When it comes to attracting traffic to a website, the number of pages on the site is vital. For instance, websites with 51-100 pages attract at least 48.0% more traffic than sites with less than 50 pages. Any business that intends to be noticeable online must ensure it has enough landing pages on its website (Ironpaper.com, 2020).
2. At least 70.0% of all the links that internet users click are organic (Intechnic, 2020).
3. Most users tend to contact companies directly with the information they obtain online. 60.0% of those using their smartphones to browse have contacted a business after getting the search results for “click to call” option (Think With Google, 2020)
4. Mobile searches for ‘near me today or tonight’, have grown by at least 900% in the last two years (Think With Google, 2020)
5. Video or visual content is the most effective tool for content marketing, with a 65% recall rate days in three days (Hubspot, 2020).
6. Close to 47.0% of internet users research and engage with at least three brands before they can finally contact one of them (Hubspot, 2020).
7. Only 11% of smartphone users are using official websites to get information online, while the other 89 % use apps (Blue Corona, 2020).
8. Majority of marketers are using Google Analytics as their primary SEO tool (Hubspot, 2020).
9. Most companies have realized a 55.0% increase in leads by increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15 (Hubspot, 2020).
10. Google is responsible for 94% of organic traffic to websites and 96% of all smartphone search traffic (Omnicore, 2020).
11. Nearly 50.0% of all keyword searches are four words and more (Omnicore, 2020).
12. Before starting to search online, at least 90.0% of users have not decided on a brand they want to buy (Omnicore, 2020).
13. Search engines are responsible for at least 93.0% of website traffic (Omnicore, 2020).
14. You can double your website search traffic by just having a video thumbnail on it (Omnicore, 2020).
15. A loading time that exceeds 2 seconds can cause a 50.0% increase in bounce rates (Omnicore, 2020).
16. At least 72.0% of individuals searching for a physical location will visit one within 5 miles from where they are (Omnicore, 2020).
17. 87% of people use a search engine to browse the internet. Also, at least 78.0% of them use the search engine to find information about a product or service (Intechnic, 2020)
18. Improving the mobile performance of sites is the most useful technical SEO tactic that most businesses employ (Hubspot, 2020).
19. 64% of marketers spend most of their time in SEO (Hubspot, 2020).

Bonus: Here are some more useful SEO stats to follow.

Email Marketing Stats

Email marketing involves sending commercial messages to people to market products and services. (Learn more about the best email marketing services such as MailChimp and GetResponse).

Marketers first prepare an email list, custom messages, and send it to customers regularly. 

In the broadest sense, any message that the marketer sends to a customer is a marketing email. 

1. Email marketing is one of the most successful digital marketing strategies that small online businesses have been using in 2020 (Optinmonter.com, 2020).
2. Only 35.0% of users prefer emails that are plain text as opposed to 65.0%, which prefer emails containing images and video s (Intechnic, 2020).
3. Most digital marketers prefer email marketing as a way of reaching out to customers on a personal level. Nearly 89.0% of marketers say that email marketing is their primary channel for successfully generating leads (Intechnic, 2020).
4. According to Statista (2019), the number of email users was 3.90 billion in 2019. We can expect the numbers to grow even further this year.
5. 40.0% of consumers say that they have at least 50 unread emails in their inbox (Sinch, 2020).
6. The number one tactic used by marketers to improve performance is a personalization of the messages they send to subscribers on their email list (Hubspot, 2020).
7. Most digital marketers are investing much of their time in designing promotional images because of their significant impact on product promotion (Hubspot, 2020).
8. “Submit” and “Go” buttons get the least number of clicks compared to “Click here” buttons (Intechnic, 2020).
9. We can expect the number of email users worldwide to reach at least 4.480 Billion by 2024 (Statista, 2019).
10. The most clicked subject lines are “Posts” and “Jobs” (Intechnic, 2020).
11. At least 35.0% of marketers prefer to send a maximum of three emails to their customers (Hubspot, 2020).
12. Most marketers use mobile-friendly emails to improve marketing performance (Hubspot, 2020).
13. Segmented email campaigns have performed at least 14.31% higher than non-segmented email campaigns (Hubspot, 2020).
14. When using a company’s brand name in the email subject line, the CTR level seems to be higher than when you are not mentioning its name (Intechnic, 2020).
15. HTML emails are the most preferable compared to plain text emails. Only 12.0% of people prefer plain text messages from companies, while almost 88.0% prefer HTML emails (Intechnic, 2020).
16. Recent subscribers are the most likely users to click on your email on reception. This would mean that you should strive to send emails to those who subscribe to your services as soon as possible (Intechnic, 2020).
17. For the past 12 months, at most, 80.0% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement (Hubspot, 2020).
18. The most CTR rate for emails is achieved on Saturday. The CTR for Saturdays is over 9.0%, while that of Sunday and other days of the week is below 9.0 (Intechnic, 2020).
19. Of all the weekdays, Tuesday has the highest email unsubscription rate of 0.52% (Intechnic, 2020).
20. Most users are likely o open their emails early in the morning at 6.AM. This time has the highest CTR compared to other hours of the day (Intechnic, 2020).
21. Only 12.0% of email users would have a separate inbox for work and personal use. Most people have only one email address for both work and private use (Intechnic, 2020).

Bonus: Top free tools for email marketing

Customers’ Response to Inbound Marketing Efforts 

1. According to Search Engine Land (2020), at least 80.0% of email users would ignore ads that Google sponsors.
2. Only 25.0% of users are likely to scroll beyond the first page of a search engine (Hubspot. 2020)
3. If people don’t connect directly with the marketing message on your site, they will spend 10 seconds only on the site homepage (Microsoft Research, 2020).
4. SEO is essential for customers to find a business online because 93.0% of the buying cycle begins online when customers search for more information about a product (Marketo, 2020).
5. A company should focus more on publishing more content about their services. According to the Content Marketing Institute (2020), at least 80.0% of businesses will go through several articles when collecting more information about a company compared to one advert.
6. Inbound marketing generates 54.0% more leads compared to traditional and paid marketing (Ironpaper.com. 2020).

Social Media Stats

Companies, small businesses, and large corporations are using social media platforms to connect with target customers, build a brand, and drive more traffic to their websites.

Knowing how to use social media to improve your site’s visibility is essential to remaining at the top of most search engines.

In this part of the essay, we highlight some of the critical statistics of the social media marketing that you should be aware of when marketing your products and services online.

1. Most companies with the highest number of social media followers experience higher leads. According to Intechnic, companies with between 51 and 100 followers on Twitter can generate at least 106% more traffic to their websites (Intechnic, 2020).
2. Most marketers will publish on social media platforms at least two or three times a week (Hubspot, 2020).
3. The lead-to-close rate for social marketing is 100% higher than that of outbound marketing (Intechnic, 2020).
4. As of April 2020, Facebook has over 2.60 billion active users worldwide, making it one of the most useful social media marketing platforms (Statista, 2020).
5. By 2023, the number of active social media users will reach at least 3.43 billion (Statista, 2020.
6. Twitter is the most successful social media platform that marketers use to increase their ROI in the shortest time.
7. At least 78.0% of businesses use various social media platforms for marketing their products and services online (Intechnic, 2020).
8. Social listening is one of the most successful tools that marketers use to increase their performance (Hubspot, 2020).
9. In 2019, the annual revenue from Twitter was almost USD 3.46 Billion. The social media platform is still recording an increase in its revenue in 2020. We can expect its revenue to increase even further in 2020 (Statista. 2020).
10. When a company has established an active online presence, then most people are likely to build some trust in their products and services. According to Intechnic.com, 82.0% of customers will trust a company that has their MD, CEO, and other senior staff members active on social media.
11. At least 59.0% of internet users use social media for 6 hours every week (Intechnic, 2020).
12. Almost 83.0% of marketers believe that social media is vital in their marketing campaigns (Intechnic, 2020).
13. The former U.S. President, Barrack Obama, was the most followed personality on Twitter as of December 2019 (Statista, 2020).
14. Twitter has over 166 million daily active users globally (Statista, 2020).
15. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are the most useful social media platforms for markets (Hubspot, 2020).
16. 69.0% of marketers admit that they are likely to increase their use of Instagram in social media marketing (Statista, 2020).
17. LinkedIn has over 690 million users, making it one of the most successful professional networks in the world today (LinkedIn, 2020).
18. The United States has the highest number of LinkedIn users. As of April 2020, LinkedIn had over 160 million users in the U.S. (LinkedIn, 2020).
19. 53% of active LinkedIn users are male, and 43.0% are female, according to a survey that the company conducted in 2020 (LinkedIn, 2020).

Conversion Rate Optimization Stats

Conversion Rate Optimization is the practice of increasing the number of site visitors that take action. It seeks to increase the number of users that fill forms or click or subscribe to a company’s emails.

It can focus on improving website graphics to make it friendlier to those using their phones to browse. 

Here are some statistics on the conversion rate worth your attention this year.

1. Online reviews are essential in attracting lead. At least 61.0% of people read online reviews before purchasing anything online (Intechnic, 2020).
2. At least 90.0% of users that read your online business reviews will also read the CTA report (Intechnic, 2020).
3. If your business goals and those of the customer meet, then the conversion rates tend to increase (Intechnic, 2020).
4. A call-to-action landing page generates low leads compared to a long landing page, which produces 220.0% more leads (Intechnic, 2020).
5. The conversion rate for a landing page is at least 2.35%. However, the most optimized sites have a higher conversion rate of up to 5.31% (Intechnic, 2020).
6. Correct use of website testing methods and user targeting can triple a site’s conversion rate (Intechnic, 2020).
7. A business with more than 30 landing pages can have 7 times more leads than a company with between 1 and 5 landing pages (Intechnic, 2020).
8. Most sites have a conversion rate ranging from 1% to 3% (Intechnic, 2020).

Lead Generation Stats

A major part of inbound marketing stats is lead generation. A lead is anyone that shows interest in the products and services that a company is offering. 

Lead generation is the practice of discovering willing and able customers for a business. It involves driving traffic to a site and ensuring that every visitor to a website is converted to a potential buyer. 

Below are some statistics on lead generation that you can focus on when choosing a marketing campaign for your business.

1. SEO leads have a higher close rate of up to 14.6% compared to outbound leads, which have 1.70%close rates (Ironpaper.com, 2020).
2. Automated email marketing is one of the most useful tactics for attracting leads. At least 20.0% of marketers prefer to use automated email marketing to reach their customers (Hubspot, 2020)
3. At least 68.0% of companies and businesses are likely to automate their marketing to boost performance (Hubspot, 2020).
4. Paid search advertising gets 3x less leads compared to content marketing (Hubspot, 2020).
5. By using email campaigns, a website can realize at least 4.0% CTR and an average of 17.0% open rate (Hubspot, 2017).
6. 23.0% of marketers prefer to automate their content delivery when they opt for automated marketing (Hubspot, 2020).
7. 75.0% of marketers have been reporting how marketing campaigns have directly influenced their sales revenue (Hubspot, 2020).
8. Understanding the ROI of any marketing campaign is very fundamental when a company is intending to invest in any marketing strategy. At least 35.0% of marketers have reported that understanding the impact of a marketing campaign on the business ROI is crucial (Hubspot, 2020).
9. A company is likely to spend between USD 6.46 and USD 1090 on cost-per-click in the legal industry. In the medical sector, the CPC is about USD 165.0 (Hubspot, 2020).
10. Although 41.0% of people confirm service appointments via messaging, at least 61.0% of people would like to do so (Sinch, 2020).
11. Google Chrome is the leading mobile internet browser as of February 2020 (Statista, 2020).
12. At least 59.0% of the entire global population is active on the internet. According to Statista (2020), at least 4.57 billion people were using the internet by April 2020.
13. There are over 3.5 Billion smartphone users in the world as of April, 2020 (Statista, 2020).
14. At least 75.0% of all smartphone users want instant information when they go online to search (Think With Google, 2020).
15. Internet privacy is a significant issue that influences how people transact online. 44.0% of the research respondents said they have not been using mobile payments when buying online because they are more worried about their data getting on the wrong hands (Statista, 2020).
16. 72.0% of people believe that mobile apps can track their movements, and because of this, they are not likely to install them in their phones. On the contrary, at least 80.0% of people say that they can download an app from a company they trust (Sinch, 2020).

Content Marketing Stats

Content marketing involves creating and sharing online materials like articles, podcasts, audio files, and short videos. 

It intends to drive more traffic by stimulating internet users’ interest in the product or service. 

The content should be reliable, valuable, and consistent to serve its purpose.

Below are some important stats on content marketing.

1. A total sale after marketing is the most useful measure for the success of content marketing. Most marketers will tell if a content marketing campaign is successful once the company realizes an increase in sales revenue (Hubspot, 2020).
2. At least 20.0% of marketers are planning to increase their investment in content marketing for 2020 (Hubspot, 2020).
3. Market segmentation is a prevalent tactic that marketers use. Most marketers prefer segmenting the market into three parts and reaching the target audience using different content (Hubspot, 2020).
4. Articles with more than 3000 words get 3.50X more backlinks, 4x more shares, and 3x more organic traffic. That means online businesses should invest more in publishing articles with more words on their landing pages (SEMrush, 2020)
5. Most companies allocate more than 46.0% of their budget on content creation (Hubspot, 2020).
6. WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS). At least 18.0% of marketers worldwide are choosing the CMS (Hubspot, 2020).
7. 36.0% of women and 39.0% of men aged above 12 years in the U.S. listen to podcasts. Also, 45.0% of those above 12 will listen to video and audio content on their cell phones (Edison Research, 2020).
8. Video marketing attracts more traffic to a site compared to other types of content. 59.0% of non-video marketers are looking forward to using video content as their marketing tool in the coming years (Wyzowl, 2020).
9. At least 88.0% of video marketers plan to use YouTube Videos in 2020 (Wyzowl, 2020).
10. When published on a website, quality content can increase site traffic by up to 2,000% (Omnicore, 2020).
11. Blogging is more effective in helping a company reach more customers (learn how to create a blog). Marketers that include blogging in their marketing campaign are 13 times more likely to succeed in increasing company ROI (Hubspot, 2020).

Final Thoughts

Inbound marketing involves a lot that every business should do to be successful. In this article, I have shared some of the recent inbound marketing stats, that I am confident will help you with planning your marketing campaigns this year.

With these statistics, you can now focus more on making an informed decision when launching a marketing campaign for your small online business.