Digital marketing continues to evolve at a rapid pace, especially in the U.S., where consumer behavior, technological advancements, and shifting industry trends drive constant changes. From search engine optimization (SEO) to social media and paid advertising, understanding key statistics can provide valuable insights into strategies that actually work.
The following compilation of data offers a comprehensive look at where the digital marketing landscape stands in 2025, covering everything from organic search trends and content marketing developments to social media user behavior and paid advertising growth, as well as the critical role of website design and user experience (UX).
These figures from the team at Emulent not only help illustrate the current state of digital marketing but also serve as a roadmap for businesses aiming to stay competitive and thrive in an ever-evolving online environment.
2025 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Statistics
- Around 70% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.
- Roughly 55% of a website’s traffic, on average, comes from organic search.
- Google dominates U.S. search with about 85–90% market share (versus ~7% for Bing).
- Over half of all Google search clicks (around 55%) go to the top 3 organic results.
- Less than 1% of Google users click on results beyond the first page of search results.
- About 15% of Google searches performed each day are entirely new queries that have never been searched before.
- Roughly 65% of all U.S. internet traffic is driven by referrals from Google search.
- About half of businesses report that organic search is the marketing channel with the highest ROI.
- Every $1 spent on SEO yields over $20 in revenue on average (a 20:1 ROI), making SEO one of the highest ROI marketing investments.
- Leads from SEO have an average close rate of around 15%, significantly higher than the close rates from traditional outbound leads.
- Roughly 46% of all Google searches have a local intent (users looking for local information or businesses).
- About 80% of U.S. consumers search online for local businesses at least weekly – and nearly one-third do so daily.
- Over half of American consumers now primarily use mobile devices when searching online.
- Nearly 90% of all webpages receive no organic traffic from Google (highlighting the importance of SEO and content optimization).
- Approximately one-third of internet users discover new brands or products via search engines, making search a top channel for brand discovery.
- Roughly one-third of Americans (over 100 million people) now own a smart speaker device, underscoring the rise of voice-enabled search.
- Only about 13% of marketers are actively optimizing their content for voice search via assistants like Alexa or Siri.
- For local searches, around 42% of users click on results in Google’s local 3-pack (map results), underlining the value of local SEO.
- The SEO services industry was worth nearly $90 billion in 2024 (up from about $75 billion in 2023), reflecting how much businesses invest in search visibility.
- 61% of marketers say that generating organic traffic and leads is their top marketing challenge, highlighting why SEO remains a critical priority.
2025 Content Marketing Statistics
- Over half of marketers planned to increase their content marketing investment going into 2024.
- Almost 90% of businesses now use content marketing to engage customers (e.g. blogs, videos, infographics, etc.).
- Content marketing produces over 3× as many leads as outbound marketing while costing roughly 60% less.
- About three-quarters of marketers say their content marketing has directly increased audience engagement, demand, and lead generation.
- Nearly 60% of B2B marketers report that content marketing has helped increase their company’s sales/revenue.
- Companies that maintain an active blog receive roughly 55% more website visitors than those that do not.
- The average blog post in 2024 is about 1,400 words long – roughly 75% longer than the average post was 10 years ago.
- Over 80% of content marketers now use generative AI tools (for ideation, writing, etc.) as part of their content creation workflow.
- Short-form video has become the most popular content format in 2024 – around 30% of marketers say platforms like TikTok/Reels are their top content strategy.
- Over 90% of businesses use video as a marketing tool to reach their audiences.
- More than 90% of video marketers report a positive ROI from video content campaigns.
- Over 85% of consumers say they want to see more video content from brands they love.
- Nearly two-thirds of consumers have made a purchase after watching a branded video on social media.
- 88% of marketers plan to maintain or increase their use of infographics in 2024, recognizing their value in content strategy.
- Infographics are 30× more likely to be read than plain text and can increase website traffic by up to 12% by engaging users visually.
- Over 90% of marketers agree that personalizing content (to audiences’ interests or behavior) leads to higher customer engagement and sales.
- Around 70% of consumers prefer to learn about a company through informative articles, blog posts, or other content rather than via advertisements.
- Over 80% of consumers feel more positive about a brand after consuming custom content from that brand (such as helpful articles or videos).
- Roughly 70% of B2B marketers plan to boost their investment in video content creation in 2024, reflecting the ongoing shift toward video marketing.
2025 Social Media Marketing Statistics
- Approximately 72% of the entire U.S. population (about 246 million people) are active on social media.
- The average American adult now spends over 2 hours per day on social media platforms.
- About 91% of social media users access their favorite platforms via mobile devices.
- Nearly half of social media users say they rely on influencer recommendations to inform their purchasing decisions.
- YouTube and Facebook are the most widely used social platforms – around 83% of U.S. adults use YouTube and 68% use Facebook.
- Roughly 47% of U.S. adults use Instagram, and about 33% use TikTok – a user base for TikTok that has grown from just 21% in 2021.
- 93% of businesses maintain an active presence on Facebook, and 86% of companies utilize Facebook’s advertising features.
- 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account, illustrating how users engage with brands on the platform.
- TikTok is the fastest-growing social network – about 40% of businesses planned to incorporate TikTok into their marketing strategy for 2024.
- TikTok reached 1 billion global users in just five years (with roughly 100 million of those users in the U.S. alone).
- LinkedIn is rated as the most trusted social media platform by U.S. consumers, making it a key channel for building brand credibility.
- Less than 5% of businesses are using Facebook’s video ads format, leaving a major opportunity for brands to stand out with video content.
- 90% of social media marketers say that building an active online community is crucial for a successful social strategy.
- Social media has become the top product discovery channel for consumers aged 18–44, outperforming traditional search for that demographic.
- 80% of social media marketers believe that in-app shopping will become more common – they expect consumers to buy products directly within social apps more often than on websites.
- 95% of Pinterest users use the platform to plan or inspire purchases, and 52% have bought something they discovered on Pinterest at a later time.
- About 25% of TikTok users have purchased a product (or researched one) after seeing it in a TikTok video, highlighting TikTok’s influence on shopping habits.
- Roughly 40% of Gen Z users prefer using TikTok or Instagram for searching information (for example, finding local restaurants) instead of relying on Google.
- The number of U.S. social media users is projected to continue growing – on pace to reach roughly 300 million users by 2029.
- On average, an individual social media user engages with about 6–7 different social platforms in a given month.
2025 Paid Advertising Statistics
- Brands spent approximately $259 billion on digital advertising in the U.S. in 2024 – a 15% increase over the previous year.
- Digital ads can increase brand awareness by around 80%, making online advertising a powerful tool for exposure.
- Roughly 90% of all internet users will encounter a Google paid ad during their web browsing sessions.
- Customers are about 70% more likely to make a purchase after seeing a retargeting ad (an ad targeting users who previously visited the website).
- On average, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising returns about $2 in revenue for every $1 spent (a 200% ROI).
- Website visitors who click through a PPC ad are 50% more likely to convert (take a desired action) than those who arrive via organic search.
- Paid search ads (Google Ads text results) account for roughly 45% of all clicks on the search engine results page for high-commercial intent queries.
- 75% of people say that online ads help them find the information or products they’re looking for more easily.
- However, an estimated 70–80% of users tend to ignore paid search ads and focus on the organic results, underscoring the need for compelling ad copy and targeting.
- Paid search advertising drives about 15% of the total traffic to an average business website, whereas paid social media ads contribute around 5% of site traffic.
- Google is expected to capture over 70% of U.S. search ad spending by 2026, maintaining a roughly tenfold lead over Microsoft’s share.
- Social media advertising makes up about one-third of all digital ad spending today.
- Mobile advertising now accounts for 77% of all digital ad expenditure, reflecting the mobile-first behavior of consumers.
- Around 65% of small and mid-sized businesses are running PPC advertising campaigns to drive traffic and sales.
- Approximately 45% of small businesses have a paid search (PPC) strategy, while about 55% invest in online display advertising.
- Digital ad fraud cost U.S. advertisers nearly $16 billion in the last year, indicating the importance of fraud prevention measures.
- Fewer than 20% of marketers regularly use A/B testing on their landing pages, meaning most advertisers are not experimenting to improve conversion rates.
- Being exposed to display ads makes consumers about 155% more likely to search for that brand online later, demonstrating a strong brand lift effect.
- Marketers report that Google Ads and Facebook Ads deliver the highest ROI among paid media channels.
- In 2024, search advertising revenue in the U.S. reached roughly $103 billion, while paid social media advertising revenue hit about $89 billion (driven by large growth in social ads).
2025 Website Design & User Experience (UX) Statistics
- It takes about 0.5 seconds for a visitor to form an opinion about a website – first impressions are almost instantaneous.
- 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive in its design.
- Three-quarters of consumers admit they judge a company’s credibility based on the design of its website.
- Websites that offer an excellent user experience can achieve conversion rates up to 4× higher than those that do not.
- Nearly 50% of consumers expect an average website to load in 2 seconds or less – any longer and you risk losing them.
- 72% of small businesses in the U.S. have their own website to represent their business online.
- Almost 60% of users say they won’t recommend a business if its mobile website is poorly designed or hard to use.
- Around 40% of users will abandon a website that takes too long to load images or content.
- 70% of small business websites lack a clear call-to-action on their homepage, potentially missing opportunities to convert visitors.
- After a poor website experience, nearly 90% of online consumers will leave the site and go to a competitor’s website instead.
- Investing in user-friendly design pays back – every $1 invested in improving UX yields up to a $100 return.
- 73% of companies invest in updating their website design because they know a modern, well-designed site helps their brand stand out.
- 44% of online shoppers will share a negative experience they had on a website with friends or family (bad news travels fast!).
- On average, users read only about 28% of the text on any given webpage – most people scan rather than fully read online.
- Over half of all web traffic worldwide now comes from mobile devices, underscoring the need for responsive, mobile-friendly site design.
- If a site takes longer than 2 seconds to load, its bounce rate (the rate of users leaving immediately) increases by 50% or more.
- 85%+ of consumers will abandon a purchase or leave a website if they detect it’s not secure (no HTTPS), even if they were in the middle of a transaction.
- 43% of small business owners who do have a website plan to improve their website’s performance (speed, SEO, content) in the next year.
- Nearly two-thirds of marketers report an average landing page conversion rate below 10%, which indicates plenty of room for optimization.
- The average e-commerce website’s conversion rate is under 2% – even small UX improvements can make a big difference in online sales.