63 Content Marketing Statistics for 2023

We’ve curated, vetted, and categorized a list of 63 up-to-date statistics that provide insight into content marketing.

Here are the most interesting content marketing statistics we think you should know.

1. 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, 10% report not using content marketing, and 8% are unsure if their company uses content marketing (HubSpot).
2. 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy, and 64% of the most successful B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy (Content Marketing Institute).
3. 69% of marketers actively invest time in SEO (HubSpot).
4. 67% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads (a 7% increase since last year). In addition, 72% of marketers say that content marketing helps to educate the audience (2% increase), and 63% say that it helps build loyalty with existing clients/customers (3% increase, CMI).
5. Video was the primary form of content being created in 2022, followed by blogs (used by more than half of marketing teams), and images (HubSpot).
6. 73% of people admit to skimming blog posts, while 27% consume them thoroughly (HubSpot).
7. 51% of the businesses that invest in content marketing publish content every day (The Manifest).
8. Although 32% of respondents say they are overwhelmed by the amount of content available, a majority (44%) say they typically consume three to five pieces of content before engaging with a vendor (DemandGen).
9. 73% of respondents prefer to learn about a product or service from a short video (4% increase since last year). 11% prefer to read a text-based article, website, or post (7% decrease). 4% prefer to view an infographic. 3% prefer to download an ebook or manual. 3% prefer to attend a webinar or pitch. 3% prefer to receive a sales call or demo (1% increase) (Wyzowl).
10. 81% of marketers view content as a core business strategy (CMI).

Content marketing from a business perspective.

1. The top three primary goals of creating content are boosting sales, building relationships with customers, and increasing brand awareness (eMarketer).
2. Content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less (Demand Metric).
3. 72% of the most successful marketers in North America measure the ROI of their content marketing (eMarketer).
4. 83% of marketers say it’s better to focus on quality rather than quantity of content, even if it means posting less often (Hubspot).

Here’s what B2B marketers say about their content marketing efforts.

1. Only 7% of B2B marketers don’t plan to develop a content marketing strategy (3% increase from last year,  CMI).
2. Most B2B marketers try to differentiate from the competition by content quality (83%) and covering untapped topics/stories (72%) (CMI).
3. Top performing B2B content assets in 2021 and 2022 were short articles (less than 3 k words), videos, and virtual events/webinars/online courses (CMI).
4. 87% of B2B marketers prioritize the audience’s informational needs over the organization’s sales/promotional messages (CMI).
5. LinkedIn is used by 96% of B2B content marketers (CMI).
6. Most B2B marketers (67%) use paid content distribution channels (CMI).
7. 78% of B2B marketers employ keyword research for SEO while creating content (CMI).

Let’s see how answers given by B2C content marketers compare to their B2B counterparts.

1. Only 5% of B2C marketers don’t plan to develop a content marketing strategy (CMI).
2. 65% of B2C marketers prioritize the audience’s informational needs over the organization’s sales/promotional messages (CMI).
3. Top performing B2C content assets in 2021 and 2022 were short articles (less than 3 k words), videos, and data visualization/3D models (CMI).
4. B2C marketers who use nonpaid social media platforms report that Facebook (63%), LinkedIn (53%), and Instagram (39%) produced the best overall content marketing results (CMI).
5. Only 22% of B2C marketers don’t use paid content distribution channels (CMI).
6. 73% of B2C marketers employ keyword research for SEO when creating content (CMI).

As we’ve already seen, most content marketers do keyword research and invest in SEO. In other words, they invest in organic search. Let’s see what else we can find about this marketing channel.

1. 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google (Ahrefs).
   
   
   
2. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine (Brightedge).
3. 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search instead of branded search (Google).
4. 53% of shoppers say they always do research before a purchase to ensure they are making the best possible choice (Google).
5. Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication (Ahrefs).
6. Almost two-thirds of global online search comes from mobile devices (Perficient).
7. 69% of marketers actively invest in SEO (HubSpot).
8. Generally speaking, the more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it gets from Google (Ahrefs).
9. The average #1 ranking page will also rank in the top 10 for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords (Ahrefs).
   
   
   
10. There’s no correlation between Flesch Reading Ease scores and ranking positions (Ahrefs).
    
    
    

Handpicked statistics for the cornerstone of many content strategies.

1. People rarely read online. They’re far more likely to scan than read word for word. They simply want to pick out the information that is most pertinent to their current needs (Nielsen).
2. 70% of people rather get information from blogs than traditional advertisements (Demand Metric).
3. To date, there are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites in the world. Their authors account for over 6 million blog posts daily, or over 2.5 billion annually (hosting tribunal).
4. How-to articles are the most popular content formats (77%), followed by news and trends (49%), and guides and ebooks (47%) (Statista).
5. Only one-third of bloggers regularly check their blogs traffic analytics (Statista).
6. Engagement starts after 7 minutes of reading (Medium).
   
   
   

As reported by Hubspot, video is the primary type of content being created in 2022 (third year in a row). It seems that video marketing is no longer a nice-to-have.

1. 70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube (Google).
2. 78% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app by watching a video (Wyzowl).
3. YouTube is the #1 visited website in the U.S. by organic traffic (Ahrefs).
4. YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds in an average week than all cable TV networks combined (Google).
5. Short-form videos (TikTok, IG Reels) and live streaming were the most effective formats on social media in 2022 (Hubspot).
6. Video viewers say relating to their passions is 3X more important than content featuring famous actors (Google).
7. Video viewers say relating to their passions is 1.6X more important than content with high production quality (Google).
8. 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool (Wyzowl).
9. 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service (Wyzowl).
10. 88% of people wanted to see more videos from brands in 2022 (Wyzowl).

Brands like Slack, Shopify, and Basecamp have already invested in creating branded podcasts. These statistics show that marketers should at least consider advertising on podcasts.

1. Podcast ad spending in the U.S. is expected to reach $2.2B in 2023, a 27% increase from 2022 (Statista).
2. 62% of Americans listened to a podcast as of 2022 (Edison Research).
3. Monthly podcast listening grew year-over-year among those aged 35-54, as 43% are now monthly podcast listeners, up from 39% in 2021 (Edison Research).   
4. 80% of podcast listeners listen to all or most of each episode (Podcast Insights).
5. Weekly podcast listeners tune in to an average of eight podcasts per week (Edison Research).

Is visual content important? Is there something like the best day to publish? How do people decide what link to click? Find out below.

1. People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations (W.H Levie, H.Lentz).
2. The majority of marketers surveyed say that visual content is a key component of their marketing strategy. Nobody responded that visual content wasn’t important to them in 2022 (Venngage).
3. There’s no “best day” to publish a new piece of content. Social shares are distributed evenly among posts published on different days of the week (Backlinko).
4. The average time a reader allocates for a newsletter after opening it is only 51 seconds. Participants of the study fully read only 19% of newsletters (Nielsen).
5. When deciding which links to click, users choose those with the highest information scent, which is a mix of cues they get from the link label, the context in which the link is shown, and their prior experiences (Nielsen).

Final thoughts

Let’s remember to take all statistics with a grain of salt. Statistics are generalizations of only a portion of the reality around us. Also, they aren’t methodologically sound all of the time: small sample sizes, p-hacking, and spurious correlations are quite common.

So if you’ve just read a piece of data that contradicts your professional marketing experience, don’t throw away your content strategy just yet. Instead, dig deeper.

Finally, if you want to learn more about content marketing, we’ve got a few guides ready for you:

• Why Is Content Marketing Important? 5 Reasons
• Content Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide for 2021
• How to Create a Winning Content Strategy
• 5 Winning Types of Content Marketing to Grow Your Business
• 7 Inspiring Content Marketing Examples (And How to Replicate Them)

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.