Digital Marketing Statistics For 2026 & What They Mean For Your Business

By Liam Lally | 23rd October 26

Businesses face a difficult combination: AI is changing how people find information, advertising costs remain under pressure, and customers can discover a product on one platform before researching and buying somewhere else. The evidence also shows opportunities, including better conversion rates in some advertising benchmarks and commercially valuable visits from AI assistants.

The useful question is where marketing investment can still bring in customers at a sustainable cost. Answering it means looking beyond a single headline about falling traffic or rising clicks.

The statistics below cover AI search, website traffic, advertising costs, consumer decisions and the value of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Reddit. Most sources were published in 2025 or 2026. An older advertising profitability study is clearly identified because it provides a useful longer-term perspective.

How to read the figures: UK, US and international findings are labelled. Advertising audiences, active users and registered members are different measures. Survey responses describe what people say; campaign benchmarks describe the organisations sampled. Platform research is identified where relevant, and a reported relationship does not establish that advertising caused the result.

Visual representation of AI search includes a shop in the middle surrounded by a pile of coins, a shopping bag, a perfume bottle, a magnifying glass and a play button symbol on a background of magenta & cyan

AI search statistics

AI summaries can reduce the likelihood of a website click

Pew Research Center analysed browsing from 900 US adults during March 2025. Its study provides evidence about what people actually did after searching, rather than simply asking whether they liked AI answers. The search results themselves were collected the following month. Source: Pew Research Center, July 2025.

Traditional search results received clicks on 8% of visits with an AI summary, compared with 15% without one. Source: Pew, 2025.
Links inside AI summaries received clicks on just 1% of visits to results containing a summary. Source: Pew, 2025.
Browsing sessions ended after 26% of results pages with summaries, versus 16% without. Source: Pew, 2025.
60% of searches beginning with question words generated an AI summary. Source: Pew, 2025.

Ahrefs examined a different question: how organic click-through rates changed for individual ranking positions. Its February 2026 analysis compared desktop Search Console data for 300,000 keywords between December 2023 and December 2025. Source: Ahrefs, February 2026.

AI Overviews were associated with a 58% lower click-through rate for the first organic result than Ahrefs’ model estimated without them. Source: Ahrefs, 2026.
The estimated reduction was 50.8% at position two and 46.4% at position three. These are modelled relative differences, not percentage-point falls or a prediction for every website. Source: Ahrefs, 2026.

For businesses, the implication is that maintaining a ranking may not preserve the same volume of visits. Content planning should consider what people still need to do on a website: compare detailed specifications, check availability, use a calculator, examine original evidence or request a quote.

Large search bar behind a large diamond with strands attahed to different search reulst images including a cliff face with sea, three vases, one large white, one medium magenta, one small white, a snow capped mountain scape, a food bowl filled with colourful vegetables and a modern looking house

UK search already produces many searches without clicks

69.5% of UK Google searches ended without a click in SparkToro and Similarweb’s June 2026 study. Source: SparkToro and Similarweb, June 2026.
Only 30.5% produced at least one click. Source: SparkToro and Similarweb, 2026.
Every 1,000 UK Google searches generated an estimated 232 clicks to the open web. This includes paid and organic destinations outside Google’s own properties. Source: SparkToro and Similarweb, 2026.

The study used desktop and mobile browser activity and excluded Google’s mobile search app. These figures describe overall search behaviour; they do not show how much of the zero-click rate AI caused.

A search without a website visit can still have commercial value if someone learns a business name, finds a location or later returns directly. However, businesses whose income depends on website visits should treat reduced click opportunities as a material planning issue.

The newer evidence also contains positive findings

Seer found organic CTR on queries with AI Overviews recovered from 1.31% in December 2025 to 2.36% in February 2026. Its expanded study covered 53 brands and 5.47 million queries. Source: Seer Interactive, April 2026.
Paid CTR on AI Overview queries rose from approximately 14.6% in January 2025 to 16.2% in February 2026 in the same dataset. Source: Seer Interactive, 2026.
February 2026 organic CTR was still lower with AI Overviews: 2.36%, compared with 3.82% without. Source: Seer Interactive, 2026.
Semrush found zero-click rates fell from 33.75% to 31.53% for a set of keywords after they acquired AI Overviews. This before-and-after result challenges the assumption that every appearance of an AI answer reduces all clicks. Source: Semrush, December 2025.

These studies measure different populations and outcomes. A site-level CTR, a ranking-position CTR and the probability of any click after a search should not be treated as interchangeable.

Google also said in August 2025 that total organic clicks to websites were relatively stable year on year, although it did not publish an independently auditable numerical breakdown with that statement. Source: Google, August 2025.

AI is reaching searches with commercial value

The share of commercial search results featuring AI Overviews grew 71% on average between November 2025 and April 2026 in Semrush’s US desktop sample. This is relative growth in prevalence. Source: Semrush, July 2026.
AI Overview prevalence on transactional searches fell 5% on average over that period. Source: Semrush, 2026.
Commercial finance queries saw 231% growth in AI Overview prevalence. Source: Semrush, 2026.
Google Ads and AI Overviews appeared together roughly twice as often as a year earlier. The study examined more than 600,000 keywords. Source: Semrush, 2026.

The distinction between commercial research and an immediate transaction matters. Someone comparing suppliers may encounter an AI answer, while someone ready to book or buy can face a different results page. Audit the searches that generate your revenue before making sweeping changes to SEO or advertising budgets.

Cartoon man receiving information from a Gemini AI search result in the form of a hand reaching out with a magenta & cyan box. Behind the search graphic is water and a bridge leading to 4 different rooms

AI website traffic and conversion statistics

Publisher traffic is under pressure

Pageviews from Google Search on publisher sites fell 34% between December 2024 and December 2025 in Chartbeat’s network. Source: Chartbeat, 2026.
Pageviews from Google Discover fell 16% over the same period. Source: Chartbeat, 2026.
Pageviews from ChatGPT grew more than 200% year on year, but AI chatbots still supplied less than 1% of publisher pageviews. Rapid growth from a small starting point did not replace the larger traffic sources. Source: Chartbeat, 2026.

This is news and publishing evidence, not a forecast that every online shop or local service business will experience the same decline. It does illustrate the danger of relying heavily on one source of visitors.

AI visitors can be valuable when they arrive

Adobe’s August 2026 report analysed US retail activity, with the following results for July. These are observed referral comparisons, not experiments proving that AI caused more purchases. Source: Adobe Digital Insights, August 2026.

AI-referred retail visits converted 60% more often than non-AI visits. Source: Adobe, 2026.
Revenue per visit was 53% higher. Source: Adobe, 2026.
AI visitors spent 59% longer on site and viewed 22% more pages per visit. Source: Adobe, 2026.
They were 34% less likely to bounce. Source: Adobe, 2026.
77% of surveyed consumers who used AI for shopping said it increased their purchase confidence. Source: Adobe, 2026.

One plausible explanation is that an assistant helps people narrow their choices before visiting a retailer. That is an interpretation, not a reason to assume every AI referral will outperform every search click.

A shop front with the lights on sits in the middle of the frame, on the left is a large magnifying glass representing traditional search, on the right is a large globe containing a brain with a matrix of dots representing AI. The search representation is in cyan and shows a path sweeping towards the shop. The AI representation is in magenta and shows also shows a path sweeping towards the shop. They merge in front of the shop to show a visual representation of them working together.

AI and conventional search often work together

AI appeared in 11.4% of US desktop shopping journeys in June 2026, compared with 4.5% in July 2024. Source: Similarweb, October 2026.
89% of journeys involving AI also involved traditional search. Source: Similarweb, 2026.
Conversion rates were 23.0% for journeys combining AI and search, 17.3% for search alone and 12.5% for AI alone. Source: Similarweb, 2026.

These journey measurements are different from Adobe’s referral-visit comparison. Together, they suggest that marketers should examine how channels assist one another, while avoiding the assumption that the highest-converting group proves which channel caused the sale.

Google Ads statistics and the rising cost of paid search

UK clicks became more expensive

UK paid search CPC rose from £1.72 in 2024 to £2.01 in 2025, a reported increase of 17%. Source: LOCALiQ UK, August 2026.
71% of industries recorded higher CPCs. Source: LOCALiQ UK, 2026.
Around 67% of industries with rising CPCs also improved their conversion rates. Source: LOCALiQ UK, 2026.
Overall click-through rates more than doubled in LOCALiQ’s latest UK comparison. Source: LOCALiQ UK, 2026.
Average UK search CTR reached 9% in 2025 across LOCALiQ’s combined Google and Microsoft campaigns. Source: LOCALiQ UK, June 2026.

These figures come from LOCALiQ’s client campaigns. They are useful UK benchmarks, but do not mean every advertiser paid the same amount or that changes came solely from auction inflation.

US benchmarks show improving conversion efficiency

WordStream and LOCALiQ’s 2026 report covers 13,474 US search campaigns from April 2025 to March 2026. Despite the familiar Google Ads title, it combines Google and Microsoft advertising. Its reported averages are medians, and costs are in US dollars. Source: WordStream, 2026.

Metric	2025 report	2026 report	Sources
Click-through rate	6.66%	6.64%	WordStream 2025; 2026
Cost per click	$5.26	$5.42	WordStream 2025; 2026
Conversion rate	7.52%	8.18%	WordStream 2025; 2026
Cost per lead	$70.11	$66.69	WordStream 2025; 2026

Conversion rates improved across 87% of industries in the 2026 report. Source: WordStream, 2026.
Legal services CPC averaged $9.87, compared with $1.63 for arts and entertainment. Sector differences remain substantial. Source: WordStream, 2026.
The published CPC benchmark was $2.32 in 2016, versus $5.42 in 2026. That is approximately 134% higher, calculated from those endpoints. Source: WordStream’s historical comparison, 2026.

The decade comparison is between published samples, not a controlled index tracking identical keywords and advertisers. It is also a nominal comparison, without adjusting for inflation.

For an individual business, rising CPC deserves attention, but cost per qualified enquiry, cost per customer and profit are more useful decision measures. A higher-priced click can be worthwhile if it is more likely to produce a valuable customer.

The opposite also applies: an apparently cheap lead can be expensive if it is irrelevant, duplicated or impossible for the sales team to convert. Record the commercial outcome after the form submission, not just the submission itself.

Google Shopping and Microsoft show different cost trends

Overall Google Search CPC rose just 1% year on year in Q2 2026 in Tinuiti’s US advertiser sample. Source: Tinuiti Q2 2026, page 13.
Microsoft Search CPC rose 19% over the same period. Source: Tinuiti Q2 2026, page 13.
Google Shopping clicks increased 19% while CPC fell 1%. This combines standard Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. Source: Tinuiti Q2 2026, page 14.

These are agency-client trends rather than an index of all advertisers. They reinforce the need to inspect the particular platform, campaign type and market before assuming that all advertising prices are rising together.

A 3D white map of the british isles sat on a black circle. In the area of the black circle that would normally be the sea, there is a magnifying glass on a white circle in the top left, representing search. There is a cream shopping back and coins on a white circle in the bottom left representing online shopping. There is a speech bubble in white on a white circle representing AI conversations. And there is a play button in black with a white play triangle in the middle, on a white circle representing video marketing. Various magenta and cyan coins are distributed across the british isles and on each of the white circles, with some spilling onto the main black circle

UK digital advertising spending statistics

Advertising investment shows the scale of the market. It does not prove that every pound is being spent effectively.

UK digital advertising expenditure reached £40.5 billion in 2025, up 10% year on year. Source: IAB UK and Oliver Wyman, March 2026.
Search attracted £17.9 billion, accounting for 44% of digital expenditure and growing 6%. Source: IAB UK, 2026.
Social media advertising reached £11.5 billion, up 21%. Source: IAB UK, 2026.
Video investment reached £9.3 billion, up 20%. Video overlaps with social and other channels, so these categories should not be added together. Source: IAB UK, 2026.
UK digital expenditure reached £21.2 billion in the first half of 2026, up 13%. Source: IAB UK and mediasense, September 2026.
First-half search expenditure reached £9.1 billion, up 10%; retail media reached £2.0 billion, up 32%. Source: IAB UK and mediasense, 2026.
Mobile accounted for 71% of digital expenditure in the first half of 2026. Source: IAB UK and mediasense, 2026.

IAB restated its earlier figures when its methodology changed, so older report totals should not be used to reconstruct growth rates for this series. Source: IAB UK methodology note, 2026.

The practical lesson is to make each stage of a mobile customer journey work: the advert, landing page, product selection, form and checkout. Investment in visibility can be undermined by an awkward experience after the click.

Advertising return on investment statistics

For a longer-term view, the UK Profit Ability 2 study offers useful historical evidence. Commissioned by Thinkbox and conducted by Ebiquity, EssenceMediacom, Gain Theory, Mindshare and Wavemaker UK, it examined 141 brands and £1.8 billion of media spending from 2021 to 2023. It was published in 2024 and should not be presented as a 2026 performance forecast. Source: Profit Ability 2.

Advertising measure	Profit contribution per £1 of media spending	Source
All advertising, short term	£1.87	Thinkbox, 2024
All advertising, including sustained effects	£4.11	Thinkbox, 2024
Generic paid search, over 24 months	£3.52	Profit Ability 2, Figure 11
Paid social, over 24 months	£3.20	Profit Ability 2, Figure 11
Online video, over 24 months	£3.86	Profit Ability 2, Figure 11
Online display, over 24 months	£2.34	Profit Ability 2, Figure 11

These figures measure profit contribution before deducting media costs; they are not net profit or revenue ROAS. Generic search excludes brand keywords. The sample consists of substantial advertisers using econometric measurement, which limits how directly an SME should apply the averages.

The evidence supports considering paid advertising as an investment that can generate returns over different periods. It also supports judging a campaign against its job: generating an immediate enquiry, creating demand, or helping a buyer choose between suppliers.

Cash flow still matters. A campaign that might pay back over a long period may be unsuitable for a business that needs a quick return. Set an affordable acquisition cost and a realistic evaluation window before scaling expenditure.

A female dressed in white trousers and a dark blue jump in a pondering pose. There is a shopping basket to the left and a large image of headphones on a white circular plinth. A cyan speech bubble sits above the headphones. There is a magento window showing the same headphone in the top right, with a white window showing underneath the shows a close up of one of the headphones ear muffs

Consumer decision making and social advertising statistics

Social content influences purchasing

Sprout Social’s Q2 2025 research surveyed 2,280 social media users in the UK, US and Australia. Source: Sprout Social, May 2025.

76% said social content had influenced a purchase in the previous six months. The question included adverts, influencer posts and brand content. Source: Sprout Social, 2025.
That figure reached 90% among Gen Z and 84% among Millennials. Source: Sprout Social, 2025.
37% preferred social platforms as their first stop for product reviews and recommendations. Source: Sprout Social, 2025.
35% preferred social first when finding local restaurants and activities. Source: Sprout Social, 2025.
41% of Gen Z turned first to social platforms for information, compared with 32% choosing traditional search engines. Source: Sprout Social, 2025.

These findings describe the sampled social users. They do not establish that social has replaced Google for all searches or that paid adverts were responsible for every influenced purchase.

What shoppers say influences them

DHL’s 2026 study surveyed 29,000 online shoppers across 29 countries, with fieldwork between December 2025 and February 2026. Source: DHL E-Commerce Trends Report 2026.

46% said they had purchased through shoppable adverts online or on TV. Source: DHL, 2026.
45% said they had purchased through TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. Source: DHL, 2026.
37% identified sponsored or paid social posts and videos as influencing purchase decisions. Source: DHL, 2026.
42% identified user-generated content, and 36% identified demonstrations or how-to content. Source: DHL, 2026.
63% identified discounts and offers. Multiple answers were possible, so these categories overlap. Source: DHL, 2026.

A useful creative plan should therefore test more than polished promotional messages. Product demonstrations, customer experiences, clear offers and answers to common objections are all reasonable candidates. Their effectiveness for a particular business still needs testing.

Advertising cannot compensate for a poor buying experience

62% of global shoppers said they would abandon a purchase if their preferred payment method was unavailable. Source: DHL’s 2026 report announcement.
95% said trust was critical when choosing a brand in NIQ’s survey of nearly 19,000 consumers across 27 countries. Fieldwork took place in June and July 2025. Source: NIQ Consumer Outlook for 2026.
73% said they would buy from a competitor if a brand failed to respond on social media. This comes from Sprout’s 2025 Index, surveying people who followed at least five brands. Source: Sprout Social Index, January 2025.
About one-third thought brands jumping on viral trends were embarrassing. Trend participation needs judgement and relevance. Source: Sprout Social Index, 2025.

For an advertiser, this makes the experience after an impression part of the investment decision. Check the product information, delivery promise, payment options, reviews and response process before increasing the amount spent attracting more people.

UK social platform audience statistics

Ofcom measured UK online adults (18+) in May 2025 using Ipsos iris, excluding TV sets and smart displays. Source: Ofcom Online Nation 2025, Figure 22.

Platform	Monthly UK adult audience	Share of online adults	Annual audience change	Source
YouTube	46.3 million	94%	+4%	Ofcom
Facebook and Messenger	45.9 million	93%	+6%	Ofcom
Instagram	38.5 million	78%	+7%	Ofcom
Reddit	29.4 million	60%	+28%	Ofcom
TikTok	27.3 million	56%	+14%	Ofcom
LinkedIn	18.4 million	38%	+1%	Ofcom
Pinterest	12.6 million	26%	-5%	Ofcom
Snapchat	11.1 million	23%	+10%	Ofcom

Monthly visitors differ from advertising reach, and audiences overlap. Use these figures to assess scale, then investigate customer fit.

Facebook statistics

Facebook offers opportunities for both customer discovery and lead generation. Its campaign objective matters when interpreting the cost of a click or an enquiry.

WordStream’s 2026 US benchmarks cover 1,377 traffic campaigns and 452 lead campaigns running between April 2025 and June 2026. The figures are medians. Source: WordStream Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026.

Metric	2026 benchmark	Change from previous report	Source
Traffic campaign CPC	$0.60	Down 14.29%	WordStream
Traffic campaign CTR	1.93%	Up 12.87%	WordStream
Lead campaign CPC	$1.80	Down 6.25%	WordStream
Lead campaign CTR	2.70%	Up 4.25%	WordStream
Lead campaign conversion rate	8.54%	Up 10.62%	WordStream
Cost per lead	$27.39	Down 0.98%	WordStream

Personal services cost per lead rose 24.60%, despite the overall improvement. Small sector samples warrant caution. Source: WordStream, 2026.
Meta’s global average price per advert rose 12% in Q2 2026. Source: Meta Q2 2026 results.
Meta delivered 14% more advert impressions year on year. Source: Meta Q2 2026 results.

Meta’s company-wide price metric and WordStream’s US campaign CPC measure different things. Both can rise or fall differently without being contradictory.

The opportunity is to test whether Facebook can generate commercially useful demand at a cost your business can sustain. Compare qualified enquiries and completed sales, and choose an objective aligned with the result you need. Cheap traffic alone does not establish a successful campaign.

Instagram statistics

Instagram’s commercial value includes product presentation, demonstrations and creator content. Organic engagement data can help with creative planning, although it should not be treated as an advertising conversion benchmark.

Instagram’s potential UK advertising audience was 35.5 million in October 2025. Source: DataReportal Digital 2026 UK.
That potential advertising audience was 9.2% larger than a year earlier. Advertising-tool estimates can change with measurement revisions as well as user activity. Source: DataReportal, 2026 edition.
Socialinsider analysed 35 million Instagram posts from 447,613 pages active during 2025. Its annual engagement rates, based on likes and comments relative to followers, were as follows. Source: Socialinsider Instagram benchmarks, 2026.
Carousels: 0.55% engagement, unchanged from 2024. Source: Socialinsider.
Reels: 0.52%, compared with 0.50% in 2024. Source: Socialinsider.
Single-image posts: 0.37%, down from 0.45%. Source: Socialinsider.

For creative testing, a carousel could explain a product range, a process or a comparison. A Reel could demonstrate the product in use or answer a common question. A static image may still be appropriate when the message is immediately clear.

The test should follow the intended action. A format that earns more reactions may not generate more website visits or sales, and paid delivery can reach a different audience from the followers represented in organic benchmarks.

Pinterest statistics

Pinterest deserves consideration where customers plan, compare and collect ideas before buying. Its search behaviour and visual formats make it relevant to more than social interaction alone.

Pinterest reported 640 million global monthly active users in Q2 2026, up 11%. Source: Pinterest Q2 2026 results.
Its European monthly active audience reached 157 million, up 8%. Source: Pinterest Q2 2026 results.
Pinterest reported more than 80 billion searches per month in September 2026, with more than half commercial. Most were visual searches, so the total is not comparable with typed Google queries. Source: Pinterest, September 2026.
Top of Search campaigns produced 41% higher median CTR than control campaigns in Pinterest’s reported tests. The underlying programme included 18 tests across retail and consumer packaged goods advertisers in four countries. Source: Pinterest, January 2026.
JCPenney reported 45% higher CTR and 53% higher ROAS than its usual Consideration campaigns in one Pinterest case study. This is one advertiser’s outcome. Source: Pinterest, January 2026.
Pinterest’s aggregate advertising prices rose 1% year on year in Q2 2026 but fell 2% year on year across the first half. Source: Pinterest Q2 2026 filing.

Worldwide expansion does not guarantee a larger relevant UK audience. Assess your own market and category when choosing where to advertise.

For products that people research visually, test content that helps them imagine the outcome and then reach the relevant product page. Measure the complete purchase path and allow for the possibility that planning and buying happen at different times.

LinkedIn statistics

For B2B businesses, the value of a click depends heavily on who clicked and whether that person can influence a purchase. LinkedIn’s scale, engagement and professional context need to be considered alongside its costs.

LinkedIn reported more than 1.3 billion members in April 2026. This is registered membership, not monthly active users. Source: LinkedIn fiscal Q3 2026 highlights.
Marketing Solutions revenue grew 16% year on year in the fiscal quarter ending June 2026. This measures LinkedIn’s advertising business, not advertiser profit. Source: LinkedIn fiscal Q4 2026 highlights.
Time spent on LinkedIn content grew 10%, while time spent reading comments grew 18%. Source: LinkedIn, July 2026.
LinkedIn CPC was €5.98, compared with €1.60 for Meta, in Dreamdata’s 2026 B2B customer benchmark. Source: Dreamdata, March 2026.
LinkedIn’s attributed ROAS was 121%, compared with 113% in the previous annual study. That means 1.21 times attributed revenue per euro of advertising expenditure, not 121% profit. Source: Dreamdata, 2026.
Cost per company influenced was €70.11 on LinkedIn, versus €128.70 on Meta and €110.37 on Google Search. This is Dreamdata’s company-level measurement, not cost per customer. Source: Dreamdata, 2026.

Dreamdata is a LinkedIn Marketing Partner, and its customer data does not represent every B2B advertiser. The findings nevertheless illustrate why a higher CPC does not automatically mean a platform is less useful.

Content can reach people who rarely speak to sales

Edelman and LinkedIn surveyed 1,934 US business executives in 2025. Their hidden decision-makers included people in functions such as finance, procurement and legal. Source: Edelman and LinkedIn, 2025.

Among the hidden decision-makers:

71% said thought leadership demonstrated a supplier’s potential value more effectively than traditional sales and marketing materials. Source: Edelman and LinkedIn.
64% trusted it more than marketing materials and product sheets when assessing capabilities. Source: Edelman and LinkedIn.
95% said consistent, high-quality thought leadership would make them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach. Source: Edelman and LinkedIn.

These are findings about content, not proof of LinkedIn advertising’s incremental effect. They support testing useful material that helps a buying group make a decision: evidence, technical explanations, practical comparisons and credible case studies.

TikTok statistics

TikTok’s value extends across discovery, creator activity, shopping and local recommendations. It is important to distinguish these wider uses from paid advertising alone.

TikTok’s potential UK advertising audience aged 18 and over was 26.8 million in October 2025. Source: DataReportal Digital 2026 UK.
84% of surveyed UK businesses using TikTok said it had increased their sales and revenue. Source: Public First’s TikTok-commissioned UK report, 2026.
91% of surveyed businesses using TikTok Shop credited it with sales and revenue growth. Source: Public First, 2026.
90% of surveyed businesses using TikTok said it helped them reach customers beyond those accessible through physical retail. Source: Public First, 2026.
28% said a product had sold out because of TikTok or TikTok Shop. Source: Public First, 2026.
31% of surveyed UK TikTok users had visited a local café or restaurant after seeing it on the platform. Source: Public First, 2026.

The commissioned research included 1,034 UK businesses and 4,158 adults, with smaller subgroups behind the platform-user findings. These are self-reported experiences, not a controlled measure of return on paid TikTok campaigns. Source: Public First methodology.

For a retailer or service business, a practical starting point is content that makes the product or experience easy to understand. Show how it works, the situation it solves or what a customer can expect.

The business also needs the capacity to respond. If a post generates interest, product availability, fulfilment, enquiries and customer support need to keep pace. A successful piece of content is only part of a successful commercial outcome.

Snapchat statistics

Snapchat can be relevant when the target audience is concentrated among younger adults. Its advertising research suggests opportunities for attention and brand response, although those measures should be kept separate from sales.

66% of Snapchat’s UK adult audience was 18–34; 7% was 55+ in May 2025. Source: Ofcom Online Nation 2025.
Daily time per monthly UK adult visitor fell from 31 to 27 minutes, May 2024 to May 2025. Source: Ofcom, 2025.
Opened Sponsored Snaps produced 2.3 times the unaided brand-awareness lift and 1.8 times the purchase-intent lift of other social platforms in Snap-commissioned Kantar research. The results apply when users opened the full-screen advert. Source: Kantar, 2025.
Approximately 85% of surveyed Snapchatters considered Sponsored Snaps relevant and compatible with their platform habits. Source: Kantar, 2025.
A combination of Sponsored Snaps, augmented reality and video generated 30 percentage points higher unaided advert recall than video alone, with frequency held constant, in separate commissioned research. Source: Snap and eye square, reported March 2026.

The public summaries do not disclose full sample and market details for every lift result. Use them as evidence for testing a format, rather than as a promised return.

The demographic fit should come first. A business whose customers are mainly older professionals will have a different reason to consider Snapchat from a brand selling to students or young adults. Test whether it adds relevant reach beyond the channels already being used.

YouTube statistics

YouTube offers room for both quick discovery and detailed explanation. That makes its potential role broader than simply putting a brand in front of a viewer.

YouTube’s potential UK advertising audience was 55.5 million in October 2025. This advertising-tool estimate differs from Ofcom’s adult audience measurement above. Source: DataReportal Digital 2026 UK.
US shoppers rated YouTube 1.7 times more likely to positively influence brand consideration than the social platforms compared in a Google-commissioned BCG study. Source: Google and BCG, July 2025.
They rated YouTube 1.6 times more likely to influence purchase decisions. The study concerned beauty and electronics purchases, and the social comparison included Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Source: Google and BCG, 2025.
Surveyed online users were 98% more likely to trust creator recommendations on YouTube than on other platforms in a separate Google/Ipsos holiday-shopping study across eight countries, including the UK. Source: Google and Ipsos, 2024 to 2025.
74% of surveyed UK small and medium-sized businesses with a YouTube channel said it helped grow their customer base. Source: Oxford Economics and YouTube, published 2025.
67% said YouTube helped grow their revenue. Source: Oxford Economics and YouTube, 2025.

The survey findings cover platform content, creators and channel use. They should not be relabelled as the expected return from running YouTube adverts.

For a business selling something that needs explanation, video can demonstrate the product, show the process and address objections before an enquiry. Plan how that information connects to a relevant next step, and assess whether viewers later search, visit or buy.

Production should be proportionate to the decision being made. A clear demonstration may be more useful to a potential customer than an elaborate brand film with little practical information.

Reddit statistics

Reddit’s commercial relevance includes discussions in which people compare products, question claims and examine other users’ experiences. That can make it useful for research and advertising, provided the message is credible.

Reddit averaged 130.3 million daily active uniques in Q2 2026, up 18% year on year. Source: Reddit Q2 2026 results.
Weekly active uniques averaged 514.6 million in Q2 2026, up 24%. These identifiers include logged-out activity and should not be compared directly with another platform’s monthly users. Source: Reddit Q2 2026 results.
More than one-third of qualifying UK respondents said they checked AI recommendations on Reddit. Source: Reddit and Attest, August 2026.
Among UK Reddit users, 49% trusted Reddit for checking AI recommendations, compared with 44% trusting friends or family. Source: Reddit and Attest, 2026.
45% of UK Reddit users looked for information about long-term product quality that AI could not provide. Source: Reddit and Attest, 2026.

The Attest study was commissioned by Reddit. Its UK sample comprised 6,485 adults aged 18 to 65 who used social media, AI language models and e-commerce monthly. It does not represent every UK adult. Source: Reddit study methodology.

Reddit also appears in B2B research

23% of US business decision-makers had used Reddit to research business purchases, rising to 32% among software buyers. Source: SurveyMonkey and Reddit, March 2026.
77% of those choosing Reddit for research wanted reviews and testimonials. Source: SurveyMonkey and Reddit, 2026.
83% of decision-makers researched independently before speaking to sales, while 55% struggled to identify trustworthy information. These broader findings came from the same survey of 1,202 US decision-makers. Source: SurveyMonkey and Reddit, 2026.

For marketers, Reddit can help reveal the questions that polished product pages leave unanswered. Use that insight to improve content and advertising, and make any participation transparent about the business connection.

The evidence above establishes research and decision-making activity. It does not establish a universal Reddit advertising ROAS. A sensible test would assess relevant visits, qualified enquiries and sales, alongside the reactions that reveal whether the message addresses the community’s concerns.

Marketing measurement statistics

The more platforms involved in a purchase, the more important it becomes to understand what each report actually measures.

85% of marketers expressed confidence in their ability to measure ROI, but only 32% measured it holistically across traditional and digital channels. Source: Nielsen Marketing ROI Blueprint, October 2025.
38% prioritised sales or ROI as their leading success metrics. Source: Nielsen, 2025.
60% incorporated both reach and frequency and ROI into cross-media measurement. Source: Nielsen, 2025.

For a smaller business, a useful starting point is a consistent record of expenditure, qualified leads, completed sales, revenue and contribution margin. Add information about repeat purchases where it is reliable.

Use platform reports to optimise delivery, but reconcile commercial results with the website, payment system or CRM. If several platforms claim the same purchase, adding their attributed revenues together will overstate what the business actually earned.

What these marketing statistics mean for your business

The research supports continued investment in online marketing, alongside more careful decisions about where the money goes and how performance is judged.

Protect the routes through which customers can find and assess you. Review the searches that matter commercially, keep business and product information accurate, and publish material that answers questions a potential customer genuinely needs resolved.

Treat higher click costs as a reason to inspect the complete journey. Look at search intent, creative, landing pages, lead quality and sales outcomes together. Cutting the price paid for a click is useful only if it improves the economics of acquiring a customer.

Choose platforms by audience and purpose. Use the reach figures to establish scale, the research to form a hypothesis and a controlled budget to test it. A platform with a smaller audience can still be valuable if it reaches the right buyers.

Give creative work a clear job. A demonstration, testimonial, comparison and offer answer different customer needs. Build and test them around those needs, rather than expecting one advert to carry the whole decision.

Measure commercial outcomes over an appropriate period. Keep awareness, engagement, enquiries and sales distinct. Consider assisted journeys, but remain disciplined about whether the business is gaining customers at a cost its margins can support.

The strongest reason to advertise online is the ability to reach relevant people and help them make a buying decision. The strongest reason to manage it carefully is that attention, clicks and platform-reported conversions only create value when they lead to worthwhile business.

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