Short-form video's perceived ROI more than doubled in a single year, from 24% to 49%

Content formats

Highest-ROI content formats: 2025 vs 2026 marketer sentiment

Reader Note:: This is the share of marketers naming short-form video as a highest-return format, so it doubled in belief rather than in measured return. Nothing in the report tracks what any format actually returned, and the same survey shows 60% of teams now using the format, so more marketers are also judging it from first-hand use than a year ago.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: HubSpot surveyed 1,505 marketers in September 2025 across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, spanning seniority levels and industries; fieldwork run in collaboration with the research firm Datalily. The report does not disclose how the sample splits by region, industry or seniority, so every published figure is a single global average. It does report cuts by company size - small business, mid-market and enterprise.

Good for

A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
The source never says how this number was measured.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

Instagram users respond first to brand’s short videos, then creator-style content

Share of social users most likely to interact with each brand content type on Instagram
Content type	Share of users likely to interact (%)
Short-form video (<60 seconds)	52%
User-generated content	25%
Influencer content	23%
Live video	22%
Static images / Long-form video	19%

Short videos dominate brand engagement on TikTok

Share of social users most likely to interact with brand content types on TikTok
Content type	Share of social users likely to interact (%)
Short-form video (<60 seconds)	60%
Long-form video	32%
User-generated content	30%
Influencer content	28%
GIFs / memes	15%

Interactive Instagram content did the most to build brand trust

Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

Instagram carousels reach 142% more people than single-image posts and get 819% more saves

34%

of consumers are most likely to interact with Shoppable Pins on Pinterest

Personalized recommendations were the strongest predictor of luxury purchase intention on Instagram