Marketing statistics: 850+ graded insights

Paid media overtook martech as the largest slice of the marketing budget between 2018 and 2025, rising from 23.2% to 30.6% while martech fell from 29.2% to 22.4%

Change in marketing budget allocation by resource, 2018 to 2025
Resource	Change 2018 to 2025 (percentage points)
Paid media	7.4
Labor	-2.6
Agencies	-2.3
Martech	-6.8

21–26%

of consumers in the US, UK, and Germany report using AI tools to research products online, per Statista's 2026 Global Survey (Jul 2025–Jun 2026).

Platform engagement and real effectiveness only line up in about one out of three creator ads, so most engaging content isn’t what will grow your brand

151

is the long-term ROI index for influencer campaigns in the UK, contributing 6.2% of total sales (excluding campaigns that produced no result)

Influencer selection is mainly based on engagement rate and audience demographics (94% and 88%), with only 25% using social listening on what consumers discuss

Share of marketers using each data input to select influencers, and what it measures
Data input	Usage (%)
Engagement rate (Influencer output)	94%
Audience demographics (age, gender, location) — Influencer audience	88%
Past campaign performance data (Influencer track record)	81%
Audience interest / affinity data (Influencer audience)	78%
Follower count and reach metrics (Influencer scale)	72%

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Only about 17% of AI Overview citations also rank in the organic top 10, while just over half are somewhere in the top 100.

Share of AI Overview citations also ranking in organic top 10 vs top 100 by month
Month	Sources cited in AIO also ranking in organic top 10 (%)	Sources cited in AIO ranking somewhere in top 100 (%)
Feb 2025	16.4%	48.7%
Mar 2025	16.1%	49.7%
Apr 2025	16.9%	50.8%
May 2025	16.1%	51%
Jun 2025	16.8%	52.8%

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69% of marketers say creator content performs better than other creative for paid ads

Performance of creator content versus other creative, by rating
Rating	Share of respondents (%)
Better	69%
About the same	26%
Worse	5%

U.S. AI shoppers 55+ penalize hidden sponsorship 20+ points more than labeled; 25–34s react slightly the other way

Extra trust lost from hidden vs labelled sponsorship disclosure, by age group
Age group	Extra trust lost (points)
All AI users	10.5
18 to 24	3.6
25 to 34	-5.2
35 to 44	12.7
45 to 54	15.6

89.9%

of AI users on the online-shopper trend base said they verified the assistant’s recommendation before buying

12%

of links cited by AI assistants show up in Google's top 10 search results for the same prompt

of Google searches that showed an AI summary ended with a click on a link inside that summary (US, March 2025)

Most marketers are making or planning changes to performance measurement for the AI web, mainly tracking brand visibility and citations in AI tools

AI's impact on planning and measurement approaches: current/planned changes to performance measurement for the AI web
Change	Share of respondents (%)
Measuring brand visibility/citations in AI tools	48%
Using branded search/direct traffic as proxies	44%
Using 3P AI-driven discovery analysis tools	40%
Monitoring AI platform interactions/referrals	31%
Increasing use of incrementality tests	30%
Using modeled measurement (probabilistic)	30%
Refining fraud detection for legitimate agents	28%
Placing less weight on website traffic	26%
Establishing direct AI-platform partnerships	23%
Using consumer surveys or self-reported data	21%

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Influencer briefs only include structured keyword strategy for both social and AI/LLM discoverability 13% of the time; most either provide only social search keywords or just general hashtags

Keyword and search guidance included in influencer briefs (% of marketers)
Guidance type	Share (%)
Keyword strategy for social search (TikTok, Instagram)	34%
General hashtag guidance but no structured keyword strategy	34%
Keyword strategy for both social search and AI/LLM discoverability	13%
Leave keyword and caption decisions to the influencer	9%
Have not considered search optimisation in influencer briefs	9%

Nearly half of all marketers allocate nothing to consumer research in influencer marketing, and no one allocates more than 10%

Share of respondents by % of influencer budget allocated to consumer research and analytics before campaign execution
Budget allocation range	Share of respondents (%)
0% (no dedicated research budget)	48%
1-5%	35%
5-10%	19%
10-15%	0%
More than 15%	0%

Buyers often use Google Search or visit a cited website directly after seeing a brand mentioned in an AI answer

TikTok video is the most common and recommended format for brand campaigns, while carousels, lives, and live shopping serve more specific goals

Gemini and ChatGPT lead AI shopping research in the U.S.; 64.0% of AI shoppers use two or more assistants

Share of AI shoppers using each AI assistant in the past 90 days
Assistant used in the past 90 days	Share of AI users (%)
Google Gemini	63.5%
ChatGPT	60%
Amazon's shopping assistant	27.5%
Walmart's shopping assistant	22.5%
Microsoft Copilot	22.4%

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4.4x

How much better an AI search visitor converts compared to an organic search visitor, on average

11.4%

of shopper sessions in the US involved an AI tool as of June 2026, up 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier

Structure boosts citation odds: clean heading hierarchies, FAQs, and schema earn citations at 2 to 2.8 times the rate of unstructured pages

Structural attributes: ChatGPT-cited pages vs Google-only top SERPs
Attribute	ChatGPT-Cited (%)	Google Only (%)
Single H1 Present	86.8%	64.2%
Lists Sections Exist	78.3%	26.8%
Proper Heading Alignment	68.7%	23.9%
Rich Schema	60.5%	24.5%

Saying the brand name out loud in sponsored creator content lifts branding by an average of 22 points in Kantar’s model

Branding in sponsored creator content: lift in branding percentile — Creator x Brand interaction elements (points)
Element	Lift in branding percentile (points)	Share of sponsored creator content featuring this element (%)
Brand name in audio	22	49%
Interaction with product	17	77%
Shopping activities in action	15	29%
Using the product	11	58%

86.4%

drop in Reddit's citation share in ChatGPT Search between July 18–August 7 and August 14–17, 2026

Marketers are much more likely to track engagement rate than efficiency metrics, with engagement monitored by 91% but EMV per working spend tracked by only 9%

Share of marketers tracking each influencer campaign KPI (%)
KPI	Tracked by (%)
Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares) — How many people interacted	91%
Impressions / reach (How many people saw it)	84%
Click-through rate (How many people clicked)	78%
Sales / revenue attribution (Whether people bought)	72%
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) — What each customer cost	72%

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is the short-term ROI index for influencer campaigns in the UK, right on the market average with 4.5% of short-term sales (excluding campaigns that produced no result)

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