Nine in ten businesses now use video in their marketing, and 92% of marketers plan to spend the same or more on video in 2026. The open questions are now about which formats pay off and how much a video changes what people buy.
This roundup collects video marketing statistics on adoption, ROI, search traffic, social video, buying decisions, website benchmarks, sound and AI. Several of the most quoted video figures come from surveys run between 2015 and 2018, so they appear here with their year and next to the most recent comparable data.
The numbers are meant for marketers planning a video budget and for content teams who need a dated, sourced figure for a brief or a deck.
How many businesses use video
Wyzowl has surveyed marketers about video every year since 2015, and its 2026 edition, based on fieldwork in late 2025, puts business use of video back at its joint all-time high.
91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2026.
93% of video marketers call video an important part of their marketing strategy.
92% of marketers plan to spend the same or more on video in 2026.
67% of marketers who don't use video yet plan to start in 2026.
59% of video marketers make their videos in house.
Video marketing ROI
Most marketers still report a good return from video, although Wyzowl's 2026 figure fell from the previous year's record. HubSpot's 2026 State of Marketing report shows which video formats marketers credit with the best return.
82% of video marketers say video gives them a good ROI, down from 93% a year earlier and up from 76% in 2016.
49% of marketers rank short-form video among their top ROI formats, ahead of long-form video at 29% and live streaming at 25%.
85% of video marketers say video has helped them generate leads.
83% say video has directly increased sales, compared with 64% in 2016.
Video, search traffic and time on site
The best-known figure on video and search traffic comes from a 2015 platform report about customers of its own branded video portal, so it describes that setup rather than websites in general. Wyzowl's yearly survey measures something broader, the share of marketers who see any traffic gain from video, and that share has grown steadily since 2015.
In 2015, a video platform reported that marketing teams using its branded video portal could expect on average a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines compared with a non-video marketing strategy.
The same 2015 report put the increase in time on site at 105%, with twice the overall conversion rate.
82% of video marketers say video has increased their web traffic, up from 55% in 2015.
82% say video keeps visitors on their website longer, close to the 80% recorded in 2018.
Social video and sharing
Social video figures from 2015 and 2016 are still among the most quoted in marketing. Current data from DataReportal, Sprout Social and Wistia shows how much time people now spend on social and video platforms and which formats they interact with.
A widely repeated 2015 figure holds that social video generated 1,200% more shares than text and images combined, although the study behind it is no longer available.
In a 2016 survey of 5,500 consumers in five countries, the average consumer watched 49 minutes of social video every day, about 5 hours 43 minutes a week.
81% of consumers in the same 2016 survey interacted with brands on social media, and 43% had done so by watching branded video.
91.1% of internet users watch online video in a typical week.
The typical internet user spends 18 hours 36 minutes a week on social media and video platforms.
52% of social media users say short-form video under 60 seconds is the brand content they are most likely to interact with on Instagram, and 48% say the same about Facebook.
83% of companies share their videos on social media.
69% of video marketers create social media videos, the most common type of marketing video.
Video and buying decisions
Consumer surveys in 2016 and 2018 found that most people had bought something after watching a video, and Wyzowl's 2026 consumer data puts the share even higher. These are self-reported answers, so they show influence on purchases rather than measured sales.
85% of people say a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.
In a 2018 survey of 4,446 adults in the US, UK and Australia, 76% of consumers said they had bought a product or service after viewing a video.
Among consumers aged 18 to 34 in the same survey, 85% had bought a product or service after viewing a video.
46% of viewers in 2016 had made a purchase as a result of watching a branded video on social media, and another 32% had considered it.
74% of consumers in 2016 saw a connection between watching video on social media and their purchase decisions.
80% of people have bought or downloaded an app after watching a demo video of it.
What viewers want from brand video
Short video is now the format most people say they prefer for learning about a product, according to Wyzowl's 2026 consumer data. The 2016 and 2018 survey results below show that the preference was already strong, especially among Millennials.
63% of people would most like to learn about a product or service from a short video, against 12% who would choose a text article.
84% of people want to see more video from brands.
89% say the quality of a video affects how much they trust a brand.
79% of consumers in 2016 agreed that video is the easiest way to get to know a brand online.
53% of consumers in 2018 had engaged with a brand after viewing a video on social media.
66% of Millennials in the same 2018 survey had engaged with a brand after viewing a video on social media.
62% of Millennials and 59% of all consumers said in 2018 that it was important for products and services to share information through video.
36% of consumers preferred video to other forms of brand and marketing communication in 2018, rising to 46% among Millennials.
21% of consumers and 29% of Millennials found video more memorable than any other type of content in 2018.
Personalized video in email
Personalized video in email has little independent research behind it. The two figures most often quoted come from a 2017 review of early campaigns and read best as early adopter results.
A 2017 review of personalized video campaigns reported that using personalized video in email gave a 280% greater return than traditional email, citing an email marketing agency.
In the same review, one company found that 5x more people opened its personalized video emails than a standard email.
Video on your website
Wistia's 2026 State of Video Report, based on more than 13 million hosted videos, gives current play rate benchmarks by page type. Its earlier benchmarks and explainer research are no longer online but are still widely quoted.
Homepage videos have a 24% play rate, higher than videos on product, contact and thank-you pages.
Videos longer than 60 minutes have a 52% play rate.
15 to 25% was the industry average play rate in an earlier Wistia benchmark.
Animated explainer content outperforms static graphics, according to earlier Wistia video research.
96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
93% of video marketers say video has increased user understanding of their product or service.
Sound and music in video
Audio decides whether a video works with the sound on or has to carry its message in captions, and habits differ a lot by platform. The figures below come from a 2024 Voices survey of 1,000 US adults and 2021 Kantar research for TikTok.
67% of US adults say ads with audio are more engaging than ads without, and 73% say they are more memorable.
57% have shared or reposted a video specifically because of its audio.
84% feel they can easily link the audio in ads they remember to the brand behind them.
77% of YouTube users and 62% of TikTok users keep the sound on most or all of the time.
71% of LinkedIn users rarely or never turn the sound on.
88% of TikTok users say sound is essential to the TikTok experience.
For short clips, a library of royalty-free video sound effects or music loops covers the audio side without licensing questions.
AI in video production
AI tools moved into video production quickly, and Wyzowl recorded a 12-point rise in AI use among video marketers in a single year.
63% of video marketers have used AI tools to create or edit marketing videos, up from 51% a year earlier.
Key takeaways
Video use is close to universal, so the advantage now comes from format and placement. Short-form video leads on social engagement and reported ROI, while homepage and long-form video still earn the highest play rates on a website. The figures from 2015 to 2018 described early adopters, and the current data points the same way across a much larger base of marketers and viewers. Sound matters most on YouTube and TikTok, where most people watch with it on.
Sources:
Brightcove
DataReportal
HubSpot
Kantar
NGDATA
Sprout Social
Voices
Wistia
Wyzowl
Last updated: November 2026