Video marketing statistics, with their sources attached
Wyzowl surveyed 266 people. HubSpot surveyed 1,500. The IAB and PwC counted $78 billion. Here is what each one actually measured, and which famous numbers have no origin at all.
8 minute read
Read the sample size before you quote the number
Most pages ranking for this query recycle the same two dozen figures with no trace back to whoever measured them. So here is the rule this page follows: every number names its publisher, its sample and its period, and anything that failed that test was left out. Start with the most-quoted stat of all. Wyzowl reports that 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool and that 93% of video marketers call it an important part of their strategy. Those come from a survey of 266 unique respondents fielded in late 2025, split between marketing professionals and online consumers, with no published breakdown of how many fell into each group. Twelve consecutive years of the same questions makes the trend line genuinely useful. A base of 266 makes the second decimal place meaningless.
What marketers say video does for them
On outcomes, that same Wyzowl survey has video marketers reporting that video increased brand awareness (93%), improved understanding of their product or service (93%), generated leads (85%), directly increased sales (83%), increased web traffic (82%) and kept visitors on their site longer (82%). Eighty-two per cent said video gave them a good return on investment. That last figure is the one worth pausing on, because it fell from 93% the year before — an eleven-point drop in a series that had been climbing for years. The reading Wyzowl offers is that more teams making video means more teams making bad video, which pulls the average down. Either way, treat all of these as what marketers believe about their own work rather than as measured lift. Nobody ran a holdout group.
Which formats marketers rank highest for return
HubSpot asks a more useful question: not whether video works, but which formats marketers put in their top three for ROI. In its 2026 State of Marketing report, drawn from more than 1,500 global marketers across B2B and B2C, short-form video came first at 48.6%, ahead of long-form video at 28.6%, live-streaming video at 25.1%, user-generated content at 24% and blog posts at 22.3%. The gap between first and second is the widest in the set. It is still opinion rather than attribution data, and there is obvious circularity in it — marketers rate highly the format they already make most of — but a twenty-point spread across five formats says something real about where teams think their returns are coming from.
Where the money actually went
For dollars rather than opinions, the IAB and PwC count them. Their Internet Advertising Revenue Report for full-year 2025, released in April 2026 and built from figures reported directly to PwC by companies selling internet advertising, put total US internet ad revenue at $294.6 billion, up 13.9% year on year. Digital video — defined there to include connected TV, social video, online video and short-form — reached $78 billion, growing 25.4%, which is 26.5% of all digital ad revenue. Social media took $117.7 billion, up 32.6%. Creator advertising, counted separately, hit $37 billion. Worth noting: 2025 had no Olympics, no World Cup and no US election, so none of that growth is a cyclical bump.
Production budgets are not following the ad spend
Set that against what companies spend making the videos. Wistia's 2026 State of Video Report combines a survey of more than 900 professionals with platform data covering over 13 million videos and 79 million hours of viewing. It found nearly 40% of companies spent under $5,000 on video production last year, and just over 30% spent more than $5,000. On promotion, 41% spent under $20,000. Only 40% plan to increase video spend in 2026, down from 57% in 2023, with almost half holding budgets flat. So the honest version of the story is not that everyone is pouring money into video. Ad platforms are collecting more; in-house production budgets are flat, and the gap is being closed with volume and cheaper tooling.
Output is rising much faster than spend
Vidyard's benchmark report shows what that looks like inside a business. Analysing anonymised creation data from a sample of its customers — 943,305 videos made between 1 January and 15 December 2024, an 88% increase on the previous year — it found the average user made 37 videos, up 241%. Growth was steepest at the long end, with videos over 20 minutes up 420%, which is mostly meetings, demos and webinars being recorded rather than a new appetite for long marketing films. This is hosted business video for sales and marketing teams, not social, so it does not describe your Reels. It does describe the direction every platform dataset points in: more videos, made faster, by more people, costing less each.
Length: what marketers believe, and what gets finished
On length, belief and behaviour line up better than usual. In Wyzowl's survey, 71% of respondents said videos between 30 seconds and two minutes are the most effective. Vidyard's platform data agrees from the measurement side: videos under a minute keep 65% of viewers engaged through to the end, while videos over 20 minutes hold 20%. Both describe hosted business video, where someone clicked deliberately, so they set an optimistic ceiling for a social feed where nobody chose your video at all. The takeaway is directional rather than precise. Shorter videos finish at higher rates, which is not the same as saying shorter always wins — a long video holding a fifth of its audience can still produce more total watch time.
How to use these numbers without embarrassing yourself
Three of the datasets above are surveys, one is an ad-revenue census, and one is telemetry from a single vendor's customers. None of them is your account, and any page presenting them as one continuous truth is guessing. Use them for direction: budgets are flat while output rises, short-form is where marketers report their best returns, and shorter cuts finish at higher rates. Then measure your own. The practical consequence of flat budgets and rising output is that cost per video is the only lever left, which is the problem a clipping workflow solves — one recording becomes a batch of captioned vertical cuts in a single pass, which is what FrameOS does. If you want to try that against your own footage: 300 credits for 3 days · no card.
FAQ
How many businesses use video marketing in 2026?
Wyzowl's 2026 report puts it at 91% of businesses, with 93% of video marketers calling video important to their strategy. That figure comes from 266 respondents surveyed in late 2025, split between marketers and consumers, so treat it as a stable long-run trend rather than a precise measurement. It has hovered near 90% for several years.
Does video marketing actually deliver ROI?
Marketers say so, with caveats. In Wyzowl's 2026 survey, 82% reported a good return from video — down from 93% the previous year. That is self-reported belief, not measured lift. The harder evidence is spend: the IAB and PwC counted $78 billion of US digital video ad revenue in 2025, up 25.4%, which is money changing hands rather than opinion.
How much do companies spend on video marketing?
Less than most articles imply. Wistia's 2026 State of Video Report found nearly 40% of companies spent under $5,000 on video production last year, and 41% spent under $20,000 promoting it. Only 40% plan to increase video spend in 2026, down from 57% in 2023, with almost half holding budgets flat while output keeps climbing.
What is the most effective length for a marketing video?
Thirty seconds to two minutes, according to 71% of respondents in Wyzowl's 2026 survey. Vidyard's platform data supports it from the other direction: videos under a minute keep 65% of viewers to the end, against 20% for videos over 20 minutes. Both figures describe hosted business video, so expect lower completion in a social feed.
Sources
- Video Marketing Statistics 2026 (12 Years of Data) · Wyzowl
- 2026 state of marketing: Data from 1,500+ global marketers · HubSpot
- Digital Ad Revenue Climbs to Nearly $300B as IAB Celebrates 30 Year Anniversary · IAB / PwC
- State of Video Report: Video Marketing Statistics for 2026 · Wistia
- Video in Business Benchmark Report · Vidyard
Related pages
Keep reading
More Creator Growth →The best time to post on Instagram, according to four studies
Buffer says Thursday 9am. Later says 5am. Sprout says early afternoon. They analysed billions of posts and still disagree — here is why, and what to do about it.
8 minute readThe best time to post on TikTok, according to five studies
Buffer analysed 7.1 million posts and rates Saturday the best day. Sprout Social analysed 2 billion engagements and says avoid the weekend entirely. Both are right, for different accounts.
8 minute readThe best time to post on LinkedIn, according to five studies
Buffer's 4.8 million posts point to Wednesday at 4pm and rank Tuesday among the worst days. Sprout Social's 2 billion engagements call Tuesday the best day of the week. Here is why.
8 minute readTurn one long video into a week of posts
300 credits for 3 days · no card.
Start free