95+ Video Marketing Statistics for 2026: Adoption, ROI, and AI Trends

Video marketing statistics for 2026 show that 91% of businesses now use video as a marketing tool, and 93% of marketers call it an important part of their strategy, according to Wyzowl's annual survey of 266 marketing professionals and consumers.

This page pulls together verified figures on adoption, budget, ROI, platforms, AI production, video SEO, and consumer behavior, each traced to its original source.

It covers where the money is going, which platforms actually convert, how AI has changed production timelines, and what the search data says about whether video helps a page rank.

Quick answer: 91% of businesses use video marketing in 2026, and video marketers report 82% good ROI, though US digital video ad spend is still projected to pass $80 billion this year (Wyzowl, 2026; IAB, 2026).

Key stats at a glance

91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2026 (Wyzowl, 2026)
US digital video ad spend is forecast to top $80 billion in 2026, up 11% year over year (IAB, 2026)
63% of video marketers now use AI tools to create or edit video, up from 51% a year earlier (Wyzowl, 2026)
Video appeared in just 38.5% of tracked Google results in July 2026, down from a 90-day high of 53.7% (MozCast, 2026)
96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn about a product or service (Wyzowl, 2026)

Video Marketing Statistics: Adoption and Usage

Video adoption among businesses has been climbing toward a ceiling for several years, and 2026's numbers confirm it has mostly arrived there.

What is shifting now is not whether businesses use video, but how committed they are once they start.

91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2026, back to a joint all-time high after a slight dip the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).
93% of video marketers say video is an important part of their overall strategy, a slight step down from the prior year but still a dominant result (Wyzowl, 2026).
93% of marketers separately told HubSpot that video is an important part of their marketing strategy in its 2026 State of Marketing Report, matching Wyzowl's figure from an independent sample (HubSpot, 2026).
37% of marketers plan to increase their investment in video marketing in 2026 (HubSpot, 2026).
67% of marketers who don't currently use video say they plan to start in 2026, a one-point drop from the year before but still the large majority of holdouts (Wyzowl, 2026).

Businesses that have not adopted video cite a narrow, consistent set of reasons, and none of them has much to do with the technology itself.

24% of non-adopters say they don't feel video is needed for their business (Wyzowl, 2026).
24% separately cite cost as too high, tied for the top reason (Wyzowl, 2026).
19% cite lack of time as their main barrier (Wyzowl, 2026).
10% say they're unclear on video marketing's ROI (Wyzowl, 2026).
10% say they simply don't know where to start (Wyzowl, 2026).
5% say they're unable to convince key decision-makers to invest in video (Wyzowl, 2026).

Reason for not using video	Share citing this reason
Don't feel it's needed	24%
Too expensive	24%
Lack of time	19%
Unclear on ROI	10%
Don't know where to start	10%
Can't convince decision-makers	5%

How businesses build video once they commit to it has settled into a fairly stable pattern, with live-action work still ahead of animation.

51% of video marketers have mostly created live-action video, the most common format (Wyzowl, 2026).
23% mostly create animated video (Wyzowl, 2026).
19% mostly create screen-recorded video (Wyzowl, 2026).
59% of businesses create their video content entirely in-house (Wyzowl, 2026).
10% rely exclusively on external vendors for production (Wyzowl, 2026).
32% use a mix of in-house teams and outside vendors (Wyzowl, 2026).
69% of video marketers have created social media video, the single most common use case in 2026 (Wyzowl, 2026).
68% have created explainer video, a close second (Wyzowl, 2026).
57% have created testimonial video (Wyzowl, 2026).

The barriers are shrinking faster than the excuses suggest. Cost and time show up as top complaints, yet the businesses already using video keep expanding what they make with it, and AI production tools (covered later on this page) are erasing much of the cost argument in particular.

Video Marketing Budget and Ad Spend Statistics

Spending on video marketing splits into two very different pictures: what individual marketing teams budget for their own content, and what advertisers spend buying video ad space across the open market.

Both are growing, but not at the same pace, and forecasts sit noticeably higher than the audited numbers from the year before. Global digital video ad spending had already topped $191 billion in 2024, according to data from Statista, and the US-specific figures below show that growth continuing into 2026.

46% of marketers allocate a third or less of their total marketing budget to video content (Wyzowl, 2026).
17% of marketers aren't tracking their video spend at all (Wyzowl, 2026).
92% of marketers plan to spend the same or more on video marketing in 2026 (Wyzowl, 2026).
41% of marketers have spent money on video ads in 2026, up from 36% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).
Almost 40% of companies spent under $5,000 producing video in 2025, and just over 30% spent more than that (Wistia, 2026).
41% of companies spent under $20,000 on video promotion and advertising in 2025, while 28% spent over $20,000 (Wistia, 2026).
48% of companies plan to increase their video promotion budgets this year, and fewer than 10% are cutting them (Wistia, 2026).
Only 40% of companies expect to spend more on video production this year, while 46% are keeping budgets flat, a cooldown from the increase rates Wistia recorded in 2023 (Wistia, 2026).

On the advertising side, the audited numbers and the forecasts tell a consistent growth story, even though they come from different methodologies and shouldn't be treated as one continuous line.

US digital video ad revenue reached $78.0 billion in 2025, up 25.4% year over year, based on audited, publisher-reported figures (IAB and PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report, April 2026).
That revenue has climbed every year since 2021: $39.5 billion, $47.1 billion, $52.1 billion, $62.1 billion, then $78.0 billion in 2025 (IAB and PwC, April 2026).
US digital video ad spend is projected to surpass $80 billion in 2026, growing 11% year over year, based on a survey of 360 media executives (IAB, May 2026).
Digital video is projected to exceed 60% of total US TV and video ad spend for the first time in 2026, at 61% digital versus 39% linear (IAB, May 2026).
Within that 2026 forecast, social video is projected to grow 13% year over year to $31.9 billion, outpacing connected TV's 11% growth to $29.3 billion for the first time (IAB, May 2026).

Source	Figure	Date	Scope or method
IAB and PwC	$78.0 billion, actual 2025 revenue	April 2026	Audited, publisher-reported ad revenue
IAB	$81.9 billion, forecast for 2026	May 2026	Buyer-survey based forecast, 360 media executives

The gap between the audited $78.0 billion for 2025 and the projected $81.9 billion for 2026 is not a discrepancy. One is a measured total built from publisher-reported revenue, the other is a forward-looking estimate built from a buyer survey.

Treat the audited figure as the reliable base and the forecast as directional. For a marketing team, the budget conversation should probably reflect steady, double-digit growth in the channel, not a step-change.

Video Marketing ROI and Performance Statistics

Marketers consistently report strong returns from video, though the specific "good ROI" number has softened from an all-time high the year before, and the ways teams measure success are shifting toward engagement over raw views.

82% of marketers say video marketing has given them a good ROI, a real drop from the all-time high of 93% the prior year but still a dominant majority (Wyzowl, 2026).
67% of video marketers quantify ROI through video views (Wyzowl, 2026).
63% quantify ROI through engagement such as likes, shares, and reposts (Wyzowl, 2026).
52% quantify ROI through leads or clicks (Wyzowl, 2026).
93% say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service (Wyzowl, 2026).
93% say video has helped increase brand awareness, down from 96% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).
82% say video has helped increase web traffic (Wyzowl, 2026).
85% say video has helped generate leads (Wyzowl, 2026).
83% say video has directly increased sales (Wyzowl, 2026).
57% say video has helped reduce support queries (Wyzowl, 2026).
71% of marketers believe videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes are the most effective length (Wyzowl, 2026).

Wistia's platform-level data points to a similar story from a different angle: teams are shifting which metrics they trust, and social engagement is climbing fast.

View counts, conversion assists, and social media engagement are the three most common metrics teams use to judge video success (Wistia, 2026).
Social engagement is the fastest-rising success metric, now the top metric for almost a quarter of marketers, nearly double its share from the year before (Wistia, 2026).
Fewer than half of marketing teams connect their video platform to a CRM or email tool to track video data alongside the rest of their marketing stack (Wistia, 2026).

Metric	Share of video marketers using it
Video views	67%
Engagement (likes, shares, reposts)	63%
Leads or clicks	52%
Customer engagement and retention	40%
Brand awareness or PR	36%
Bottom-line sales	32%

The takeaway for a marketing team building a 2026 plan is to expect ROI reporting to keep leaning on engagement and view-based proxies rather than hard revenue attribution, mostly because fewer than half of teams have wired their video data into the systems that would let them track it to a sale.

Platform and Channel Video Marketing Statistics

Which platform counts as "the top one" depends heavily on how you measure it, and the two most common methods, self-reported survey use and behavioral app tracking, don't agree.

YouTube is used by 82% of businesses, the most widely used video marketing platform (Wyzowl, 2026).
LinkedIn is used by 70% of video marketers (Wyzowl, 2026).
Instagram is used by 69% of video marketers (Wyzowl, 2026).
Facebook is used by 66% of video marketers (Wyzowl, 2026).
TikTok is used by 40% of video marketers (Wyzowl, 2026).
YouTube is rated the most effective platform by 69% of marketers who use it (Wyzowl, 2026).
Instagram is rated effective by 56% of the marketers who use it (Wyzowl, 2026).
81% of teams share video on LinkedIn, based on Wistia's own platform data (Wistia, 2026).
76% of teams share video on YouTube, per the same Wistia dataset (Wistia, 2026).
LinkedIn is now B2B's top video-sharing channel, with 8 in 10 B2B teams naming it their primary distribution platform, ahead of YouTube (Wistia, 2026).

Source	Claim	Date	Scope or method
GWI, via DataReportal	Facebook narrowly leads at 56.9% monthly use, YouTube close behind at 55.4%	Q2 2025 survey	Self-declared platform use, global adults 16+
Similarweb, via DataReportal	YouTube is the clear leader, more than 15% ahead of the next app by active users	August 2025	Behavioral tracking of Android app usage
Wistia	LinkedIn beats YouTube for B2B video distribution specifically	2026 survey	Self-reported by 900+ marketing professionals

None of these three claims are wrong. They measure different things: what people say they use, what an app-tracking panel actually records, and what B2B marketers specifically distribute to.

A team choosing where to invest should match the data source to its own audience rather than picking whichever "top platform" headline is easiest to quote.

YouTube claimed 13.1% of total US TV viewing time in August 2025, up from 10.6% the year before, the largest share of any single distributor (Nielsen, via DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report).
Streaming, or OTT viewing, now accounts for 50.4% of internet users' total TV watch time worldwide (GWI, via DataReportal, 2026).
In the US specifically, streaming accounts for 59.4% of all TV viewing minutes (DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report, August 2025 data).

YouTube's jump in US TV time share, from 10.6% to 13.1% in a single year, is one of the more concrete signals that video budgets built around social platforms alone are missing where a growing share of actual watch time now lives: the living room screen, not the phone.

Short-Form Video and Optimal Length Statistics

Short-form video keeps winning the usage numbers, but the length that actually converts is often longer than what wins engagement, and marketers planning campaigns need to separate the two goals.

Short-form video is used by 60% of marketers, the single most-used content format in HubSpot's 2026 State of Marketing survey (HubSpot, 2026).
104% more marketers named short-form video their most valuable channel in 2026 compared with 2024, according to HubSpot's own report data (HubSpot, 2026).
Videos between 30 and 60 minutes see the highest click-through rate for interactive elements like calls to action and lead forms, with videos over 60 minutes ranking second (Wistia, 2026).
The shorter the video, the higher its average engagement rate, though a 10-minute video still accumulates more total watch time than a 1-minute video with a higher rate (Wistia, 2026).
Webinar replays between 31 and 45 minutes saw more than double the engagement of replays under 30 minutes (Wistia, 2026).

Video length	Best-performing use case
30 seconds to 2 minutes	Rated most effective overall by 71% of marketers
Under 5 minutes	Highest average engagement rate
30 to 60 minutes	Highest click-through on interactive elements and lead forms
31 to 45 minutes (webinar replays)	More than 2x the on-demand engagement of shorter replays

The practical read here is that engagement rate and conversion rate reward opposite lengths. A team optimizing purely for watch-through will keep making things shorter.

A team optimizing for leads and clicks should hold onto longer-form content, especially webinars, rather than cutting everything down to match the short-form trend.

Mobile and Streaming Video Consumption Statistics

Video consumption has become close to universal among connected adults, and the device split between mobile, desktop, and the TV screen is more balanced than the "mobile-first" framing usually suggests.

94.6% of online adults watched some form of online video in the past 30 days (GWI, via DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report, October 2025 data).
91.1% of adult internet users watched online video in the past 7 days, the single top-ranked weekly media activity that GWI tracks (DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report).
91.7% of online adults consume some form of streaming TV content each month (GWI, via DataReportal, 2026).
31.6% of online adults used a connected TV device to access digital content in the past 30 days (GWI, via DataReportal, 2026).
The average YouTube Android app session lasted 14 minutes and 29 seconds in August 2025, roughly 50% longer than the average TikTok session of 9 minutes and 42 seconds (Similarweb, via DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report).
The average TikTok user spends 1 hour and 37 minutes per day on the platform's Android app, about 14% longer than the average YouTube user spends on YouTube's app (Similarweb, via DataReportal, August 2025 data).

The session-length and daily-time figures point in different directions on purpose. TikTok wins on daily minutes because people open it more often for shorter bursts, while YouTube wins on session length because people settle in for longer once they start watching.

Neither number alone tells a team which platform deserves more budget. Together, they suggest TikTok suits frequent, snackable content, while YouTube still rewards content built to hold attention once someone presses play.

AI in Video Marketing Statistics

AI tools have moved from an experiment to a standard part of the video production pipeline in the space of about a year, and the adoption curve is one of the steepest in this entire dataset.

63% of video marketers have used AI tools to help create or edit marketing video, up from 51% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).
More than a third of teams already use AI somewhere in their video workflow, and nearly a quarter more plan to start soon (Wistia, 2026).
Daily video producers are 58% more likely than occasional producers to use AI tools (Wistia AI Video Marketing Trends report, cited in Wistia's 2026 State of Video Report).
AI users are 82% more likely to have subtitles available in multiple languages (Wistia AI Video Marketing Trends report, 2026).
AI users are 52% more likely to produce video ads specifically (Wistia AI Video Marketing Trends report, 2026).
90% of teams are already taking steps to make their videos accessible, with captions the most common starting point, partly driven by the European Accessibility Act taking effect in 2025 (Wistia, 2026).
Two in three US digital video ad buyers are already live (21%), actively testing (20%), or planning to use (25%) agentic AI for their 2026 campaigns, with most of the remainder actively investigating it (IAB, May 2026).

Year	Share of video marketers using AI tools
2025	51%
2026	63%

A 12-point jump in one year, on top of two-thirds of ad buyers already committed to agentic AI for 2026 campaigns, points to a production pipeline that looks meaningfully different from the one most teams built their video processes around.

The teams still treating AI as optional editing help are increasingly the exception rather than the norm.

Video SEO and Organic Search Statistics

Video's relationship with search is more complicated, and more contested, than most marketing content admits.

Several of the most commonly repeated video SEO claims trace back to studies that have since been retracted or retired, so this section sticks to figures with a named, dated source.

Video appeared in 38.5% of tracked Google search results on 20 July 2026, the lowest reading in a 90-day window that peaked at 53.7%, based on a fixed set of 10,000 hand-picked keywords across 20 industry categories (MozCast Feature Graph, 2026).
Only about 0.34% of web pages carry VideoObject structured data, against 6.40% of desktop pages that contain a video element, a gap of roughly 19 to 1 (HTTP Archive Web Almanac, 2025 crawl of more than 16 million websites).
The first organic Google result earned a 16.90% click-through rate when a video block appeared on the results page, against 14.61% without one, a gain drawn from 113.7 million impressions (Advanced Web Ranking, May 2026).
That lift concentrates on the top spot only: the second position actually saw a slightly lower click-through rate with a video block present, 8.45% versus 9.24% without (Advanced Web Ranking, May 2026).
Sistrix independently found the same pattern across more than 80 million keywords of mobile search data: a video-integrated results page lifts the first organic result while leaving lower rankings roughly unchanged (Sistrix, 2026).
Google's own documentation states plainly that a video's watch page must already be performing well in search before Google will consider indexing the video, meaning video SEO amplifies existing page authority rather than substituting for it (Google Search Central, video documentation).

Position	CTR with a video block	CTR without a video block
Position 1	16.90%	14.61%
Position 2	8.45%	9.24%

YouTube is the second most-visited website in the world, behind Google, based on Similarweb's global rankings for June 2026.
More than 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every day, according to YouTube's own press materials as of January 2026.
YouTube Shorts averages more than 200 billion daily views, disclosed in YouTube's 2026 leadership letter.
YouTube advertising revenue reached $9,883 million in the first quarter of 2026, up 11% year over year, as reported by CNBC on Alphabet's Q1 2026 earnings call.
84% of US adults use YouTube, and 33% visit it several times a day (Pew Research Center, 2025 social media use survey).
90% of US teens aged 13 to 17 use YouTube, and 73% use it daily (Pew Research Center, February 2025).
Long-form video takes 94% of YouTube's citations in AI-generated search answers, while Shorts take just 5.7%, based on an analysis of more than 100 million citation instances (Otterly.ai, March 2026).

Source	Claim about YouTube's AI-citation share	Date	Scope
Otterly.ai	YouTube takes 31.8% of all social and video citations across AI answer engines	March 2026	100+ million citations, all topics, 30-day window
SE Ranking	YouTube is the single most-cited source in health-related AI Overviews, at 4.43% of all citations there, ranking 11th organically for the same queries	December 2025 data	50,807 healthcare prompts, German-language queries only

The honest summary for a team deciding whether to invest in video for search reasons: video's presence in Google results is currently declining, not rising, and the biggest documented advantage right now is a modest click-through lift concentrated on the very top organic position when a video block already appears on the page.

The stronger case for video and search in 2026 is YouTube's growing role as a source AI answer engines cite directly, not classic organic ranking.

Consumer Video Behavior and Purchase Statistics

On the audience side, video's role in the buying decision remains close to universal, and quality has become a trust signal in its own right.

96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service (Wyzowl, 2026).
85% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a video (Wyzowl, 2026).
80% of people have bought or downloaded an app after watching an app demo video (Wyzowl, 2026).
84% of consumers want to see more video from brands in 2026, a figure that has held within 8 percentage points for the past 8 years (Wyzowl, 2026).
89% of consumers say video quality affects their trust in a brand, down slightly from 91% the year before but still up from 87% in the 2024 report (Wyzowl, 2026).
63% of people say they'd most prefer to learn about a product or service by watching a short video (Wyzowl, 2026).

Preferred learning format	Share of respondents
Short video	63%
Text-based articles	12%
Infographics	7%
Sales calls	5%
Ebooks or manuals	4%
Webinars	4%

The gap between video's 63% and every other format's single digits is the clearest number on this entire page.

Consumers aren't mildly preferring video over text, they're picking it more than five times as often as the next closest option, which explains why brand trust and video quality have become so tightly linked.

How These Statistics Were Compiled

Every figure on this page traces to a primary source: a survey publisher's own report, a company's own disclosed data, or a named research organization's published methodology.

Where sources conflicted, both figures are shown side by side with the scope or method that explains the difference, rather than averaged into a single number.

No figure predates 2024 unless the sentence explicitly says so and explains why the age matters.

Several widely repeated video SEO statistics, including the "53x more likely to rank" claim, were excluded after tracing them to studies that have since been retracted or retired, since a figure without a live, citable source does not belong in a page built on verification.

This page draws on Wyzowl's 2026 survey of 266 respondents, Wistia's 2026 survey of 900+ professionals and analysis of 13 million videos, IAB's 2026 ad spend reporting with PwC, HubSpot's 2026 State of Marketing data, DataReportal's Digital 2026 Global Overview Report built on GWI and Similarweb data, and named studies from MozCast, the HTTP Archive Web Almanac, Advanced Web Ranking, Sistrix, Otterly.ai, SE Ranking, Pew Research Center, Nielsen, and Alphabet's own earnings disclosures.

This page will be reviewed and refreshed within 12 months.

Conclusion

Three patterns run through this data. First, video adoption has hit a ceiling among businesses, so the competitive question in 2026 is no longer whether to use video but how well a team measures and adapts it, since ROI-reporting metrics are still shifting toward engagement over hard revenue attribution.

Second, production has been reshaped faster than distribution: AI tool use jumped 12 points in a single year, while the "best" platform to distribute to depends entirely on which measurement method a team trusts, self-reported survey data, behavioral app tracking, or B2B-specific distribution patterns.

Third, the growth areas that get the least attention, YouTube's rising share of TV watch time and its emerging role in AI-generated search answers, look more durable than the incremental gains in organic video SEO, which is currently declining by the numbers.

For marketing teams building a 2026 plan, that points toward a specific set of decisions: keep production processes AI-forward, since two-thirds of the market already is, measure success on the platform's own terms rather than chasing a single universal benchmark, and treat video's classic SEO benefit as modest and concentrated at the top of the results page rather than a guaranteed ranking boost.

FAQ

Do businesses still use video marketing in 2026?

Yes. 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool in 2026, matching an all-time high after a brief dip the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).

What do 2026 video marketing statistics say about ROI?

82% of marketers report a good ROI from video marketing in 2026, though that is down from an all-time high of 93% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).

Which social platform is best for video marketing?

It depends on the measurement. Self-reported survey data puts Facebook narrowly ahead of YouTube for general use, while behavioral app-tracking data shows YouTube as the clear leader by active users and session length. For B2B specifically, 8 in 10 teams now name LinkedIn their primary video channel, ahead of YouTube (DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Report; Wistia, 2026).

How much are businesses spending on video advertising in 2026?

US digital video ad spend is projected to surpass $80 billion in 2026, an 11% increase over the previous year, continuing a run that saw actual, audited revenue reach $78.0 billion in 2025 (IAB, 2026; IAB and PwC, 2026).

Does video actually help a page rank higher on Google?

Only modestly, and only at the top of the page. A video block on a results page lifts the first organic result's click-through rate from about 14.6% to 16.9%, but the effect disappears by the second position, and video's overall presence in Google results has been declining through 2026 (Advanced Web Ranking, 2026; MozCast, 2026).

How many marketers are using AI to create video?

63% of video marketers now use AI tools to help create or edit marketing video, up sharply from 51% the year before (Wyzowl, 2026).

What video length converts best?

It depends on the goal. Most marketers (71%) rate videos between 30 seconds and 2 minutes as the most broadly effective length, but Wistia's platform data shows longer videos, especially 30 to 60 minutes, drive the highest click-through rates on interactive elements like lead forms (Wyzowl, 2026; Wistia, 2026).

Do consumers actually prefer watching video over reading text?

Strongly. 63% of consumers say they'd most prefer to learn about a product through a short video, more than five times the 12% who prefer text-based articles (Wyzowl, 2026).