Over the past few years, online video has transitioned from an up-and-coming marketing tactic to a tried and true marketing strategy all modern marketers and business owners must embrace. Video offers a powerful means to demonstrate value proposition, communicate your brand story, and cultivate relationships with clients and customers. The following details the most important key stats about online video and marketing today to help you make informed choices about your own video campaigns.

Video production

84% of professional marketers and 55% of small and medium business (SMB) owners have produced or outsourced a video in the past year. More than three-quarters of marketers and SMB owners report video marketing has had a direct impact on their business.

Video budgets

Not surprisingly, giving the widespread success most marketers and business owners have experienced with video marketing, over 60% of marketers and business owners intend to increase their investment in video production and marketing in the next year. 65% of United States marketers also intend to increase their mobile ad budgets in the next year. Nearly half of marketers and business owners intend to spend money to promote their Facebook video content in the next year. Currently, video ad spending is in the range of $5.4 billion and will only continue to increase over the next year. By 2020, United States online video ad spending alone is projected to reach $17 billion.

Video conversion rates

Including video in an email leads to a 200-300% increase in click-through rate while including video on a landing page increases conversion up to 80%. When you combine video with full page ads, engagement rates increase by 22%. After watching a video, the majority of users are more likely to purchase a product online.

Marketers experience significant success producing video aimed at executives, 59% of whom would rather watch a video than read text. Three-quarters of executives watch industry relevant videos on business websites weekly. Half of executives seek out more information after viewing a product or service in a video. 65% of executives visit a marketer’s website and 39% follow up with the vendor via email or phone after viewing a video.

Video platform preferences

Facebook is the clear leader in video platform choice, with 8.4 times more impact for marketers and SMB owners than any other social platform. Facebook also ranks as the top choice for ease of gauging success among the majority of marketers and SMB owners. YouTube is the second most popular video platform for video distribution and sharing. Over the past year, 26.4% of marketers and 18.5% SMB owners chose YouTube as their primary video sharing platform. Despite the widespread use of Facebook’s video services, YouTube is expected to see the most growth in paid video promotion among SMB owners in the next year.

Statistics are a valuable tool to launch your video production and marketing strategies. Once you’ve developed your own rhythm for creating and promoting video content, track your analytics to inform future decisions. Facebook may be leading video platform right now, but if you’re yielding higher traffic on YouTube and Instagram, your time and effort are better spent on these platforms.