Video Marketing Statistics 2026 (Usage, ROI & Ad Spend Data)

As of 2026, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 82% of marketers say it delivers a good return on investment, according to Wyzowl's twelfth annual State of Video Marketing report. Video has shifted from a nice-to-have to the default format for product explanation, advertising, and social reach — backed by a global digital video ad market now north of $200 billion. This page pulls together the most current 2025–2026 figures on adoption, ROI, short-form dominance, conversion lift, platform reach, and ad spend.

How many brands use video marketing?

Video adoption among businesses has plateaued near its ceiling. In Wyzowl's 2026 report, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — a figure that has hovered in the high 80s to low 90s for several years, signaling that video is now a baseline channel rather than an emerging one (Wyzowl).

The commitment runs deeper than usage. 93% of video marketers say video is an important part of their overall marketing strategy, and 92% plan to spend the same or more on video in 2026 than they did the prior year. Investment in paid video is climbing too: 41% of marketers spent money on video ads this year, up from 36% a year earlier (Wyzowl).

• 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool (2026).
• 93% call video an important part of their strategy.
• 92% plan to maintain or increase video budgets in 2026.
• 41% have paid for video advertising this year, up from 36%.

What ROI does video marketing deliver?

Return on investment is the reason adoption stays high. 82% of marketers say video gives them a good ROI in 2026 — down from an all-time high of 93% the prior year, but still a strong majority (Wyzowl). The dip reflects rising production expectations and ad costs rather than video losing effectiveness.

The performance breakdown is consistent across outcomes marketers care about:

• 93% say video increased user understanding of their product or service.
• 93% say video helped increase brand awareness.
• 85% say video helped them generate leads.
• 83% say video has directly increased sales.

Source: Wyzowl State of Video Marketing 2026.

Why does short-form video dominate?

Short-form clips — TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts — have become the highest-leverage format in the mix. Marketers consistently rank short-form video as the content type delivering the highest ROI, ahead of long-form video and live streaming (HubSpot). On the consumer side, the preference is just as clear: 63% of people say a short video is how they'd most like to learn about a product or service, far ahead of text articles (12%), infographics (7%), or sales calls (5%) (Wyzowl).

Consumption backs up the preference. People spend an average of 11 hours and 34 minutes per week watching online video — roughly 25 days a year — and the largest single chunk of that, about 6 hours 37 minutes, goes to short clips on TikTok and YouTube Shorts (DataReportal). Short-form is also where ad money is flowing: Statista pegs short-form video ad spend at $115.75 billion in 2025, more than half of the entire digital video ad market (Statista).

• 63% of consumers prefer a short video to learn about a product.
• 11h 34m — average weekly time spent watching online video (Q1 2025).
• $115.8B — 2025 ad spend on short-form video alone.

How much does video lift landing-page conversions?

Video's effect on conversion is one of the most cited reasons marketers embed it on key pages. Across compiled case data, adding video to a landing page can increase conversions by up to 86%, with the strongest effect when the video directly answers buyer objections or demonstrates the product (Levitate Media). The mechanism is retention: viewers retain a far larger share of a message delivered by video than by text, making offers more memorable at the point of decision.

On the consumer side, Wyzowl finds that 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service, and 85% say a video has convinced them to buy something (Wyzowl). The caveat marketers should note: a slow-loading video can erase the conversion gain entirely, so the lift depends heavily on implementation.

How big is YouTube's reach?

YouTube remains the largest video distribution platform on earth. Its advertising reach hit roughly 2.53 billion users in early 2025 — about 30.9% of the global population and 45.5% of all internet users — according to Google's own ad-planning data compiled by DataReportal. (Total monthly active users are estimated higher still, but YouTube doesn't publish a single official figure.)

The business is enormous and still growing. Alphabet reported $40.37 billion in YouTube ad revenue for 2025, up from $36.15 billion in 2024 — and total YouTube revenue (ads plus subscriptions) now exceeds $60 billion a year (Alphabet). YouTube Shorts has become a major driver of that engagement, generating tens of billions of daily views.

How fast is live shopping growing?

Live, video-driven commerce — where shoppers buy in real time during a stream — is one of the fastest-growing slices of the video economy. The global live commerce market was worth an estimated $172.9 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach roughly $2.5 trillion by 2033, a compound annual growth rate near 41% (Grand View Research). Asia Pacific dominates, holding about two-thirds of global revenue, with China far ahead of every other market.

The US is catching up from a smaller base: livestream e-commerce sales there grew nearly 50% in 2025. The format pairs naturally with short-form social video, which is why platforms from TikTok to YouTube are pushing shoppable live streams hard.

How big is the global digital video ad market?

Spending on digital video advertising worldwide is projected to reach $214.76 billion in 2025, growing at a 9.54% annual rate to about $338.6 billion by 2030, according to Statista. The United States is the single largest market, at roughly $102 billion in 2025. Within the category, short-form video ($115.75B) and connected TV ($56.08B) are the biggest and fastest-moving segments in 2025.

Video's rise is happening inside a record-breaking overall ad market: global advertising spend is forecast to surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2026, up about 5.1% year over year, with digital video a leading growth driver (dentsu).

What do consumers want from brand video?

Demand for video keeps outpacing supply. 84% of consumers say they want to see more video from brands in 2026, a figure that has stayed remarkably high year after year (Wyzowl). That appetite is concrete, not abstract: 96% have watched an explainer video to understand a product, and 85% have been convinced to buy after watching one.

For marketers, the implication is straightforward — the bottleneck is rarely audience interest, but production volume and distribution. With short clips now the dominant format and live shopping scaling fast, the brands gaining ground are the ones shipping more video, not waiting for demand to appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Wyzowl — State of Video Marketing 2026 (usage, ROI, consumer preference)
• Statista — Digital Video Advertising Worldwide (ad spend forecasts)
• DataReportal — Essential YouTube Stats (reach) and Digital Around the World (video time)
• Alphabet — Investor Relations (YouTube ad revenue)
• Grand View Research — Live Commerce Market Report
• dentsu — Global Ad Spend Forecast 2026
• Levitate Media — Video Conversion Statistics (landing-page lift)
• HubSpot — Video Marketing Statistics (format ROI)

Figures reflect the latest available data as of mid-2026; survey-based figures (Wyzowl) draw on its late-2025 fieldwork, and market forecasts cite the most recent published years. Where firms differ on definitions (e.g., live commerce), the direction of growth is consistent across sources even where absolute totals vary.