Compiled from 14 studies · Current as of July 2026 · Sourced via The Agile Brand Guide Research
Marketing strategy in 2026 is being rebuilt around AI — in operations, in how content gets found, and in where budgets go. Below are 63 marketing strategy statistics for 2026, drawn from 14 studies published in 2025 and 2026 and grouped by theme so you can find the number you need fast.
Every statistic links to its source in The Agile Brand Guide Research database, where you can see the full context, the original report, and an embeddable chart. Use them to shape your plan, build a business case, or ground your next strategy deck.
Jump to a section AI-native marketing & operations (15) AI search & content visibility (GEO) (8) Content, creative & real-time marketing (8) Email marketing (10) Budgets, spend & ROI (9) Retail media & channels (5) Brand, emotion & consumer strategy (8)
Key statistics at a glance
- Traffic from LLMs surged by 570% from 2024 to 2025. — Scratch Marketing and Media, 2026
- 15% of pages retrieved by ChatGPT were cited — AirOps, 2026
- 87% of respondents report major capability deficits across AI, data, and MarTech. — Cordial, 2026
- Global marketing spend has increased 33% since 2023 — Shutterstock, 2026
- 62% of consumers use retail media platforms — Algolia, 2025
- 70% of marketers plan to increase investment in physical touchpoints over the next year — Harris Poll, 2025
AI-native marketing & operations (15 stats)
Teams are rebuilding workflows around AI — but capability and data gaps are holding many back.
- 87% of respondents report major capability deficits across AI, data, and MarTech. — Cordial, 2026
- 50% of retail marketing executives anticipate team growth within the next 2-3 years due to AI and agentic systems. — Cordial, 2026
- 31% of organizations expect current headcounts to remain stable but with significantly altered role compositions. — Cordial, 2026
- 58% of organizations expecting team reductions anticipate cuts impacting junior roles first. — Cordial, 2026
- 3% of marketing organizations are considered to be in the ‘AI Automation Era’ characterized by automated, enriched data and predictive capabilities across channels. — Cordial, 2026
- 38% of respondents entered the field for the mix of art and science in marketing — Optimizely, 2026
- 50% of marketers cite ‘seeing impact/results’ as a top enjoyment driver — Optimizely, 2026
- 61% of marketers believe AI saves them time — Optimizely, 2026
- 41.8% of marketers feel their job is ’50/50 creative on a good day’ — Optimizely, 2026
- 37.9% report their role is 25% creative and 75% coordination — Optimizely, 2026
- 100% of marketers rely on behavioral signals such as clicks, opens, and views to infer intent — Cordial, 2026
- Only 57% of marketers use predictive or AI-driven inputs — Cordial, 2026
- 21% incorporate contextual cues and 14% emotional data — Cordial, 2026
- 40% of customers experience revenue loss when intent is misjudged — Cordial, 2026
- 34% of consumers believe brands truly understand their needs — Cordial, 2026
AI search & content visibility (GEO) (8 stats)
Getting cited by AI answer engines is becoming its own discipline as LLM traffic surges.
- 15% of pages retrieved by ChatGPT were cited — AirOps, 2026
- 18.3% citation rate for product-discovery queries — AirOps, 2026
- 20.1% citation rate for pages with 50% or greater title-query overlap — AirOps, 2026
- 89.6% of original searches triggered two or more fan-out queries — AirOps, 2026
- 55.8% of cited pages ranked in the top 20 for at least one query in Google — AirOps, 2026
- Traffic from LLMs surged by 570% from 2024 to 2025. — Scratch Marketing and Media, 2026
- Deal conversion rates rose from 1.05% to 3.61% from 2024 to 2025. — Scratch Marketing and Media, 2026
- LLM-driven traffic accounts for only 2.2% of total visiting companies but delivers 3.5 times higher conversion rates. — Scratch Marketing and Media, 2026
Content, creative & real-time marketing (8 stats)
Demand for fast, high-volume creative is rising, and AI is filling the gap — with caveats.
- 82.6% of consumers reported having watched a video they suspected was AI-generated. — Animoto, 2026
- 36% of consumers state AI-generated videos lower their trust in a brand. — Animoto, 2026
- 84% of marketers have already utilized AI in their video creation processes. — Animoto, 2026
- 62% of marketers noted an increase in rapid-response content requests over the past year — Typeface, 2026
- 67% of marketers miss key cultural moments due to slow approval processes — Typeface, 2026
- 63% of marketers experience burnout, with 20% reporting being very to extremely burnt out — Typeface, 2026
- 71% of large enterprises require more than one day to approve quick-turn content — Typeface, 2026
- 30% more likely to find AI content very to extremely engaging when using multimodal AI platforms — Typeface, 2026
Email marketing (10 stats)
Email remains a workhorse channel where timing and behavioral signals drive performance.
- 94% of marketers manage email lists — Intuit Mailchimp, 2026
- 71% of consumers report an increase in marketing emails received — Intuit Mailchimp, 2026
- 68% of brands report their email and SMS marketing is mostly or fully automated — Intuit Mailchimp, 2026
- 74% of consumers do not wish to receive more than two email or text messages per week from a brand — Intuit Mailchimp, 2026
- 56% of marketers struggle with collecting high-quality data — Intuit Mailchimp, 2026
- There is an average 31.27% open rate for emails on Tuesdays for top-of-funnel engagement, making it the best day of the week — Omnisend, 2026
- There is an average 0.081% conversion rate for emails on Fridays for revenue-focused campaigns, making it the best day of the week — Omnisend, 2026
- There is an average 0.138% peak conversion rate on Fridays at 7 AM, making it the best day of the week — Omnisend, 2026
- There is an average 1.08% click-to-sent rate recorded on Wednesdays at 4 PM, making it the best day/time — Omnisend, 2026
- There is an average 0.109% conversion rate on Sundays at 12 PM for B2C promotions, making it the best day/time — Omnisend, 2026
Budgets, spend & ROI (9 stats)
Spend is rising, but proving return and deploying budgets with confidence is the challenge.
- 70.4% of marketing leaders express confidence that their budgets are deployed effectively — Incubeta, 2026
- 92% believe their measurement is precise — Incubeta, 2026
- 41.6% admit that a portion of their investment is not delivering its full value — Incubeta, 2026
- 73.6% of organizations report increased marketing budgets year-on-year — Incubeta, 2026
- 34.4% of organizations use a unified approach to measure both short-term and long-term marketing impact — Incubeta, 2026
- Global marketing spend has increased 33% since 2023 — Shutterstock, 2026
- 64% of US adults feel inundated by advertising content daily — Shutterstock, 2026
- There is a 12% gap in marketing investment impact — Shutterstock, 2026
- 58% of adults believe ads that use emotive content drive trust and engagement — Shutterstock, 2026
Retail media & channels (5 stats)
Retail media networks are now a mainstream channel marketers can’t ignore.
- 62% of consumers use retail media platforms — Algolia, 2025
- 76% of respondents utilize sponsored listings on search pages — Algolia, 2025
- 78% of respondents reported incorrect ad placements — Algolia, 2025
- 75% of respondents cited difficulty in calculating ROI for sponsored items — Algolia, 2025
- 83% of respondents identified product discovery as the primary business use case for RMNs — Algolia, 2025
Brand, emotion & consumer strategy (8 stats)
Emotional resonance and physical touchpoints are making a strategic comeback.
- 70% of marketers plan to increase investment in physical touchpoints over the next year — Harris Poll, 2025
- 79% of Millennials anticipate brand catalogs — Harris Poll, 2025
- 44% of Gen Z and Millennials use AI tools for brand discovery — Harris Poll, 2025
- 80% of marketers believe continuous training on new technologies is crucial for job stability — Harris Poll, 2025
- 68% cite upskilling and reskilling programs as critical — Harris Poll, 2025
- Ads evoking ‘Love’ significantly outperform the average UK or US ad. — Zappi, 2025
- Coca-Cola’s AI-generated ad achieved high Sales Impact and Brand Impact scores of 94. — Zappi, 2025
- Successful campaigns should target at least 80% unaided brand recall. — Zappi, 2025
Frequently asked questions
How is AI changing marketing operations in 2026?
Marketing is going AI-native, but readiness lags ambition: 87% of marketers report major capability deficits across AI, data, and operations, and teams are actively rebalancing roles between creative and technical work. The winners are pairing AI activation with clean data and governance rather than bolting AI onto old workflows.
What is generative engine optimization (GEO), and does it matter yet?
GEO is optimizing content to be retrieved and cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. It matters now: traffic from LLMs surged roughly 570% from 2024 to 2025, yet only about 15% of the pages ChatGPT retrieves actually get cited — so structure, clarity, and authority increasingly determine visibility.
Are marketing budgets growing in 2026?
Yes, modestly, with more scrutiny. Global marketing spend has risen 33% since 2023, and about 70% of marketing leaders are confident in their budgets — but that confidence comes with pressure to prove incremental growth and measurable ROI on every dollar.
Is email marketing still effective in 2026?
Very. 94% of marketers actively manage email lists, and performance hinges on timing and behavioral signals — every marketer now relies on signals like clicks and opens to target sends. It remains one of the highest-ROI channels when personalized and well-timed.
What’s the best day to send marketing emails?
Data points to midweek: enterprise sends see an average open rate of about 31.3% on Tuesdays, making early-to-mid week a reliable window. The bigger lever, though, is triggering on behavioral signals rather than fixed calendar sends.
Go deeper with the research
Every statistic here comes from The Agile Brand Guide Research database — a curated library of corporate-funded research on AI, marketing, customer experience, and consumer behavior, each study summarized with quotable statistics, key takeaways, and embeddable charts.Explore the Marketing Strategy research →
About this data: These 63 statistics were compiled from 14 research reports published in 2025–2026 and indexed in The Agile Brand Guide Research database. Each figure links to its source summary and original report. Counts are current as of July 2026 and are refreshed as new research is added.
