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In 2022, the marketing world continued to evolve.
Not only did we get the ability to shop directly on our favorite social media apps, but we also began to hear lots of the futuristic buzz around AR/VR, the metaverse, and Web3 development.
As we move into another unique year, marketers might wonder if and how other companies in their industry are keeping up with everything going on.
To help marketers like you keep a pulse on how other brands are doing, HubSpot analyzed data from 150,000+ companies. In this post, we’ll note the three key marketing themes we discovered and how they could impact you today.
Want a full view of how the bigger business performed and what you can do to keep your company up? Read our full-year Business Data Recap on the Hustle Blog now.

About this Data: These insights are based on data aggregated from 130,000+ HubSpot customers globally between July 2021 and September 2022. Because the data is aggregated from HubSpot customers’ businesses, please keep in mind that the performance of individual businesses, including HubSpot’s, might differ based on their own markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage and/or other factors.
3 Marketing Data Themes We Saw in 2022
2022 Web Traffic Struggled to Outpace 2021
In 2021, much of the world was still reopening following the worst of the pandemic. And, although people were starting to get out of the house and disconnect from their screens more often, others were still highly connected, working mostly remote, and doing everything from shopping to entertaining themselves from home.
In 2022, as the global events we went through seem farther and farther in the past, more people than ever are trying to get out of the house, get off their computers, and continue to trade Zoom calls and texts with real, in-person connections.
In 2021, we also saw people become more honest with themselves about work. Instead of spending 10 hours a day in the office or working from home, they opted to take more time off, set work-life balance boundaries, or even take part in quiet quitting.
Lastly, we saw in our quarterly analyses, and note in the section below, that marketers sent fewer emails which also received lower email open rates overall throughout the year. For some sites, email can be the biggest traffic source following search engine and direct traffic. And, when any channel sees these impacts, it could greatly impact year-over-year performance.
With the factors above in mind, it’s not too shocking that web traffic across all industries took a hit in 2022 compared to 2021, with a 6.7% YoY dip.

 

The only industry that didn’t see a dip was, unsurprisingly, Leisure and Hospitality. This industry, which saw major business impact during COVID travel and country-wide shutdowns, is now showing signs of picking back up with a 6.35% YoY traffic increase.
The industries that saw the biggest dips were Trade, Transportation, and Utilities, as well as  Professional and Business Services, which both saw more than a 7% traffic tip in 2022.
Marketing Emails Struggled to Capture Subscribers
As we hinted above, email open rates took a tip in 2022. Across industries, email open rate dropped by a whopping 12.89% while email opens dropped by just under 4%.

Metric
YoY (2022 vs. 2021)
Sample size

Email sends
11.01%
167,457

Email opens
-3.32%
167,457

Email open rate
-12.89%
167,457

While there could be many possibilities for this, a few impacts that seem likely are:

Businesses sent too many emails. In 2022, companies sent 11% more marketing emails than usual, which could have easily fatigued subscribers, caused disengagement, or even hurt email subscription size. On top of this, sales reps also might have been sending emails more frequently as sales email open rates dipped by 11.6%, hinting that those who were subscribers AND prospects could’ve definitely gotten bloated inboxes.
Email oversaturation from all sorts of brands (which also likely amped up email sends) could have caused higher competition in subscriber inboxes than in previous years. On top of marketing emails to compete with,
Growing subscriber lists. While this shows people are investing in your brand and content, it can open rates harder to maintain. Because open rates decreased by a much larger percentage than that of opens, this could mean marketers added more contacts to their subscription lists, but only received opens from the same or slightly fewer people.
Inboxes are continuing to improve organization, junk, and spam filters. While this is better for the consumer, these pivots could be moving emails out of sight, although this is less likely if spam rates for your email campaign are low.
Competition from other mobile platforms: With the growth of social media and other mobile content-driven apps, emails could be feeling less relevant to some consumers, despite still being a solid marketing tactic.

If you leverage email marketing, keep track of your subscribers and your competition, as well as how email consumption and content is changing to ensure that you’re prioritizing sends with the highest potential impact. This will ensure that your content has a fighting chance of catching your subscriber’s eye in a busy list of unread messages.
Ultimately, your subscribers, prospects, and potential customers could reward you for understanding their needs with both engagements and even purchases.
Still, Marketing Efforts Yielded Lead & Conversion Impact
Although marketers aren’t closing deals like sales reps, they still drew in business impact despite lower traffic and email open engagements.
Leads and conversions, the biggest ties marketing departments often have to a business’s bottom line actually went up year-over-year.
While web conversions saw a nearly 11% increase, inbound leads went up by 6.66%

 

Although web conversions would be likely to go up due to the lower ratio of web visits (noted above), the number of inbound leads rising shows that companies are still growing their prospect lists.
Unsurprisingly, Leisure and Hospitality saw the largest growth in leads at a whopping 18.3% YoY, as well as the second-highest increase in website conversions at just over 12%.
Although they saw lowering traffic in 2022, other notable lead-growth industries were:

Education & Health Services: 10.6% lead growth and an 11% rise in conversion rate.
Professional & Business Service: 7.7% lead growth and a 13.7% rise in conversion rate.

 

These industries all make sense as top performers because the businesses within them often sell expensive or high-commital offerings (whether they be B2B or B2C). A random consumer won’t just pay for something like this after reading a single landing page, so the marketing teams within these areas are likely skilled in building robust lead-nurturing strategies.
One industry that seemed to struggle in 2022 was the Construction industry, which saw decreases in all metrics we looked at across the board, including inbound leads (-3.8%), web conversions (-0.65%), and web traffic (-6.84%). While we aren’t completely sure why this is, here are two of our best guesses (which would likely be temporary):

Due to the rising costs of inflation, materials, and construction team talent, construction projects that consumers and businesses might have invested in within the last decade have gotten more expensive or unaffordable..
During 2020, building and/or owners took advantage of their time at home or the lack of people in public/office buildings and used that time to invest in construction, remodels or maintenance. But beginning in 2021 and continuing on in 2022, construction has seen a less motion. Ultimately, as the cost of living rises and people return back to work, these projects might not be gaining as much interest or engagement online.

What’s Next for Marketers in 2023
While we can’t predict the future, we expect lead generation and conversion plays to be more important than ever to marketers as they aim to benefit their business’s bottom in still-unprecedented times. But, because people of the internet are still as hyperconnected as ever, anything could happen with traffic or email marketing.
Ultimately, what you do with your brand’s marketing plan is up to you. And, those decisions should be made with data from your company, your targets, and your own competitive analyses.
If you’re a marketing leader, entrepreneur, or just really interested in how overall businesses compared in 2022, check out this detailed business recap o all of the 2022 metrics we dug into. Or, get more tips on planning the most innovative marketing plan from our State of Marketing Report below.

 

 

Our new Email Design Studio pushes the boundaries of engagement and Customer Intimacy in Email Marketing. Using our unique, mobile-first, state-of-the-art email designer, you will get more conversions and collect precious Zero-Party Data, which will enable you to get even closer to your customers.

 

Email is still king in eCommerce  marketing 

 

Email Marketing continues to be one of the most effective marketing channels, generating a very high ROI. This is clearly visible in the results of various research studies. For example: 

61% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email. (Statista).99% of email users check their email every day, some as many as 20 times a day (OptinMonster).Personalized emails have a 29% higher unique open rate (OR) and a 41% higher unique click rate (CR) than non-personalized ones (Active Trail).

Moreover, when it comes to using email, customers are slowly but surely switching to their mobile devices. They don’t wait to be around a desktop or laptop computer to read a message that is easily readable on a mobile platform, such as SMS:

More emails are read on mobile than on desktop email clients (Litmus).Smartphone click rates are significantly higher than before. More clicks are now happening on smartphones (47.5%) than desktops (41.7%). (MessageGears). 42.3% of people will delete an email if it’s not optimized for mobile. (SaleCycle).

 

And AI is making its way to the throne

 

We can also observe the growing role of AI across supply chains:

Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies are expected to create up to $3.7 trillion in value by 2025. AI alone can generate between $1.2 and $2 trillion in value for manufacturing and supply chain management (McKinsey).AI has the potential to increase productivity by up to 40% and could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 (Accenture). In 2023, customer satisfaction is expected to grow by 25% in organizations that use AI (Gartner).

 

. . . so we decided you should reap the benefits!

 

The immense popularity of email in eCommerce marketing means that it’s often hard to cut through the noise made by other marketers and genuinely engage the recipient. That’s why we decided to push the boundaries where true customer engagement and intimacy is built.  Enhance them even further with extensive AI support: meet Email Design Studio.

 

Beyond beautiful emails: New Zero- and First-Party Data–oriented email designer

 

You already know how to make beautiful emails, but is that still enough to engage your customers? Email Design Studio’s unique and original content enrichment through native integration with Customer Data Platform flips the script. Email Design Studio gives you the only tool with capabilities that go beyond supporting the creation of beautiful emails and allow you to enhance your emails with the dynamic 1:1 personalization of products based on Zero- and First-Party Data … further supported with the advanced AI Studio to generate amazing content.

 

Make it mobile-first

 

The new Email Design Studio enables the frictionless creation of responsive designs. You can easily go from empty space to eCommerce revenue by:

Adding a section.Dragging and dropping widgets into a section.Using sections with multiple columns to create a mobile-first responsive design.

 

 

Engage your customers and increase conversions

 

Increase CLV and ROI from the Email Marketing channel. Leverage engagement and conversion tools—a set of widgets that help customers engage more deeply with your content right at that touchpoint. As a result, you can smoothly drive them to make rapid purchase decisions.

 

 

Build true intimacy with your audience

 

Leverage Customer Intimacy tools. Build long-lasting relationships with your customers using a set of widgets that turn email into a powerful Zero-Party Data–gathering tool. Allow customers to voluntarily share their preferences.

 

 

Use the power of AI in Email Marketing

 

Go the extra mile! Make the most of your email marketing. Let advanced algorithms take care of the content. Simply set a theme, specify what you need, and choose the best suggestion. Generate effective subject lines, concise bullet points, engaging product descriptions, catchy slogans, and even entire paragraphs of content.

 

State-of-the-art Email Designer

 

Focus on content, not configuration. Build value for your customers, and we’ll make sure you’re prepared for the configuration of any device, inbox, or email client. Easily create and send your recipients emails that look great every time. 

 

Make it mobile-first

 

Improve customer experience and become future-proof. Focus on the most important channel for emails: mobile devices. Leverage natively built, ready-to-use, intuitive solutions that provide a great experience for users who open messages on smartphones.

 

Listen to your customers (gather Zero-Party Data)

 

Create a sense of intimacy with customers. Allow them to voluntarily share their preferences by using a set of widgets to collect Zero-Party Data. Listen to what your customers have to say, and deepen the sense of intimacy with your organization.

 

Go beyond beautiful emails (engage)

 

Increase revenue and CLV by leveraging engagement and conversion tools. Enrich your emails with a set of widgets that engage customers more deeply with your content and smoothly and rapidly drive them to make purchase decisions.

 

Easily customize your emails

 

Strengthen customer loyalty. Bundle every email you send with brand design, and benefit from the advanced customization of individual message elements. Create your own brand book for emails to reinforce your message to your audience and increase customer loyalty.

 

Get great content in no time

 

Be lean yet remarkable. Leverage the AI in Email Marketing to generate effective subject lines, concise bullet points, engaging product descriptions, catchy slogans, and even entire paragraphs of content.

 

Save time and scale your efforts

 

Get more impact with the same resources. Use AI-generated content to improve your work in many ways, such as by making it more efficient, scalable, and cost effective or by breaking your writer’s block. 

 

Wrapping up

 

Beautifully composed emails are not enough to engage customers anymore. For successful e-commerce websites, you need to use various engagement and conversion tools and integrate them directly into the message. Making your messages more interactive also enables you to gather invaluable Zero-Party Data. 

And with AI support for content generation, you can do this all so much faster!

 

Welcome to HubSpot Marketing News! Tap in for campaign deep dives, the latest marketing industry news, and tried-and-true insights from HubSpot’s media team. 
The fashion industry and major sports leagues are two different industries that have countless collaboration opportunities.
In 2022, major sports and fashion saw a number of intersection points beyond team merch, including:

Serena Williams walking a Vogue runway shortly after announcing her retirement from tennis.
Ronnie Fieg, the founder of Kith, becoming the first creative director for the New York Knicks.
Nike opening World of Flight, its first Jordan concept store, in the fashion capital of Milan.

These headline-grabbing events indicate that fashion and sports have a meaningful overlap for consumers. To capitalize on this, sports organizations are prioritizing partnerships with artists and fashion pros to reinvigorate the world of sportswear.
Earlier this month, contemporary artists Al-Baseer Holly and Cristina Martinez created a capsule design collection merging their signature designs with NBA team logos.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by NTWRK (@ntwrk)

The Isles Lab, the official team store of the New York Islanders hockey team, is reimagining what a team store could be. The store is designed to offer a modern shopping experience and sells a unique combination of team merch, streetwear-inspired styles, and luxury fashion items.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by New York Islanders (@ny_islanders)

The fashion industry’s influence on the store is apparent, as it was created in partnership with Paul Price who was previously the Chief Merchandising Officer for Burberry.
Ultimately, both sports and fashion companies have strong communities of loyal fans who can serve as brand evangelists. As the worlds of sports and fashion continue to intersect, the opportunities for marketers to tap into these communities could be fruitful.
Marketing Snippets
The latest marketing news and strategy insights.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced she was leaving the company. Here’s what her departure could mean for creators.
TikTok added 7,000 new insights to its native Insights Tool.
Social media demographics: the stats marketers need to know to better understand their audiences.
Loyalty programs: Gartner released new data on how brands can leverage loyalty programs to engage with customers.
How brands can collaborate with Black creators: tips from Sprout Social on keeping partnerships with Black creators going beyond Black History Month.