Every business has limited time, budget, and resource to invest in marketing. So when someone asks whether video is worth it compared to blogs, email campaigns, paid advertising, or social content, it is a fair and important question.
The short answer is that video consistently outperforms other content types on most commercial metrics, but with important caveats around context and execution. This guide gives you the full picture, backed by data, so you can make a genuinely informed decision about where to invest. For a broader look at how to measure video's commercial impact, see our guide to video marketing ROI metrics.
What the Data Says About Video ROI
According to Wyzowl's 2026 State of Video Marketing report, 82% of marketers say video has given them a good return on investment, and 83% say it has directly increased sales. These figures have remained consistently high across more than a decade of annual tracking.
Separately, research by EyeView found that adding video to a landing page can increase conversions by up to 80% compared to a page without video. That is a substantial uplift from the same volume of incoming traffic, with no additional advertising spend required.
For B2B specifically, 52% of B2B marketers say video is the content format that delivers the highest ROI compared to all other formats, according to research cited by Levitate Media. That is a majority view, not a fringe one.
Video vs Blogs and Written Content
Blogs are valuable and remain an important part of most content strategies. They drive organic search traffic, establish expertise, and support SEO in ways that video alone cannot fully replicate. However, when it comes to engagement, retention, and conversion, video has clear advantages.
- Retention: People retain approximately 95% of information they watch in a video, compared to around 10% of what they read in text, according to research cited by DemandSage. For complex services or technical propositions, this difference is commercially significant.
- Time on page: Pages with embedded video generate significantly more time on site than text-only pages. Wistia's research consistently shows visitors spend 1.4 to 2 times longer on pages that include video.
- Conversion: A service page with an embedded explainer video will typically convert at a higher rate than the same page with text and images alone.
The most effective strategy combines both: use blogs and written content to drive search traffic, and embed video within that content to improve engagement and conversion. They are not competing formats; they are complementary ones.
Video vs Paid Advertising
Paid advertising, whether on Google, LinkedIn, or Meta, can deliver immediate results but stops producing the moment you stop paying. Video content, particularly on YouTube and LinkedIn, can continue generating leads and building authority long after the initial investment.
The comparison is not entirely straightforward because paid video ads and organic video content are different things. But if the question is "should I spend my marketing budget on paid ads or video content?", the answer for most B2B businesses is that video content provides better long-term returns, while paid advertising is better for short-term demand generation.
Many businesses use both: organic video content builds credibility and inbound interest over time, while paid video ads accelerate reach during specific campaigns. For guidance on how video content works at different stages of the funnel, see our post on using video across the sales funnel.
Video vs Email Marketing
Email and video are not in competition: they work best together. Including video in an email campaign, or even just using the word "video" in a subject line, consistently improves performance. Research shows that subject lines containing "video" increase email open rates by 6 to 10 percentage points.
Video embedded in email nurture sequences gives prospects a richer experience than text alone, and tools like Vidyard allow you to track which prospects have watched which videos, giving your sales team valuable intelligence before they follow up. We cover this in detail in our post on using video in your email marketing campaigns.
Video vs Social Content
On most social platforms, video consistently outperforms static images and text in terms of reach, engagement, and click-through rate. On LinkedIn, video posts receive significantly more organic reach than text posts. On Instagram, Reels generate more reach than static posts. On YouTube, video is the platform.
The relevant comparison for most businesses is not "should I post video or text on social?" but "what type of video should I post and where?" Our guide on short-form vs long-form video covers this in detail.
The Honest Answer
Video delivers the strongest ROI of any content format for most B2B businesses, particularly when it comes to building trust, driving conversions, and shortening the sales cycle. But it requires a clear strategy, consistent execution, and proper measurement to realise that potential.
The businesses that see the best returns are not those that produce the most video, or the most expensive video. They are the ones that produce the right video, for the right audience, at the right stage of the buyer journey, and then measure the results rigorously.
