Benchmarking 2021 Webinars and Digital Experiences

2021 Trends At A Glance

At a glance, 2021 looked like 2020 on repeat. Marketers continued to deal with industry change, teams looked forward to the return of physical events and organizations started experimenting with hybrid events. Oh, and digital experiences still had a banner year.

But, on closer examination, there were a few crucial differences between 2021 and 2020. The biggest and most important change? Digital experiences in 2021 saw more engagement than the year before.

Where Digital Fatigue Affects Marketers

This is incredibly important since there was a lot of discussion about digital and webinar exhaustion. The takeaway? Despite talk of fatigue, there has been a consistent increase in audience engagement through digital experiences.

This is an understandable trend as marketers use more engagement tools and align their digital experiences — and CTAs within those experiences — to the buyers’ journey.

When I work with clients on their concerns, the fatigue tends not to be on the audience’s side, but on the marketer’s side. Faced with juggling so much, sometimes we’re just feeling tired and webinars can be an easy place to say “I’m exhausted.”

Engagement Benchmarks at A Glance

Audience engagement in experiences saw significant gains in 2021. The average length of attendance rose 8 minutes from 2020 to 2021. Engagement during experiences, measured by an audience member’s average interaction with engagement tools, polling, content, etc., rose 32% year-over-year.

Calls to Action taken year-over-year also increased exponentially, with ON24’s Book a Meeting tool growing an astonishing 1,028%. (Note: this is only possible as we saw more marketers deploying this tool in 2021).

What To Look Forward to In 2022

There is so much to be excited about in 2022. One thing to look forward to is how we can create digital experiences that will continue to excite and engage audiences.

Marketers should invest the time to think strategically about the stage of the buyer or customer journey they are trying to influence, the content shared and align that with the engagement techniques and CTAs are seeing improved audience engagement rates.

Learn more about the State of Digital Experiences Report and be sure to share with your coworkers to be set up for success in 2022.