By pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump)

If you’re a marketer, it’s likely been a very – odd – Q4!

On top of racing to the finish with end-of-year reports, campaigns, and project memos, you’re also in the thick of annual planning for the new year.

And, to add one more complicated layer to the mix, many marketing teams are waiting in the balance to see how our uncertain economy and the continuance of unprecedented global events will impact their work.

While we don’t have a crystal ball, our final analytics report of the year aims to give you an insightful glimpse of how industries are performing in Q4, and help you make the most informed decisions for your brand as 2023 begins.

Without further adieu, let’s dive in.

About this Data: These insights are based on data aggregated from 158,000+ HubSpot customers globally between November 2021 and November 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 markets, customer base, industry, geography, stage, and/or other factors.

Mid-Q4 Marketing Themes

Overall Themes

With seasonality – which we began to see in our last recap – in full swing, industries linking to retail, travel, and leisure are seeing unsurprising month-to-month upticks in conversions, leads, and even traffic. Meanwhile, industries like construction – which are often less active during the end of the year and in uncertain financial times – are seeing some MoM and YoY decreases.

Overall, year-over-year leads and conversions are trending up, which could be a positive sign for marketers who want to show that their work does impact their brand’s bottom line.

Below, we’ll dig into a few specific marketing themes.

Website Performance Continues to See Seasonality

Website Traffic

Compared to October, websites across industries saw a significant traffic decrease in November, with Construction and Financial Activities seeing the greatest dips. Only Leisure and Hospitality saw a significant MoM gain, which makes sense due to holiday-related travel and annual vacation planning on the rise.

Luckily, many industries are seeing year-over-year traffic boosts.

Manufacturing as well as Trade, Transportation & Utilities (which includes the retail industry) lead the pack with 6.3% and 6.2% increases respectively. The only industry which didn’t see a boost was Construction, which saw a slight dip of 2.6%.

As we mentioned in previous reports, the construction industry’s performance could be due in part to the season as well as current macroeconomic conditions.

Website Conversion Rates

Month-over-month, website conversions were relatively flat across industries. This can happen due to seasonality.

One big exception to the MoM data was Leisure and Hospitality which saw a significant 9.5% increase. Not super surprising during the end-of-year holiday …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron