Are you an In-house search marketer trying to make a case for your search marketing initiatives? Or are you a decision maker trying to allocate budgets to programs that would give you the best Return on Investment (ROI)? Or maybe you are a small business owner trying to learn where can you spend your hard earned money into marketing programs that actually work? Well, everyone is in the same boat these days and one common denominator among all marketers and business owners is which channel of customer acquisition they can invest their money that would bring them the maximum bang for their buck. The answer again is in Search Engine Marketing. A brand new research from emarketer drives the point home.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) has traditionally provided positive ROI among all marketing channels. Almost all the time you would know, in some cases in a matter of a day, if your campaign is working or not. Such instant results with the inbuilt ability of the web to measure anything on the fly makes it one of the most compelling channels for all acquisition efforts. Granted, SEO needs patience and efforts while PPC is best described as instant gratification. You can allocate $100 in the morning and by evening you would know if you would break even or not. No wonder a recent survey by Forbes, and compiled by emarketer, makes SEO the most effective marketing tactic for generating conversions.

Now, let me breakdown the common marketing tactics listed above and provide you with some insights on each tactic:

Search Engine Optimization:

Even though Organic Search listings are free on Google, there is a lot that goes into making your SEO initiatives a success. This in turn does not make them truly free. Typically, you would need to hire an in-house SEO specialist or an agency or a consultant. In many cases (trust me many) companies hire all of them to work in tandem on their SEO efforts. Throw in IT costs, internal meetings, site redesign, analytics, content writers, project managers, etc. and suddenly you see that there is an intrinsic cost involved which does not make SEO completely free. The fact is even after all these resources involved the long term benefits of SEO drives more value than any marketing tactic. But always keep in mind that SEO requires patience and solid efforts. So if you think you have those virtues to invest then this could be your best marketing tactic.

Email and e-newsletter:

For many of us this is how internet marketing got its start. Email marketing was once upon a time the easiest and most dependable marketing tactic where you could expect conversions on every email blast you send. Email marketing has come a long way from a public announcement system to a more personalized and permission based marketing tool. New spam filters, email laws by government makes this tactic not-so-great anymore. These days there is lot of effort required in creating your own database of contacts. If you have the resources then you can always buy email list that range anwhere from $.10 cents and above. In any case, email marketing is still among the top 3 marketing tactic.

Pay-Per-Click:

Truly the first internet advertising system designed that can give you insights and returns on your campaigns almost instantaneously. Google took it to the next level with its own Adwords system and PPC landscape was not the same anymore. There are also many PPC haters out there (for no fault of theirs) due to click fraud, high cost per click, and intense competition among advertisers. But for large companies this can generate huge volume of sales and traffic day after day. After all don’t we all love little instant gratification!!

Behavioral Marketing:

Isn’t targeting customers based on their behavior the holy grail of marketing? Well, it is. If we all know how to react to our customer’s behavior then we can all become the next Google, don’t you think. Some new site behavior technologies like optimost, x+1 has proven to marketers that it can indeed tap into the behavior of their prospects and turn them into customers. Companies like Yahoo also offers some cool advertising options to tap into this. Not a big surprise that Behavioral Marketing tactic is becoming commonplace among top marketers.
Site or Page Sponsorship:
Site Sponsorship can work well if you narrow down your target segment and further drill down into the type of audience a particular site gets. The problem is most of these advertising works on a CPM (cost-per-thousand impression) basis. Look to pay anywhere from $10 upwards for CPM. Why this tactic still drives conversions is because sites give you the ability to drill down into your audience. For example: Capital One partners with top online retailer Smart Bargains and gives special discounts for people signing up and using Capital One credit card at checkout.
Video Ads:
This is low on the list now but i expect video ads to break in the top 5 online marketing tactic. Video ads on YouTube has opened another dimension for advertisers (even though segmenting is an issue). A good integration would be when search engines start combining video advertisements with the text search ads. The metrics again are a issue for now as it is still on a CPM basis.

If i were to pick my top 3 then it would be SEO, Email, & Viral (based on ROI). Now your turn, what would be your Top converting marketing tactic. Would love to hear.

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