The Best Web Marketing of 2008

Which types of online advertising provide the highest ROI? Who's really clicking on your PPC ads? Why do PPC costs keep rising? How can you convert more clickers into buyers? Are Web 2.0 technologies now mainstream?

Learn these answers and more from this collection of blog posts and articles, some of the best reporting on online research topics so far this year.


Online Marketers See High ROI from SEO by Marketing Pilgrim

Blogger, SEO expert and PR pro Janet Meiners reports on an MarketingSherpa study detailing the growth in paid search and organic search engine optimization. Read her post to discover which types of online advertising get a thumbs up—and which are losing favor with interactive marketers.


Who's really clicking? by iMedia Connection

Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Professor of Marketing and E-Commerce at the University of Washington, paints a bleak picture of the future of PPC advertising—then gets blasted for it in the Comments by some fairly high-profile sources. My take is that he does miss the distinction between B2B abd B2C here (PPC ads are very productive, especially for software and computer hardware products) but he's absolutely correct that search advertisers often underappreciate the value of branding and PR to enhance PPC results.


The Main Factor Necessary to Convert Visitors to Customers by Marketing Pilgrim

In another enlightening post from Marketing Pilgrim, Internet marketer and online entrepreneur Greg Howlett reports that the average conversion rate for an online retailer is 2.5%—then explains how leaders like Office Depot, QVC and Lands' End are converting at a 16-20% rate.


Direct sales, branding primary SEM objectives: SEMPO survey by DMNews

Ellen Keohane highlights findings from a SEMPO study showing how marketing budgets are shifting, what marketers think of the branding value of search engine marketing, and how they feel about experimenting with new forms of media.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Search Engine Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Blogging for Business, Part 1

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technorati tags: online advertising ROI, PPC costs, Web 2.0 technologies, Efficient Frontier, Marketing Pilgrim, Janet Meiners, MarketingSherpa study, Silobreaker, Pandia Search Engine News, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Greg Howlett, average conversion rate for an online retailer, Shimon Sandler, average SEM conversion rate for B2B technology companies, AccuraCast, Joe Mandese, Ellen Keohane

del.icio.us tags: online advertising ROI, PPC costs, Web 2.0 technologies, Efficient Frontier, Marketing Pilgrim, Janet Meiners, MarketingSherpa study, Silobreaker, Pandia Search Engine News, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Greg Howlett, average conversion rate for an online retailer, Shimon Sandler, average SEM conversion rate for B2B technology companies, AccuraCast, Joe Mandese, Ellen Keohane

icerocket tags: online advertising ROI, PPC costs, Web 2.0 technologies, Efficient Frontier, Marketing Pilgrim, Janet Meiners, MarketingSherpa study, Silobreaker, Pandia Search Engine News, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Greg Howlett, average conversion rate for an online retailer, Shimon Sandler, average SEM conversion rate for B2B technology companies, AccuraCast, Joe Mandese, Ellen Keohane

Contact Mike Bannan: mike@digitalrdm.com