Search engine marketing
When performed competently, generates the highest return on investment vs. all other internet marketing media. High sales conversions can be attained because the people visiting your web site are "searching" for your products and services. Search engines marketing is limited by the search demand for your products, and your ability to be seen on the search engines. Search engines produce 2 billion searches per month.

eMail Marketing - more info
Email marketing is best used to expand and already-successful ecommerce web property. eMail marketing is capable of producing tremendous amounts of traffic, very quickly. More traffic can be generated via email in a single day than search engines may produce in months. However, email marketing almost always produces a lower return on investment, and is a far more risky campaign than the search engines. One significant benefit with email marketing, is that the costs tend to decrease as your campaign size increase. If your test campaign is successful, then you got it made.

Banner Advertising - more info
Generally the lowest return on investment compared to all other marketing media. We recommend extreme caution when considering a banner campaign. Due to low performance rates, your cost-per-visitor will be higher than most any other media. In addition, visitors from banner ads are far less likely to purchase your products than are search engine visitors. Banner visitors are more like window shoppers, and are following up on interest, rather than "searching" for a solution. Our studies show that it takes from 5 to 10 banner visitors to equal the quality of one search engine visitor.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
PPC search engine traffic yields similar results as search engine traffic, but at a much higher cost. Competitive search terms, such as the financial, casino or travel industry can be very expensive on a per click basis. We have seen per-click rates on Overture (formerly GOTO.com) exceed $5 per click. For highly competitive industries, with popular products and services, email marketing and search engine marketing are typically a more cost-effective solution. If your cost-per-click exceeds $2.00 per click, you're better off going with email. Unlike email marketing, PPC campaigns get more expensive as you try to increase the amount of traffic you are receiving. To receive more traffic, you must rank higher on the PPC engines, to rank higher, you must "bid" higher per click. The higher you bid, the lower your ROI.

Affiliate Programs
Allowing other people to advertise your web site on a performance basis (cost-per-sale). Conceptually, they sound great, however they can be costly. Start-up costs, all things combined, generally run over $2k and a monthly fees is commonly involved. The major affiliate program providers are Commission Junction, LinkShare, and BeFree. We strongly recommend that you have a proven web site and marketing campaign before trying an affiliate program. As a rule of thumb; if you are selling well, an affiliate campaign will expand sales. If you are not selling well, an affiliate program will continue to sell nothing at great expense. Your can learn more about affiliate network marketing at Affiliate Official.

Media Summary
In general, every marketing campaign should start our with search engine marketing. Low-volume PPC should be your first expansion step, followed by moderate volume PPC and an email marketing test. Monitor your ROI for each media and push them as far as you can while still attaining an acceptable profit margin. If email marketing is viable on a small, test level, then it will be very successful in high volume, as email costs decrease as volume increases.

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