Report: On-Site Content Marketing Yields Highest ROI for Online Marketers

The 2017 “What Works in Online Marketing” report from AudienceBloom recently looked at ten different tactics online marketers are using, as well as the ROI they are presenting.

According to the data, on-site content marketing (6.85), influencer marketing (6.77) and on-site SEO (6.77) showed the most value. The ratings are based on a scale of averages ranging from 0 to 10.

While being two of the easiest tactics to execute or find a vendor to execute, social media and email marketing were near the bottom of the list in terms of ROI. Email marketing (6.60) and social media marketing (6.44) came in seventh and ninth place on the list, respectively.

The Difficulty of Social Media Marketing

Previous research suggests that email marketing has been an easy tactic to execute in recent months, but what about social media marketing?

The “State of Digital Marketing – Benchmarks for Success” report from Adestra and Ascend2 in 2016 looked at the effectiveness and difficulty of seven marketing tactics – email, website, SEO, social media, paid search, mobile and display ads. The majority (61 percent) said that email was the most effective tactic, and only 23 percent found it difficult to execute, making it the third-easiest strategy.

However, 48 percent of marketers said that social media was their “most difficult” tactic, putting it at the top of the list in terms of difficulty. The more recent research from AudienceBloom suggests that it is becoming easier for marketers as time goes on.