At the recent South African Online Marketing Conference, Richard Mullins, a Director at Acceleration said in his presentation that online media buys (CPM banners, skyscrapers etc.) are the most effective online marketing tactic available. Immediately the SEM and Affiliate folks around the room started looking at each other in amazement. Being my usual outspoken (read tactless!) self I challenged him on this because quite frankly I believed it to be complete bollocks. For example if you run a PPC campaign properly it will THRASH a banner campaign with respect to CPA and total ROI; all a marketer could want would be more volume. It seems Threadwatch agree with me on this one with a recent post questioning if anything comes even close to SEM from an ROI perspective and stating that online media buys don’t even come close.

I’d like to hear what you think the best performing online marketing tactic is. I think the definition of “best performing” should be that it consistently delivers a superior holistic ROI. That gives scope to even include a branding effect if in fact one can actually be proven.