I’ve just come across an interesting article by Multichannel Merchant, a Chief! Marketer publication, where the author looks at the results of The State of Retailing Online 2010 survey recently conducted by Forrester Research for Shop.org.
Comparing paid search to social media marketing, Multichannel Merchant points out:
…According to the results, merchants that earned less than $10 million in annual revenue spent 37% of their average $600,000 budgets on paid search; this group spent 5% of their budgets on social media.
Marketers with annual sales of 10 million to $100 million spent 38% of their average $3.2 million budget on search vs. 2% on social media. And merchants with more that $100 million in annual revenue spent 39% of their average $11 million budgets on search—they spent only 1% on social.
Wonder where email marketing, and especially affiliate marketing fit into the picture? Multichannel Merchant continues:
E-mail marketing — both to house files and prospects — was the second-most popular marketing spend tactic for small and medium size merchants, while affiliate marketing was the second-most popular for the merchants with more than $100 million in annual revenue [underlining mine].
Interesting data. Is affiliate marketing interwoven into your digital marketing mix yet?