E-mail Tops in ROI

• Commercial e-mail returned a whopping $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the Direct Marketing Association's recently released Power of Direct economic-impact study.

• For comparison's sake, the second highest marketing ROI came from Internet search advertising, which returned a healthy $21.85 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, according to the study, done by financial-analysis-and-forecasting firm Global Insight on behalf of the DMA.

• Meanwhile, non-catalog direct mail returned $15.22 for every dollar spent in 2009, while catalogs returned $7.32, according to the study.

• E-mail's ROI is down from $44.93 for every dollar spent in 2008, and is projected to dip slightly again in 2010 to $42.08.

However, while e-mail far outshines other channels in terms of ROI, it is still a rounding error in most marketers' budgets.

• Marketers spent $600 million on the channel in 2009 and are expected to spend $700 million on it in 2010, according to the DMA.