In a new study, released today by MarketingSherpa, consumer marketers were asked to rank the ROI of various online marketing tactics during Q4 2008. Once again, email, SEO and paid search top the list. A shift in budget spending is also seen, as marketers are shifting away from expensive branding campaigns toward more measurable online strategies.

Over the past few months there have been many marketing “gurus” that suggest search and Internet marketing will see a decline as companies cut spending for expensive broad-based search phrases and brand terms. However, I see a much different trend developing. It is true that companies are moving away from higher cost search phrases, but the budget savings are being put to better use on long-tail search and development of natural search rankings. Since the Internet provides marketers excellent ways of tracking and monitoring ROI, search marketing will remain strong through the recession as companies move away from harder to track tactics such as general branding.

Display advertising such as banners and pop-us have fallen to bottom of the list – which does not surprise me. However, the movement away from these media and the financial strain on larger news sites that depend on display ad sales to survive means a reduction in cost and great opportunity for smaller companies to purchase ad space at a discount.