Digital Marketing ROI Statistics

Which digital marketing channels have the highest ROI?

In this report, we’ve compiled our internal data on digital marketing campaigns to provide ROI, ROAS, and Time to Break Even statistics by marketing channel. We also provide the ROI for the top 3 channels in each industry for which we have a substantive data set. The campaign pool we draw our data from consists of ~23% B2C and ~77% B2B clients.

We calculate ROAS using the following formula: Gross Return on Campaign ÷ Campaign Cost. This is expressed as the expected return on each dollar spent on that campaign, including both direct campaign spend and the prorated salary of each person interacting with our firm on the clients’ side.

We calculate ROI thus: Net Profit from Campaign ÷ Total Marketing Costs. In contrast to ROAS, ROI considers the cost of providing goods or services (COGS). For each channel, we calculate the ROI based on a 3-year average of all campaign data from 2019–2021.

Time to Break Even is the average number of months that it took our clients’ revenue from a campaign to exceed their campaign spend, and is meant to provide context and illustrate which marketing channels are best suited for short or long-term investments.

Digital Marketing ROI By Channel

Channel	Time to Break Even	ROAS (3  year average)	ROI (3 year average)
SEO	9 months	9.10	748%
SEM/PPC	4 months	1.55	36%
E-mail Marketing	7 months	3.50	261%
LinkedIn – Organic	5 months	2.75	229%
LinkedIn – Paid	5 months	2.30	192%
Facebook Ads	3 months	1.80	87%
Webinars	9 months	4.95	430%
Influencer Marketing	6 months	3.45	206%
Online PR	8 months	1.60	62%

Digital Marketing ROI by Industry (Highest ROI Channels)

Industry	Highest ROI Channels
Addiction Treatment	SEO – 736% Affiliate Marketing – 304% Facebook Ads – 282%
Automotive	Facebook Ads – 281% SEM / PPC – 184% Email Marketing – 180%
B2B SaaS	SEO – 702% Webinars – 213% Email Marketing – 151%
Biotech	Webinars – 802% SEO – 788% PR – 115%
Business Insurance	SEO – 758% LinkedIn Ads – 119% Email Marketing – 86%
Construction	PR – 210% Webinars – 137% Email Marketing – 84%
eCommerce	SEO – 317% Facebook Ads – 145% Influencer Marketing – 97%
Financial Services	SEO – 1,031% Webinars – 416% Email Marketing – 380%
Fintech	Online PR – 335% SEO – 308% Affiliate Marketing – 227%
Healthcare	Email Marketing – 251% Webinars – 193% SEM / PPC – 114%
Heavy Equipment	SEO – 541% Email Marketing – 205% LinkedIn Organic – 84%
Higher Education	Online PR – 337% SEO – 290% Email Marketing – 217%
HVAC	SEO – 678% Email Marketing – 255% SEM / PPC – 103%
Industrial IOT	SEO – 866% Email Marketing – 310% Webinars – 239%
IT & Managed Services	Email Marketing – 595% SEO – 590% LinkedIn Organic – 116%
Law Firms & Legal Services	SEO – 526% Webinars – 261% LinkedIn Organic – 185%
Manufacturing & Distribution	SEO – 785% Email Marketing – 184% LinkedIn Organic – 113%
Medical Device	SEO – 1,183% Webinars – 405% Online PR – 377%
Oil & Gas	Webinars – 971% SEO –  906% Email Marketing – 154%
PCB Design & Manufacturing	SEO – 1,101% Email Marketing – 237% Webinars – 210%
Pharmaceutical	SEM / PPC – 831% SEO – 826% Email Marketing – 310%
Real Estate	SEO – 1,389% LinkedIn Organic – 268% Email Marketing – 201%
SaaS	Email Marketing – 784% SEO – 760% PPC –  199%
Solar Energy	SEO – 770% Facebook Ads – 544% Email Marketing – 426%
Staffing & Recruiting	LinkedIn Ads – 326% SEO – 304% Email Marketing – 76%

Digital Marketing ROI: Next Steps

We hope this report helps you evaluate the success of your own digital marketing efforts. If you would like to order a PDF copy, reach out to us here. If you are interested in exploring a partnership with our marketing agency, you can reach out to us here. Our firm is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and serves clients throughout the United States.