Email is still a powerful marketing tool if used well, writes eMarketer, citing a just-published report, "Email Marketing: How to Improve ROI." Though the focus of late has been on search, 71 percent of US online advertisers used email marketing in 2004; that's compared with 77 percent using paid search. Moreover, despite spam and email overload, according to a survey of US email users surveyed by Quris, 45 percent see email as a good way for companies to stay in touch with customers. Customer retention and increased loyalty is the main objective for email marketing among 63 percent of surveyed marketers, but an unexpected 62 percent also see email as a way to acquire new customers. According to eMarketer, email volume in the US will rise from over 2 trillion message this year - personal, commercial and spam - to nearly 2.7 trillion by 2007.