Eight in 10 marketers call email the best-performing medium, beating search and display, according to Datran Media's second annual survey of 2,000 online marketing professionals conducted in December '07, writes MarketingCharts.

Moreover, 82 percent of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2008, and 55 percent of the respondents said they expect ROI from email to be higher than any other channel.

Email ROI will hit $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008, more than twice the ROI of other mediums including search and display, said Datran Media, citing data from the Direct Marketing Association.

Among other findings of the Datran survey of online marketers:

• Some 67 percent of respondents stated that email has helped boost sales through other channels. In these scenarios, email is a tool for sales as well as a media channel.
• Search is the favored channel for complementing the email channel.

• More than 80 percent of marketers send targeted email campaigns.

Additional findings, with charts, are available via Datran's website.