If you have a marketing team that depends on all things digital – email, social media, paid/organic search – then you would want to know the current status of your chosen marketing channels.

More and more marketers are gradually leaning towards ditching their traditional channels and betting more of their resources on digital marketing. But is that move really worth it?

Based on the data from various surveys assembled by Conductor.com, these are the summarized findings in all the major digital marketing channels:

SEO: 54% discover new sites this way; just behind email for qualified leads, 36%

Email: 51% discover new sites this way; tops for qualified leads, 40%

Social: 32% discover new sites this way; tied with paid search for qualified leads, 18%

Paid Search/SEM: 18% discover new sites this way; tied with social for qualified leads, 18%

On top of that, these are the other notable findings – from the same Conductor.com study – as presented in an infographic posted on MarketingLand.com:

Visitors from organic search are twice as more likely to be extremely engaged and visit 5 or more pages when compared to other channels.

Social media has the highest bounce rate among all marketing channels.

Social media and SEO are rated as most effective at lead generation at both 14%, but…

When it comes to qualified leads, email marketing produces the highest number at 40%, followed by SEO at 36%. Social media and PPC are at 18% a piece.

When it comes to ROI, organic search and email marketing are rated as the top marketing channels.

What do these tell us?

It only affirms the current perception of marketers on which marketing channels really produce results. As you can see, social media does possess a certain level of effectiveness when it comes to generating leads, mainly because of its broad reach and its inherent power to distribute content. But the question is: are those leads even qualified? Apparently not.

Email is obviously the authority in that aspect. Although it may not be very productive in generating leads in terms of quantity, it has the highest potential to bring in prospects who are truly interested. At the end of the day, it’s all about how many qualified leads are in the basket, which increases the chances of closes.

These trends may change in the years to come, but for now, the numbers don’t lie: email is still old faithful when it comes to ROI.