Marketing is important to success on the Web. Even more important is getting 
a good return on marketing expenses. Below is a ranking of how big a bang 
companies are getting for their marketing buck. The methodology: For 1997 and 
1998, we divided revenues by marketing expenses. For example, in 1998 America 
Online generated close to $7 of sales for every marketing dollar it spent, 
showing a 74% increase of marketing efficiency.

                      REVENUES DIVIDED BY
                  MARKETING  EXPENSES   PERCENT
COMPANY           Fiscal 98  Fiscal 97  Change

Onsale              8.81       9.69       -9%
America Online      6.95       3.99       74
Amazon.com          4.59       3.65       26
E*Trade***          3.44       5.55      -38
Ameritrade***       3.09       5.53      -44
Excite              2.47       1.69       46
eBay                2.39       3.32      -28
Yahoo!              2.20       1.54       43
Lycos               1.60       1.16       38
Beyond.com          1.33       9.91      -87
CDNow               1.27       1.81      -30
Earthweb            0.74       1.11      -33
TheGlobe.com        0.59       0.62       -4
Ivillage            0.53       0.69      -23
TheStreet.com       0.46       0.27       70
Average             2.70       3.37      -20%


*** Ameritrade and e*trade use different accounting presentations for 
marketing expenses

DATA: BUSINESS WEEK