Whether you own an offline business or online business there so many ways you can market online. We understand that we can use paid or free methods. Without any doubt, paying for advertising will result in faster results. But it does not guarantee better results compared to free methods as it depends on the type of objective that you are trying to achieve.There are various objectives that can be achieved from marketing your business online:a) Brand Buildingb) Lead Acquisitionc) Sales Conversiond) Providing customer support and interactione) Providing business informationBrand BuildingOne of the top objectives for marketing your business is to promote your brand, products and services. You want to let the online market know about your brand name. Let them be familiar with your brand and products offering. Hence, you want to increase brand exposure and brand recognition. If this is your main objective, paid advertising will yield you faster and better results.Lead AcquisitionAnother objective when you market online is to acquire leads so that you can continue to promote to your prospects. In this scenario, both free traffic and paid traffic can be equally effective. For free traffic, you can use popular social media or guest blogging to advertise your business. You can also use paid advertising to directly advertise your business.Sales ConversionWhenever you do a business, you want to have revenue and sales so that you remain profitable. Paid advertising will be very effective if the advertising is targeted at a group who is familiar with you and looking at the possibility of how your service or product can help them to solve their problem. Having said that, it does not mean that free traffic method does not work, it can work too if you manage it well and send targeted traffic.Providing Customer Support And InteractionAs you now have an online presence, it is also essential to provide online support to your customers and potential customers. Some free ways to do this when you are marketing online include having your own help desk and forums. The more popular way nowadays is to use Facebook to interact with prospect and customers. So when you are marketing online paid traffic may not be able to help you achieve this objective.Providing Business InformationThe last objective is to provide information to the online visitors and this can be done via both paid and free marketing methods.So, you need to decide what marketing objective are you trying to achieve and also if you have budget for the advertising. As long as you are willing to test and do something about it, you will be able to achieve some result.