Most people think online marketing is all about the glitz and the glamour. Creating viral videos, schmoozing clients at cocktail parties, creating advertising campaigns and… Facebook! Reality check; reports are one of the most important components of any marketer’s job. Without detailed data, measuring the success of any marketing campaign is guess work. For all you know, your latest campaign could have been a hit but analytics will show otherwise. Get yourself out of the dark, monitor the statistics’ of your future marketing campaigns and arm yourself with powerful information using these free, easy-to-use analytical tools:
1. Google Analytics
This wonderful tool, powered by Google, allows you to understand key information about your website visitors. You are able to track statistics such as traffic source (email, organic search, paid search, Facebook etc), pages viewed, time on site, exit page and demographic information. Understanding how your website visitors interact with your site is crucial in the development of new campaigns. Using Google Analytics is quite simple but you will likely need some assistance from your IT department or Web Master when installing it on your website.
2. Bitly
A powerful free tool that serves mainly as a URL shortener but provides link tracking statistics as well. Bitly is free, easy to use and provides a nice middle ground for those that don’t have too much time to look deep into statistics but want a general idea on how the success generated through their links.
3. Hootsuite
Are you a social media superstar? If you’re using multiple social networks and you are looking for an effective way to post, manage posts and track your social success, Hootesuite may just be the perfect tool for you. It is the most popular social media management platform and it boasts a great list of features which include post analytics and their own version of Bitly built into the system.
4. Survey Monkey
Tracking clickthrough rates and website statistics are helpful, but sometimes we want straight answers in plain English. You can easily create polls on Survey Monkey and collect responses for free to get a firsthand look at what your customers think of your marketing and how they think you can improve.
What other free tools do you use to track the success of your online/offline campaigns? Comment below and let us know.
