Free Web 2.0 Marketing Analytics Tools

• Free tools to find high traffic keywords on major search engines
• Free tools to track what people are saying about your product or company online.
• Free tools to obtain detailed traffic measurement of other websites

Today's consumers don't just rely on traditional media for information; increasingly, they are turning to the Internet for help them to make their purchase and decisions. With forums, product websites and blogs, the Internet is a savvy consumer's playground.

The online advertising landscape however is extremely fragmented with hundred of millions of websites. In order make informed decisions regarding audience profiling and targeting, web analytics has become an indispensable tool.

These resources below will help you learn more about your audience, measure your campaign's success, keep abreast of the latest market trends and new platforms to reach out to your target audience. In addition, it helps you make a more informed decision on media placement. This is especially important as media owners may not always have the same aligned interest as you in disclosing their traffic details.

Use these tools to produce your winning combination:

• Google Traffic Estimator is great for quick traffic estimates for new keywords, clicks and spending.
• Utilize Google Web Optimizer to test for the components that make up the best website.

• Use a good site analytics package like Google Analytics, Omniture or Webtrends.
• BLVD Status is an easy yet comprehensive analytics tool that tracks your referrals and conversions with live stats, RSS and form conversion tracking and outgoing link conversions, even from “Digg This” and social media sites.
• CrazyEgg, Google Analytics will tell you what links your visitors click…but Crazy Egg shows you which parts of your pages your visitors click on. There’s a subtle difference: Crazy Egg shows you clicks even if they weren’t on a link.

Analysis and Research

• Keep in the loop with Google Alerts to receive email updates whenever there are new Google results for the keywords or topic you choose.

• Get your Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a simple yet effective gauge of customer loyalty that sorts them out into either promoters, passives or detractors, and from there you know how your company is faring.

Market News

• Search Engine Land – my preferred source for the latest and most comprehensive search engine technology news and trends in the market.

Social Media Marketing

• Social media sites are visited by millions of young people every day, and this is an excellent platform to connect with them, right where they spend a lot of their time; be it uploading a video ad campaign to Youtube or being part of the Facebook or Twitter (the next big thing after Facebook) or MySpace network, which can give you a lot of information about your target customers.

Advertising

• Use sites like Quantcast and Compete.com to obtain detailed measurements of your audience reach, composition and traffic, then peg it against your competitors’ to see where your company stands.

• In my opinion, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to gain exposure and new leads by using a partner website or ad to drive traffic to your website in return for a small commission.