In the world of proliferating marketing applications, there are still some applications that are free that most marketers do not use well. These include Alexa and Quantcast. Web pros certainly know about both, but I am continually surprised how many marketers are not aware of either.
With so much of marketing tied to Internet activity and people’s search patterns, Alexa provides a host of free data on web traffic and search activity for almost all reasonable traffic sites. When trying to determine what brings people to sites and what type of relative activity other industry/competitor sites get, sure Compete.com is more thorough, but for many purposes, Alexa’s free data will get you started.
Quantcast overlays raw data with more demographic profiling information to help you search out relevant sites and explore web traffic patterns in more depth. It takes some learning, but Quantcast can provide lots of useful information especially in consumer segments.
Sure the best things in life are not always free, but some pretty good things certainly are.