Powerful Marketing Automation Tools with a Zero Price Tag

Many online services claim to help you promote your small business, but taken together, the monthly fees can really add up. You can easily patch together your own zero cost marketing toolkit with these recent finds from Google, Axciom, Moment.me and Moz.

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See What You're Missing with Google Benchmarking
If you've been wondering where you can make improvements to your digital marketing, one way is to use the Benchmarking feature in Google Analytics to see how you rank against businesses in your industry. You'll find it under "Audience" in the menu. Data is parsed by channel, location, or device.

Keep an Eye Out with Google's Revamped Alerts
With all the attention given to reputation monitoring, it's no surprise Google has given Alerts a makeover. Use it to see what people are saying about you, your business or products. The preview window is a new feature which gives you an idea of what the alerts might include and helps you refine your search. Be sure to set the options so you don't drown in emails. You can also use it to keep tabs on your competition and/or topics of interest, which could lead to valuable linking and publishing opportunities.

Check Your Site's Inbound Links with Moz
Acquiring inbound links to your website boosts your search rank and can help drive traffic. See who's linking to you, and get more data about those links, with the updated Open Site Explorer.

Make it a point to check out at least one of these tools. They're all pretty amazing for the price and will help you automate some of your marketing. If you do try any of them out, let us know your experience.