Last editions:

#1: The best content marketing tools for the research phase.

#2: The best content marketing tools for the creation phase.

#3: The best content marketing tools for the optimization phase.

#4: The best content marketing tools for the publishing phase.

#5: The best content marketing tools for the promotion phase.

We mentioned how much content marketing is an opportunity to build an audience in an authentic way, if you’re willing to invest the time to do things right.

Want to understand more about each phase of content marketing, why it’s important and the details about how to do it? Get a copy of ROI or RIP – The Lean Content Marketing Handbook for SMBs. It’s over 80 pages of best practices for developing and executing a content marketing strategy.

This week, we’ll go over the best content marketing tools to help you in your optimization phase.

The best content marketing tools for the measuring phase.

1. Find out which content marketing efforts are generating traffic and conversion: Google Analytics.

The big kahuna of analytics tools offers enough features and reports for any business, global or local.

2. Measure your posts’ performance: Scoop.it Content Director.

Scoop.it Content Director comes with several analytics reports to show you what’s worked and what hasn’t.

And then you’re back around to research. Take everything you’ve learned, scour your research sources, and come up with your next round of amazing content. Every few months to once a year, consider doing a content audit and use our content marketing analytics framework to understand what actions to take based on your data.

3. Organize your inbound traffic by campaign: Google Analytics UTM Tags Tool.

Want to organize your inbound traffic by campaign, even if you’ve got dozens of pieces of content spread all over the web? Want to see it all clearly marked in your Google Analytics reports? Google’s free URL Builder can do that. This is a free tool with clever features we all should use more often.  It’s especially handy for email marketers.

4. Track links that don’t go back to your website: Bit.ly.

Bit.ly lets you track clicks on links that don’t go back to your site. This free tool is mostly known as a link-shortener, but this feature of it is a must-know hack for content marketers. 

Say you want to publish a Kindle book or an ebook that has lots of links to resources all over the web. If you use Bit.ly links with tags, you’ll be able to tell which links got clicked the most, and be able to run a report on activity just from your ebook. Analytics can’t do that. It only lets you track clicks back to your site.

Want to work smarter and start generating real results from your content marketing? Find out how to use the new Scoop.it Content Director to help you become a smarter marketer!