Every week I talk to at least one salesperson who has the "latest and greatest" marketing software. And I don't want to sound annoyed; I really enjoy taking these calls. There are so many cool things being done in the marketing technology space right now (have you seen how machine learning is being used for targeted display advertising?!) and taking lots of calls is one of the best ways to stay on top of emerging tech. But these calls always follow a similar pattern: I'm extremely interested. I learn the price. I'm not interested anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the costs that go into developing a complex piece of technology and I do believe that these solutions make sense for some organizations.

However, the most powerful software in a digital marketer's toolkit is 100% free. 

The Power of Google Analytics

A basic implementation of Google Analytics will provide 99% of the data that most businesses need for digital marketing. And did I mention it's completely free?

Gain Deep Insights on Your Website

Evaluate the performance of your content, your products, and even the site itself.

Get to Know Your Visitors

Build out complete profiles of your web visitors to see who they are, what country they're from, what language they speak, and even what device they used to view your site.

Tap into the Google Ecosystem

Add a gigantic supercomputer to your marketing team. Google's proprietary audience data and machine learning infrastructure is at your fingertips immediately, and GA is built to work seamlessly with Adwords SEM on the largest search engine in the world.

Turn Data Into Results

Combine multiple data points in custom dashboards and export reports to help steer your business decisions.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Leverage data to steer your business strategy almost immediately. Don't spend weeks learning complicated software; the GA interface is intuitive and easy to use.

Agree? Disagree?

More advanced digital marketing departments will obviously have different needs and I'm certainly not suggesting that Google Analytics is the last marketing software you'll ever need, but it is incredibly powerful. And the price is right.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. And bring the heat if you disagree, because you already know how I feel.