Marketers are making enormous effort and investments to garner information about customers. However, substantial bits of the same can be collected for free or from existing investments. Google, Facebook, Quantcast and The Trade Desk are examples of such. Google provides us with Analytics, and AdWords. We use these tools to get business analytics on user demographics, interests, engagement levels, content consumption, devices being used and the conversion ratio. Facebook usage by customers gives us indication on social life and attributes. Quantcast is a tool that adds on to the work done by Google by providing predictive analytics on expected outcomes. It takes care of demographics, cross-platform behaviour, shopping interests and political affiliation. The Trade Desk and User-Report are similarly two other free information sources which must be garnered.

Source: http://marketingland.com/understand-customer-free-162483