The question: How to measure success?

Advertising agencies claim you get more bang for the buck with them, but numerous studies (and common sense) have shown that articles in major media have more credibility than advertisements. “Buy My Product!” will always be a less convincing approach than getting established reporters or customers to tout a firm’s services in a magazine.

The problem is, calculating the return on any PR campaign is far from an exact science. Is it the total number of stories in the media? Is it the number of new customers through the door? Is it some vague perception of your company’s brand? Is it a combination of many variables? And if so, how do you track and properly weight all of them?

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Robert, Very good piece. These products, though not the perfect solution will accomplish the goal of helping to determine a businessâ??s reach and is well within the budgets of most small business.

There are now a slew of tools that aim to get at those answers–and do a pretty good job at it. Some are free, others are not. The deeper the dive, the more you’ll spend.

On the free end of the spectrum, you have Google ( GOOG – news – people ) Alerts. It’s a crude yardstick, but if you just want a quick tally of all the mentions of your company in the media, it works just fine. Google News, also free, goes a step further: This function lets you map the rise and fall of coverage of your company.

Then come the paid services. All provide free online demos to give you a feel for the Web interface. (Be sure to test drive them before you write any checks.) Prices for media-monitoring services range from about $1,000 to $20,000 per year for small businesses based on the number of users and the level of the analysis. Social-media monitoring–as in, tracking the response to comments on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter–is most often a separate charge.

As with most things, you get what you pay for. Then again, measurement is a waste of time if you go broke running the calculations. For small-business owners serious about media measurement, I would budget about $5,000 per year unless you are already scoring a stream of quality media.

“If you receive numerous press mentions, paying for comprehensive monitoring services will end up saving you money over the year as compared to the staff hours you’d need to use [tracking] the same number of clips,” says Kiki Keating, public relations director at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, who has used many of these programs.

Very few of the media-tracking programs are plug-and-play, so be ready to work with whatever provider you choose to set it up and get comfor. Here are five products I like in the $5,000-a-year range:

BurellesLuce’s “iMonitor.” Tracks media mentions on the Web based on keywords. This self-guided monitoring service is very clean and easy to navigate. Cost: $3,600

Cision’s “Small Business Edition.” Assigns “publicity values” for different stories based on length, media type (print, online, video), estimated number of readers/viewers, tone and reach. Cost: starts at less than $5,000 a year.

Filtrbox’s “G2.” The “Click here for Live Chat” button makes trying the site a breeze. Cost: as little as $2,000 a year and includes both traditional and social-media monitoring.

Meltwater “News and Buzz.” Claims to track more than 100,000 media outlets around the globe. Downside: Somewhat hard to choose among the list of features. Cost: starts at $5,000 a year.

Radian6. Only tracks media hits online (no print). If buffing your image on social media sites is a top priority, this may be your program. Cost: starting at $7,200 a year.

For those with a slightly larger budget, check out Vocus’ ( VOCS – news – people ) “News On Demand” service, which tracks more than 50,000 U.S. media sources–print, online, Twitter, blogs and RSS feeds. Charts and dashboards measure positive, negative and neural coverage on you and on your competitors. Cost: $6,000 to $10,000 a year. Your time and media reputation are valuable. Let the measurement begin.