A few months ago, I discovered a tool that was at that time in beta. At the time, it was called Tynt Tracer. Now it has been released as Tynt Insight.  Anyhow, Tynt has created a nifty tool that tracks two things:

1. When a visitor copies text.
2. When a visitor copies an image.

It also does something that will make marketing folks happy.  When a visitor then pastes that text or image (into an email, a document, anywhere!), a link back to the originating page is placed below it (also called an “attribution link”).  How’s that for effortless marketing?

And that’s just the free version.  The pro version offers a few more nifty things:

• Customizable Attribution – Have full control over what the attribution link looks like.
• Detailed Reporting – Find out where your content is being copied to.  Gold means it was posted on a webpage and has generated traffic already.  Silver means it was copied, but the location is unknown until traffic is generated from that link.  Bronze means it was not copied to a webpage and has generated traffic.  Gold is the best, because you are certain that it is providing SEO value.
• Link Sponsorship – More control over attribution links.  Ability to add advertisement to pasted content.
• Auto Tweet – Have your most popular copied content tweeted from a Twitter account of your choice.
• Visualizers – Flash visualizers can be added anywhere on your site to showcase what is being copied (if you care to share).
• Address Bar Tracking – If a visitor copies and pastes the URL from the browser address bar, you can track return visits via that copied URL.  I’m also curious how they do this!
• Heatmap – This is a variation on click heatmaps.  However, in this case, the heatmap lights up (with gradients) what has been copied and gives a sense of the most popular areas on a page being copied.

Even better news – the Pro version is free for a limited time, so go sign up!