As we come to the end of 2022, many of us are reflecting on our marketing strategies of the last 12 months. What has worked well? What could have been done differently? And what needs improvement?
A recent report from Content Marketing Institute states that “71% of B2B marketers say content marketing has become more important to their organization in the last year.” and so this reflects the greater importance of having these activities tracked and measured well to have the ability to evaluate the effectiveness, and to make decisions on where to optimize and allocate resources for 2023.
Defining your Content Marketing Metrics and putting measures in place to be able to track this data is of huge importance, however, it can sometimes be difficult to know which of the many metrics to place focus on. There are literally hundreds of metrics that can be tracked, however, here are our top 4 areas of metrics that will enable you to gain a good understanding of a content marketing campaign’s effectiveness.
Lead Source
This is one of the top priorities. You get a good lead, but how and where did the person engaging with your content find you? Google Analytics can give you detailed data of the source of traffic. You can measure referral websites, first known source, last known source, Google ADs ID and more. These metrics allow you get detailed information on the journey your prospects are taking to find you. Knowing this important piece of information will allow you to see which channels, sites or campaigns are driving the best converting traffic and leads, allowing you to make confident decisions on budget distribution.
Bounce Rate
Getting huge traffic numbers to your content is one thing, however, if they leave the content as soon as they get there, chances are it was not what they expected or wanted. Having a high bounce rate means you will need to discover why people are turning away. This metric allows you to act on areas that need improvement, fast.
There are a few metrics you can combine to track your bounce performance, bounce rate itself measures the percentage of visitors who enter your site and then leave within a certain time. You can also measure each visitor’s time on your site as whole, or specific page sessions, very short sessions are red flags here.
Engagement
As well as total views, you want to make sure that your content brings value to your prospects. You can measure this through their engagement levels. Those who find the content interesting or of high value are more likely to engage with the content and share it with their friends/colleagues or engage by commenting. This engagement also demonstrates to Social Media platforms and Google that this content is of value and will therefore reap the benefits of it being shown more, leading to higher impressions and therefore further increases visibility and engagement.
You can measure engagement a few ways: average time spent on page, pages per session, or repeat visitors all show you how much your viewers are actually consuming your content, visiting again and visiting other pages to see more of your content, these are good insights that show if your content is actually being read.
Looking at how your content is engaged with, click throughs, sharing on social media platforms or allowing comments on blogs or articles will help you understand the true engagement and enjoyment of your content; clicks, likes, comments, shares of your content helps you understand if the content resonates with your audience, and high engagement rates here means it is successful.
Conversions
When creating content, you will set certain goals, and the ultimate objective of the content is to have readers complete the desired goal, this is a conversion. Conversions can be clicks to a specific site, filling out a lead or enquiry form, calling you, requesting a quote, live chatting, or even purchasing. Depending on the content, you will have different conversion goals. Certain content types have the goal of generating more leads so it is important to outline what the goal of your content is ahead of time, and measure the conversion rate based on this goal.
If leads are the goal then a decent system to track the number of leads and conversion rates of content to leads is essential to understand the effectiveness of the content piece. Matching this up with the lead source will further allow you to see the effectiveness of the lead journey and make adjustments where needed.
Key Takeaways
Content marketing metrics can seem overwhelming, however, if you plan your content ahead of time, and plan what your goals are, you can choose 4-7 key metrics to measure that will deem whether your content is successful. As we discussed, the bounce rate will let you know if your content is what the audience was seeking/expected, engagement rates will give you understanding into the resonation of your content with your audience, the source will show you where your best leads are and where to optimize, and conversions will ultimately tell you if your content met it’s overall goal. If your ultimate goal is lower than expected, look into the previous metrics in the funnel to understand what went wrong, and why leads are lower. Use metrics to your advantage, and be constantly looking to improve and adapt using the data they can provide. Understanding what is deemed as a success will allow you to gain a greater understanding of what works and to be able to respond and perhaps adjust the content or the route the lead may take to get there.
About Experios
Experios is 3D Issue’s all new Content Experience platform that allows you to build both internal communications and external content easily, while implementing your company branding. You can create annual reports, newsletters and brochures for your employees as well as your customers. Experios contains a full tracking and analytics package that can link to your Google Analytics so you can always measure the success of your digital content. You can get started with Experios for free today, schedule a demo or start your free trial.
