Most business marketers understand that content is a fundamental part of any marketing strategy. But creating it isn’t enough. You also need to know how it’s performing.
Metrics and key point indicators (KPIs) help you track the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts and measure the return on investment (ROI) for your business:
- A marketing metric is a quantifiable measure that allows you to track and gauge how your content is performing. These data points provide raw data that can then be used to develop KPIs.
- A KPI is a specific metric that’s tied to a strategic business objective or goal. (It can sometimes have a time period attached to it.)
A way of thinking about it: All KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs.
Metrics and KPIs help you see whether your content is performing well, show you ways you can help it perform better, and help tie your marketing efforts in with other key business goals. And while there are literally hundreds we could mention here, in the interest of brevity, we’ll just cover some of the most common.
Key Content Marketing Metric Categories
Website Traffic
Since your website is likely the cornerstone of your business, you’ll want to know how many visitors you have and where they’re coming from, be it paid advertisements, an email campaign, your social media pages or an organic search. Higher traffic usually indicates a better content marketing strategy. Typical metrics include page views, sessions and unique visitors.
Engagement
How long a visitor stays on your page, the number of pages they visit during a single session, and the percentage of people who leave after viewing just one page (bounce rate) says a lot about whether you’re holding your audience’s interest. In social media, likes, shares and clicks are fantastic engagement metrics.
Conversion
Your conversion rate, click-through rate, and the number of leads your content generates helps you get a feel for whether your content is contributing to business goals like sales and acquisitions.
SEO
While you can’t rely on search engine optimization (SEO) alone as a content marketing strategy, it certainly factors into the equation on a pretty significant level. SEO metrics include keyword rankings, the number (and quality) of backlinks you earn, and how many people are finding you through organic search traffic.
Customer Financials
Metrics tied to this category attach dollar figures to customers. For instance, you might measure customer acquisition cost (CAC), which is how much you’re spending to attract new customers. Companies also frequently measure customer lifetime value (LTV), which predicts the amount of revenue a single customer will bring in over the entire business relationship.
Examples of Content Marketing KPIs
Here are a few examples of how to take the above metrics and turn them into KPIs that are measurable and tied to strategic goals:
- Let’s say your goal is to increase the number of high-quality leads, your KPIs might be page views from search, session length, and pages per session.
- Maybe your goal is to improve social media engagement within the next three months. Your KPIs might be quarterly social likes, comments and shares.
- Or your goal could be to double website traffic from your e-letter. Your KPIs might be open rate, click-through rate, and page views from your e-letter.
Determining Your Content Marketing ROI
Your return on investment (ROI) is arguably your most important metric and KPI, as it shows definitively whether you’re winning or losing the content marketing game.
To determine your ROI, use this formula:
(Return – Investment) / Investment x 100.
Knowing your ROI allows you to understand how your content marketing strategy is performing, make necessary improvements and better allocate your resources in the future.
Is Your Current Content Marketing Strategy Working for You?
Metrics and KPIs will vary from business to business and goal to goal. Once you understand the objectives you want to target, the big picture becomes much easier to see.
Do you need help taking your content marketing strategy to the next level? That’s one of Mischa Communication’s specialties! Here’s how to reach us.