You are not alone if you feel overwhelmed by the long list of content marketing KPIs you could be tracking. It can be difficult to decide which KPIs to pursue or ignore.
There are thousands of content marketing metrics, spanning dozens of categories. This can be overwhelming, and all the experts and metric-tracking tools have different recommendations of which work best. Google Analytics, HubSpot, and Semrush are a few examples.
The best way to track whether or not your content campaigns are achieving your brand’s KPIs is to choose simple, relevant content marketing metrics. Also, it’s easier to spot what content is resonating or failing with your users when you start measuring performance early.
This article discusses 16 of Portent’s favorite content KPIs and explains how they can be used to measure various aspects of your content marketing.
Content metrics: Conversion KPI’s
Leads
If you have a new gated resource, you should measure how many new leads it brings in, and compare that number to the leads generated by other gated resources.
This analysis will answer some critical strategy questions:
- What are your customers looking for?
- Are your customers willing to give up their contact information to get your content?
- What kind of content generates the most qualified leads?
Transactions and revenue
The findings of your research will differ depending on how much money a customer spends.
If you’re only interested in how many people eventually converted after interacting with your content, and not how much money they spent, use “transactions” as your main metric instead of “revenue.”
Goal completions
If you don’t have enough transactions or revenue to track how those figures interact with your content, you can set goals inside Google Analytics without a dollar value.
Metrics can show you which URLs helped accomplish goals you’ve set, whether those goals are related to revenue or not. For example, you might be interested in how many people filled out a form, made a phone call, or joined an email list.
Content metrics: Reputation KPI’s
Influencer mentions
Mentions of your brand or content campaign can be tracked using a tool like Sparktoro or by setting up a Google Alert. It can also be helpful to see if the mentions are positive or negative.
Keyword ranking
You should track your success if you build a content campaign around a targeted keyword.
There are many tools available that can track your keyword rankings, such as Ahrefs and SEMrush. Portent uses STAT, a SERP-tracking tool from Vancouver, Canada, for most of our SEO and content development campaigns.
When you appear prominently in search engine results pages, you’re improving your reputation with Google, its web crawlers, and potential visitors who are looking at search results.
Even if people don’t click on your page when they see it in their search results, it still improves brand awareness.
Share of voice
A higher SoV means a greater chance of potential customers discovering a business when they search for relevant keywords. STAT’s Share of Voice (SoV) metric is another useful KPI for measuring a keyword set’s visibility on Google. A higher SoV means there’s a greater chance potential customers will discover a business when they search for relevant keywords.
STAT says the concept follows two principles:
- Not all rankings are equal, and higher ranks give you more Share of Voice.
- Not all keywords are equal, and earning a keyword with higher search volume gives you more Share of Voice.
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is a way of using AI to track how people feel about a topic, usually by looking at social media. But brands can also use this technology to see how people are reacting to their content campaigns.
Sentiment analysis allows you to measure the reputation of your brand from social media mentions. This can be useful for tracking relevant Twitter chatter for a new business, for example an educational center.
Content metrics: Engagement KPI’s
Comments
If your blog post connects with readers, they will often express their thoughts and feelings in the comments section.
This KPI will help you see what topics users are interested in and help start conversations.
In order to have a successful comments section, it is important to meaningfully engage with users.
This interaction helps to make customers more loyal to the brand and also makes comments more valuable as a measure of success.
Scroll depth
Scroll depth is a good indicator of how much people are reading your content.
Most heat mapping programs will provide you with scroll depth tracking.
Once you have set up tracking for your website through Google Tag Manager and a heat mapping platform, take a look at the scroll depth maps to see where readers are dropping off and how fast. A rapid drop might mean that your content needs to be changed.
Time on page
How long people spend reading your content (measured in seconds) is a key performance indicator similar to scroll depth (measured in pixels).
If you’re aiming to improve your blog’s content strategy, one goal could be to keep visitors engaged for longer periods of time.
The more time someone spends on your page, the more engaged they are with your content. This means you have their attention.
Pages per session
You can use bounce rate as a KPI instead of this one if you prefer – they both indicate whether readers are leaving your site after viewing your content.
Bounce rate only tells you how many visitors leave the site after only viewing one page. The average pages per session tells you how many pages they visit.
A site’s average pages per session is dependent on the type of site it is. Generally, sites that are used to generating leads will have fewer pages per session than sites where users can buy products, as users often spend time browsing product pages on these latter types of sites.
Content metrics: Conversion and reputation KPI’s
Return customers
People who have bought from you before and liked what they got are the most likely to buy from you again. They are the perfect blend of someone who is interested in what you’re selling and someone who is likely to convert into a paying customer.
You can use Google Analytics to set tracking codes from the “thank you” page or log-in screen in order to measure the impact of content on returning customers.
From here, you can see what kinds of content this group interacts with. Here are a few questions to consider when evaluating return customers:
- Do your returning customers visit your blog?
- Do they read your long form content?
Content metrics: Reputation and engagement KPI’s
Likes and shares
The success of your content can be measured by looking at how it performs on social media.
The more likes and shares a piece of content has, the better it is performing in terms of engagement, which affects your reputation.
To accurately measure the impact of your content on social media, promote different pieces of content to similar audiences at the same time of day with the same amount of money.
Backlinks
Content that has a lot of backlinks is usually respected and enjoyed by others, making it a good indicator of the quality of the content.
Receiving backlinks from authoritative sites is a good way to get your readers engaged and to grow your reputation with both readers and Google’s ranking algorithm.
Content metrics: Engagement and conversion KPI’s
Open and click-through rates
Some key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the success of email marketing campaigns conversions and engagement rates include the number of emails sent, the number of emails opened, the number of clicks on links in the email, and the number of unsubscribers.
Your site’s content should be present on all owned channels, including email.
If you don’t set KPIs for your email marketing campaigns, you’re wasting one of your few chances to talk directly to a customer.
Content metrics: Conversion, reputation and engagement KPI’s
Page views
You need visitors to engage, convert, or build an online reputation. The more people view your site, the more people engage with your brand, and the more your reputation spreads. The wider your reach, the more likely you’ll generate conversions.
Viewing pages is the simplest way to determine how successful content is. It is also the most frequent method. Some might say it is the most effortless method as well.
Content marketing KPIs to track for better results
1. Number of content marketing pieces published per week
A key metric to focus on, especially when first beginning, is publishing a minimum of three pieces of high-quality content (articles, videos, etc.) every week.
Search engines want to find the best information to answer searchers’ questions and help them meet their goals.
If you publish content that is valuable and transparent on a regular basis, search engines will think your website provides a lot of useful information. This will make your website rank higher and faster in search engine results pages.
If you want your website to rank well and be seen as an authority, you need to publish at a consistent rate.
Use “we found” instead of “our data shows.” We found that when companies produce three or more pieces of great content per week, for at least one year, traffic and leads generally explode.
Some companies try to get bigger results by publishing more content. But in general, you only need to publish three higher-quality articles, videos, or other pieces of content to get search engines to recognize your website and include it in search results.
2. Organic website traffic
We believe that tracking organic traffic is an important metric, despite what other sources might say.
One of the best ways to measure how well your company is educating people is how much traffic your website gets. If your website is getting more traffic, that means more people are finding you.
An increase in website traffic is also a good indication that more leads and sales are on the way. More people on your site means more opportunities to convert leads.
Now, not all website traffic is great. Only website traffic that is the right type is great.
If you want to get qualified traffic, meaning buyers looking for products and services like yours, on your website, there is a surefire way to do it.
In other words, these four topics – emotion, friendliness, storytelling, and focus – are key to success, but most businesses are not taking advantage of them. This method works in a variety of industries, so it is not limited to one type of business.
We call them The Big 5, and they are:
- Pricing and costs: How much your solution costs (factors, considerations, what defines value, etc.).
- Problems: The negatives about, or issues with, your solution that buyers ask about.
- Versus and comparisons: How your product or solution compares to similar products or solutions.
- Reviews: Honest and unbiased opinions and observations about your product, solution, etc.
- Best in class: What the best solution available is.
3. Session-to-contact rate
The contact conversion rate is a measure of how successful your sales process is. By tracking this metric, you can see how effective your sales process is in terms of converting leads into customers.
To find your contact conversion rate, divide the number of new contacts by the total number of website sessions.
A strong conversion rate for contact means that your website visitors are clicking on your calls to action and filling out forms to exchange their personal information for content they find valuable.
Some of the high-performing content we see our clients use that drives the most conversions include:
- Buyer guides
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Self-service or self-assessment tools
An increase in conversions means that your content is so valuable that your prospects are happy to share personal information, like their name, email address, and company name, to get it.
4. Sales opportunities generated from inbound (SQLs)
The most important thing to your company when you invest in a content marketing program is that the content you create drives more organic traffic to your site and increases sales opportunities.
If you want to attract potential customers who will be interested in your company, you should use the principles of the The Big 5. This will help you identify people who have problems that your company can solve, making it more likely that they will make a purchase.
Your prospects will contact you when they are already knowledgeable about your products and services. This is because the content you create answers their questions and helps them solve their problems.
Your website can be your best salesperson if you set it up correctly.
5. Average length of the sales cycle
One of the main things taught at IMPACT is how important it is to have sales and marketing aligned. This is especially important when it comes to shortening the sales cycle.
If your sales team and content manager are working together to create content that will help them close deals more efficiently, it can have a huge impact on your revenue.
They have what are called revenue teams, which are comprised of key members of both the sales and marketing departments that meet on a weekly basis to discuss ways in which they can increase company revenue.
The revenue team is in charge of developing and executing a content strategy that can close deals faster by using assignment selling.
6. Ranking for important keywords
When your website starts ranking for the top keywords in your industry, it means that your investment in providing valuable content is paying off.
Your content manager is ensuring that you regularly publish high-quality content, which is finally being found by your prospects. Search engines are also taking notice.
The better your content ranks, the more successful your SEO is, meaning more visibility on search engine results pages. This in turn makes your content creation more successful and faster.