Introduction:
Content marketing is a powerful tool for building brand awareness and driving sales. But measuring content marketing ROI can be tricky. The challenge is that content marketing ROI depends on the quality of your audience’s attention, which is difficult to measure.
To measure the ROI of content marketing, brand managers need to understand how customers interact with their brand and what kind of impact that has on business objectives. Additionally, they must be able to track various data points throughout the customer journey to calculate conversions and other key indicators.
While this may seem daunting, some simple steps can be taken to establish an effective measurement system. With the right tools and metrics in place, it is possible to quantify the value of content marketing and make decisions that will maximize ROI.
The Main Challenge of Measuring Content Marketing ROI
To measure the effectiveness of content marketing, it first needs to be identified what content should be produced and why. Furthermore, measuring ROI for content marketing also requires understanding how people consume information and whether or not a specific piece of content has resulted in the desired action.
The challenge of measuring content marketing ROI is that tracking leads and conversions back to specific pieces of content takes a lot of work. There are many touch points along the customer journey, and it can be hard to attribute which part of the content was most impactful. Additionally, traditional methods like website analytics only show how much traffic a piece of content generates but don’t necessarily reflect whether or not that traffic converts into sales or leads.
Some solutions can help brand managers measure ROI for their content marketing efforts. One such solution is using UTM parameters to track links from specific pieces of content back to conversion pages on your website. Another solution is using lead tracking software that integrates with your CRM system to watch the journey of leads from the first interaction with your brand to conversion.
How to measure ROI for content marketing
There are various ways to measure the return on investment (ROI) for content marketing. Still, some standard methods include analytics such as website visitors or pageviews, brand lift data, whether leads are converted into customers, and more. A thorough examination of each metric can help you better understand how content contributes to your business goals. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, and the best way to measure ROI for content marketing will vary depending on your organization’s specific goals. However, some indicators you may consider:
- How much additional traffic and revenue has your content generated compared to other similar content produced by your organization
- How engaged and loyal your audience is to your brand after reading your content
- How well aligned your content strategy is with overall business objectives
Get Started: Why do you need to measure content marketing ROI?
Just as with any other marketing activity, measuring the return on investment (ROI) for content marketing can help you optimize your efforts and ensure that your content is achieving its desired goals. By understanding the different types of ROI you can achieve through content marketing, you can craft a plan that achieves the best results for your business.
It’s important to remember that each type of ROI requires different measurements to be accurately assessed. For example, if you view share of voice as an important metric, tracking keywords and frequency counts would be essential for determining success. When working with monetary metrics, things like click-through rates (CTR) or average dollars spent per visit give you a better idea about whether investing time in producing quality content is paying off.
Once you know which statistics matter most when measuring your content’s success, it’s possible to develop regular benchmarks based on those numbers so that you can track progress over time and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Next: Identify indicators you can look at to track your content ROI.
There are a few key indicators to track the return on content marketing investment:
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The number of unique visitors:
The more people that visit your website or blog, the more likely they are to become buyers. Tracking individual visitor counts allows you to measure progress and track any changes in audience engagement over time.
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Attribution statistics:
Knowing where readers came from (via search engines, social media referrals, etc.) can help you determine how effective your content was in attracting new readers. This information can be used to adjust future strategies and improve results.
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Sales figures:
Revenue generated by sales resulting from content marketing should be tracked over time using quantitative (e.g., number of orders) and qualitative data sources (e.g., reviews). This analysis will allow for fine-tuning marketing strategies and determining the effectiveness of past investments.
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Engagement rate:
How many people are engaging with your content? It could include likes, shares, comments, or +1s.
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Click-through rates (CTRs):
How many people have clicked through from your site to view the full article? Epsilon offers an excellent tool for measuring CTR, which can help you compare results across different channels.
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Page views:
How much traffic has come to your site thanks to content published in the past month? It is tracked using Google Analytics or another tracking tool. Try doing some analysis of Liftability’s recent blog posts to get an idea of how they measure success with this metric.
Once you have this data, it will be easier to see what’s working well and where improvements may be necessary. In the end, it’s essential to keep track of your progress so that you can continue improving upon what works and tweaking your strategy as needed to achieve success.
Next: Metrics To Use to Measure ROI of Content Marketing
When choosing a quantitative metric for return, consider any metric that has the potential to earn money. Here are three of the most valuable ways to calculate your return.
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Traffic
Traffic is the most common metric used to calculate return on investment. This metric can help identify if your organization is making money or not.
Measuring the success of a content marketing campaign can take time and effort. A bounce rate estimates how many visitors leave your site after viewing a page. Time on site (or dwell time) tells you how long visitors spend on a page. To calculate the share of conversation and social media sharing, you can use Google Analytics to measure traffic and blog mentions. Finally, to estimate the brand value, you can use other online conversion tracking tools to measure sales leads or website visits from leads generated by your content marketing efforts.
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Leads
For content marketing to be successful, quality leads must have a high potential to turn into customers. Even though this only happens after some time, quality leads are still valuable resources that can help promote your brand and generate business. You can increase your lead’s chances of converting into a paying customer by continuing to produce valuable and engaging content. However, remember to measure the success of your content marketing initiatives so that you can track progress and modify the course as necessary. A high conversion rate can also mean you’re getting more leads through your marketing efforts than you’re losing, which is excellent news!
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Revenue
If you’re looking to measure the impact of your content marketing strategy beyond just sales, tracking revenue is a great way to do it. By measuring how much money your content brings in each month, you can see which topics resonate with your audience and decide where to focus your efforts next. Additionally, this data can help you track whether or not your strategies are driving results.
A study by Content Marketing Institute and Kelsey Berreth found that when businesses create highly relevant and helpful content, it can indirectly boost revenue through increased website traffic and conversion rates. With better ROI evidence, companies can confidently continue investing in their content marketing strategy.
You can check out our recent blogs for detailed information.
Finally: Identify the best data for your specific business goals.
Once you have established your priorities and know which metric data to focus on, it is possible to create performance benchmarks. Benchmarks can be made in various ways, but the most common is measuring how long an application or system takes to complete specific tasks.
Several different tools can be used to create performance benchmarks. You can identify which content channels are converting at a higher rate than others, which ones lead to dead ends landing pages, what content types make up your industry presence, as well as any other insights your data gives you. All of these provide you with information that you can use to refine your strategy continually.
Conclusion
The main challenge of measuring content marketing ROI is accurately determining how to allocate credit for conversions and sales. Generally, it isn’t easy to attribute a conversion or sale solely to one piece of content. Instead, most prospects consume several amounts of content throughout their buyer’s journey before making a decision.
Additionally, as more companies adopt content marketing strategies, the pool of noise that prospects are wading through continues to grow. That said, there are certain best practices that brand managers can follow to measure the performance and ROI of their content marketing initiatives:
