How To Measure Content Marketing Success (24 Metrics, Tools & Tips)

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In B2B marketing, a solid content strategy is a must. But how do you know if it's working? Measuring content marketing success can be tricky, especially in a B2B content marketing funnel where the buyer's journey is long and complex. You don't want to waste time and resources on content that doesn't engage your audience or drive conversions. In this article, we'll show you how to measure content marketing success in a B2B content marketing funnel so you can make data-driven decisions that support your business goals.

Feather's notion to blog can help you measure the success of your content marketing efforts by providing insights into how your content is performing.

What is Content Marketing?

How To Measure Content Marketing Success

Content marketing is a strategy that uses valuable and relevant digital assets like text, images, and video to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It’s an inbound marketing strategy that delivers value to a business’s audience through entertaining, educational, or informative content.

Content marketing comes in four primary forms:

Written

Audio

Video

Image

Most businesses use several forms of content to engage with their audiences across platforms:

Social media

Websites

This form of marketing puts the customer at the heart of a brand’s messaging. Rather than spamming customers with advertising-laden messaging, content marketing provides valuable content and engages them throughout the customer journey. It goes beyond pushing a product to a potential customer; instead, it puts the relevant information out there and follows the customer from the awareness phase to the decision phase.

Why is Content Marketing Important?

The world is transitioning to a place where customers are tired of being fed advertisements. Consumers are inundated with information to the point where it all becomes noise. Content marketing helps businesses overcome the noise by subtly promoting their offerings through helpful, high-quality content.

Content marketing puts the customer at the heart of a brand’s messaging. Rather than spamming customers with advertising-laden messaging, it provides valuable content and engages them throughout the customer journey. Content marketing isn’t new, and it’s not slowing down.

The Rise of Content Marketing

The pandemic increased content usage by 207%, and that trend will likely continue to grow in 2023. Indeed, 55% of marketers plan to post content more frequently, and 53% plan to boost the quality of their content in 2023. It all comes down to choosing the right mix of content marketing media to turn more heads.

How To Measure Content Marketing Success Using KPIs & Metrics

Set Clear Content Marketing Goals

First, decide what success looks like for each piece of content. Are you aiming for brand awareness, more leads, or sales? Choose specific, measurable goals that connect to business impact. This makes it easier to track progress and adjust strategies.

Choose the Right Content Marketing KPIs

Once you know your goals, pick key performance indicators that align with them. For brand awareness, track things like impressions and shares. For lead generation, focus on conversions and email sign-ups. For e-commerce, you’ll want to see revenue from content. These metrics will guide you toward your goals.

Use the Right Tools for Your Content Metrics

Audit your client's existing analytics tools, such as:

Google Analytics

Search Console

Social media analytics

Identify any gaps and consider additional tracking if needed. This will ensure you can effectively monitor KPIs across different channels.

Analyze and Optimize Regularly

Regularly check your performance data to see what’s working and what’s not. If something’s underperforming, dig into why and make changes. Use high-performing content as a model and refine your strategies based on insights.

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11 Effective Metrics For Measuring Content Marketing Success

Not everyone using content marketing knows it’s properly executed. And many execution errors can be avoided by measuring the right content marketing metrics.

According to Content Marketing Institute, the five most common metrics to assess content performance are:

Conversions (73%)

Email engagement (71%)

Website traffic (71%)

Website engagement (69%)

Social media analytics (65%)

Brand Awareness Metrics

For brand awareness, you want your clients’ content to be discovered organically by their audience. You want potential customers to find your business without spending on costly ad campaigns.

The choice of metrics depends on your specific goals. Let's see five key categories of metrics you should be tracking based on your goals:

1. Organic Search Traffic

Organic website traffic represents visitors who find your business naturally, without paid ads. Measuring it with tools like Google Analytics is essential because it reveals how well your content attracts potential customers. You get an accurate picture by tracking organic traffic and SEO performance because nothing represents brand awareness better than the target audience discovering your clients independently.

2. Page Views

Page views indicate how many people explore your specific pages. More views mean higher engagement. Tracking page views lets you know what people read about your business. Its guides can help direct potential customers to specific pages of your website, like product offerings or lead generation forms, enhancing brand awareness.

3. Number of Brand Query Searches

Brand query searches occur when people search for your agency's name directly. Tracking

these searches demonstrates the effectiveness of the content you write for clients in spreading brand recognition.

This metric is vital for agencies as it indicates how well their content educates the audience about the brand.

Engagement Metrics

Engagement metrics are the pulse of your content's impact. They help capture how effectively your content answers your clients’ audience questions and captivates them.

4. Click-Through Rates (CTR)

CTR measures how many users click on your links, whether on your website, social media, or email campaigns. It tells agencies which content resonates with clients’ audiences and which call-to-actions are most effective. By optimizing CTR, agencies ensure their content drives action.

Regarding content marketing metrics and social media engagements, comments, shares, and brand mentions on social media are gold nuggets. They indicate your content's ability to spark conversations. Agencies can learn what topics and formats connect most with clients’ audiences, which helps fine-tune social media results.

What type of content performs best on the different social media channels? Is there a difference between organic social media and paid ad performance?

6. Bounce Rate

A bounce rate means visitors are quickly leaving your page after arrival. Agencies must reduce this rate by enhancing user experience, optimizing content navigation, and ensuring readability. A lower bounce rate indicates content that holds visitors' interest. High bounce rates may indicate that your website must provide the information or user experience visitors are looking for.

7. Average Time on Site

This metric measures the time users spend on a specific page. Agencies should aim for a longer average time on site, as it reflects content quality and audience engagement. It signifies that your content is:

Valuable

Informative

Entertaining enough to engage visitors

Tracking engagement metrics empowers agencies to create content that answers questions and creates a meaningful connection with the audience.

SEO Metrics

Two significant metrics agencies should measure to monitor client SEO content performance are page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA).

8. Page Authority

PA is the digital report card for individual web pages. It determines how well a specific page will rank in search engine results. The higher the PA, the greater the chances of securing a top spot in search results.

Agencies should closely monitor PA to identify the clients’ most robust pages and optimize others for improved rankings. Elevating PA ensures that each piece of content cuts through the noise.

9. Domain Authority

DA takes a broader view, assessing your website's relevance and credibility within a specific subject or industry. A high DA implies that your website is a reliable source of information.

Agencies should aim to enhance DA as it contributes to better search engine rankings for all pages on their site. A high DA establishes your agency as authoritative, boosting trust among users and search engines.

Lead Generation Metrics

For agencies looking to push clients’ website visitors through the buyer's journey, lead generation metrics are the compass that keeps them on track. These can be metrics like:

10. Click-Through Rates (CTR)

CTR measures the effectiveness of your content in encouraging users to take action. It reflects how well your CTAs resonate with the client’s audience. Whether enticing them to download valuable content or luring them towards freemium offerings, CTR provides insights into what captures your audience's attention.

11. Conversions

Conversions are the heart of lead generation. While they often involve turning leads into buyers, they encompass various micro-conversions. These can range from users subscribing to newsletters, completing forms, or downloading resources.

By tracking conversions, agencies can comprehensively assess their content's ability to nurture leads. This allows them to fine-tune their strategies and maximize the impact of their content marketing efforts.

Note: The metrics we have mentioned give you a good picture of your content efforts. But if you want to fine-tune strategies, you should track as many metrics as possible as they are relevant to the goals.

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6 Best Tips For Measuring Content Marketing Success

1. Your Business Needs to Benefit from Content Marketing

Focus on demonstrating the business case for content marketing. Align your efforts with business goals rather than justifying budgets. You aim to show how content supports overall objectives, like driving high-quality organic traffic or ranking well in search results. Keep an eye on metrics that the business cares about.

2. Look Ahead: Content’s Long Game

Content often delivers results well beyond a campaign's end. For instance, a well-crafted, evergreen blog post can attract visitors long after publication. Identify content pieces that continue generating revenue and use these insights to shape future strategies.

3. Analytics Tools: You Need Them

Analytics tools simplify measuring content performance. Google Analytics, for instance, offers various tracking options and automation features that can help attribute revenue to specific content pieces. Work cross-functionally with teams like sales and paid media to share data and insights that can improve your bottom line.

4. Assess the Cost of Content

When calculating content cost, consider more than just dollars spent. Consider costs related to:

Tools and software

Employee time

Freelance rates

Meetings

Promotion

This can help you determine the ideal number of monthly or quarterly leads or sales.

5. Monitor Your Progress Regularly

Tracking progress regularly helps you understand campaign successes and adjust strategies when needed. Create an ROI spreadsheet to record focused metrics monthly or weekly. Use a simple line chart to visualize campaign progression and identify areas for improvement.

6. Some Content ROI is Hard to Measure

Some content marketing activities, like brand awareness and trust, are difficult to assign a monetary value to, but they have high potential ROI. To measure content impact and ROI effectively, find metrics that best correlate to these activities, like website visits or social media impressions.

7 Best Tools For Measuring Content Marketing Success

1. Google Analytics: Get the Most from Your Content

Google Analytics is a must-have tool for understanding how users interact with your content. This free service provides detailed insights, helping you measure content marketing success. It’s perfect for businesses looking to integrate with other Google tools. Features include machine learning insights and user-friendly reports. Connect it with Google Ads and other platforms to improve ROI.

2. SimilarWeb: Stay Ahead of the Competition

SimilarWeb gives you a competitive edge with its Digital Research Intelligence. It helps you measure your content marketing success by providing detailed analytics on your target audience. Analyzing competitor data can help you understand market trends and refine your strategies. Pricing starts at $149/month, making it an excellent choice for benchmarking.

3. Moz: Optimize Your SEO Efforts

Moz is a fantastic tool for tracking and analyzing your SEO strategy. It helps you:

Find technical SEO issues

Analyze backlinks

Generate custom reports

With Moz, you can easily measure the success of your content marketing efforts and adjust your strategies accordingly. Pricing is custom, so it’s best for businesses that need generous crawl limits.

4. Databox: All Your Data in One Place

Databox is an excellent choice for marketers who want to bring all their data under one roof. Create custom dashboards to monitor your business analytics with ease. Pull performance data from various platforms like Facebook and Shopify. Use premade templates to save time and track goals on multiple devices. Pricing starts at $0/month, making it accessible to everyone.

5. Whatagraph: Simplify Your GA4 Reporting

Whatagraph is a powerful tool that simplifies building custom reports for Google Analytics 4. It automates and customizes GA4 reports in minutes and integrates with multiple data sources for comprehensive insights. Easily share live report links with stakeholders. Contact for pricing details is ideal for agencies and marketers seeking advanced GA4 reporting capabilities.

6. Supermetrics: Seamless Integration with Google Suite

Supermetrics is a marketing automation analytics system integrating 90+ marketing and sales platforms. It automatically pulls data to your dashboard and enjoys clean data, as seen in native reporting. With 50+ customizable dashboard templates, you can easily measure your content marketing success. Pricing is custom, making it perfect for those who want all their data in the Google suite.

7. SE Ranking: Budget-Friendly SEO Management

SE Ranking is a budget-friendly SEO software that offers competitor analysis tools for paid and organic searches. Keep track of your SEO efforts via a mobile app and receive live chat, email marketing, and phone support. With a pricing structure starting at $55/month, it’s best for businesses looking to manage their SEO efforts on a budget.

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