This week’s Ask an SEO question comes from Zahara:
“What metrics should small businesses actually care about when measuring content strategy success? Everyone talks about different KPIs, but I need to know which ones truly matter for growth.”
The metrics to measure for growth with a content strategy change by company and industry, and the type of business you run.
Publishers, for example, make their money by selling ad impressions and repeat content to consumers.
Ecommerce stores rely heavily on direct conversions and subscribers, while service-based and SaaS companies need leads and to scale remarketing groups.
There’s no shortage of ways to twist data, but there are certain key performance indicators (KPIs) and conversion items I measure based on what the goal of the client is, their current and future marketing capabilities as they grow or shrink, and things that I like to use as a measure of success when talking to the C-suite vs. day-to-day workers.
Here are some of the metrics or KPIs I measure from content marketing campaigns, and when I apply them to different clients.
Email And SMS Opt-ins
These are the unsung heroes of the marketing world. They’re people with enough of an interest in your company that they want to get marketing messages from you.
They sign up from blog content, whitepapers, and all other channels. Yet, most companies segment them without considering where the opt-in originated from.
The metrics here are:
- Number of opt-ins.
- Dollars in sales.
- Average Order Value (AOV).
- Lifetime Value (LTV) of the customer by content type and by article (if you get granular).
By tracking how many email and SMS opt-ins you get from content, and then the conversions and LTV metrics, you can tie revenue directly to the type of content on your site and how valuable each customer is based on the type of content you produce.
A comparison guide between two compatible electronic accessories for a camera may bring a photographer in; they liked the content, so they subscribed.
Six months later, they need to replace their computer. There’s a new version of editing software, so they get your message saying there is a sale, and this conversion happened because of your comparison content.
The email team would not have had the opt-in if you hadn’t created your guide.
The same can be said for companies that sell cookware.
The recipes you produce for their cooking blog or the recipe books you use as a lead gen get the SMS and email opt-in, so that when you’re having a sale or deal, the SMS and email teams have active lists to drive revenue.
Without your content, the customers would not be on your list, and the email or SMS team would not be able to do their jobs.
YOY Traffic Increases With Conversions
The next metric we track from content marketing is the total traffic increase year-over-year.
Showing an increase in non-branded and branded traffic displays:
- More impressions are being made that build brand awareness if the topics are relevant to your business.
- An increase in website visits, which can result in opt-ins for email and SMS, PPC, and social media to build remarketing lists.
- Direct conversions if you’re tracking clicks on internal links, banner ads, and other calls to action.
- Increases in branded search.
One metric we use with some of our clients is when non-branded search rises and people come back to visit the site again for more content and to shop.
One of our current clients requires seven website visits before a conversion happens, and as we show up for high-volume “newbie” phrases, we notice an increase in branded search.
We then tracked the pathways for the users who came back for more research questions, and when they eventually converted.
The finance team was then able to calculate the value for the cold topics. On top of that, we learned where people are who have never heard of the company before, but were in a mid-funnel stage.
By creating copy at this touch point, we have been able to reduce the seven visits to four or five in some cases.
The biggest benefit here was the branded search building. As branded searches increased, the site started to appear for high-volume and topically relevant product and shopping queries.
Examples (not from this client) could be a funny t-shirt company that now shows up for “t-shirts” and “graphic t-shirts” vs. only specific ones like “vintage 90’s cartoon t-shirts,” which has a lower search volume and is less competitive.
Direct Conversions
One of the easiest content KPIs to measure is direct conversions.
These could be completed sales, completed form fills with or without identifiable and financial information (credit cards or social security numbers), and sign-ups for petitions, non-profits, and parties or events.
The reason this is the easiest content KPI is because you can track the conversion from a piece of content, and the system records it on the thank you or confirmation page.
Page Views Per Visit
Publishers need page views to make money, and analytics packages make it easy to monitor how many page views each topic and content type gets on average.
By using internal links, an educational series, and content that makes sense to read as a follow-up, you can measure how the content you’re creating increases the amount of pageviews per visit, so you can increase your company’s overall revenue.
This also helps you find opportunities to promote similar articles, adding better internal links, and creating more guides when you notice people leave to do another search, and then come back to finish the article when there weren’t enough examples on your current site.
Repeat Visitors
These are people who come back for more content, whether it is a direct type-in, a new non-branded phrase from a different keyword in search results because they enjoyed your previous content, or from a different marketing team sharing content that is interesting to the audience.
By seeing which visitors come back from what efforts, you can better segment who gets what type of content and the types of content that move the needle.
- Publishers can segment lists based on interests and email or send SMS messages as new content is created.
- Retailers can email deals and specials based on what customers engage with.
- Lead generation companies can fine-tune their sales funnels by showing relevant content within the customer’s need, want, and use cohorts.
- Branding teams can keep good associations with the company to current customers as a way to keep them subscribing, paying, and sharing the good their companies are doing.
Final Thoughts
There is no shortage of KPIs you can track from content marketing. It’s a matter of matching them to the people you report to.
HR may want more job applicants, while the sales team wants leads. Marketing and advertising want direct conversions and subscriber list growth, while the C-suite wants to know market share and reach.
As a content marketer, you can fine-tune your tracking and reporting to meet each stakeholder’s needs and become the star of the company by keeping everyone informed on how your efforts are growing their parts of the company, and that is how we decide which KPIs to monitor and report on, based on the client.
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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
