Are you tracking the right digital marketing metrics in alignment with your brand goals? Are your online results linked to your bottom-line performance – i.e. the actual sales made and revenue generated as a result?
If you’re not connecting the right dots, then all the Instagram Likes in the world won’t matter – you need to ensure that you’re aiming for the right targets if you want to maximize business benefit. And while it can be easy to get sucked into the trap of vanity metrics, by refocusing on the right KPIs you can still get your process back on track.
So what are the right KPIs, and how do you track and measure such? Why is it important to measure content marketing KPIs? Measuring the right KPIs can help you analyze which tactics are working and which aren’t. You can make relevant changes and adjust your tactics to improve your campaign ROI.
How to choose relevant content marketing KPIs for your campaign. You need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve from your campaign. Once you set specific content marketing goals, you can match those goals with the right metrics and KPIs.
Let’s take a look at some important content marketing goals and appropriate KPIs for each one of them.
GOAL: INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS.
You should focus on creating content that can help you reach and engage a lot of people. You can measure the below content marketing KPIs to measure how effective is your content creating brand awareness:
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #1: ARTICLE VIEWS
You can simply use tools such as Google Analytics to check the number of views your article receives. You can also gain insights about traffic sources, average session duration, and bounce rate for each article.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #2: SOCIAL SHARES AND ENGAGEMENT
You should track and measure social shares and engagement to see how well your content is performing. The more social shares you get, the larger your audience base will be. Tools like BuzzSumo rank the top-performing content on any topic based on their social shares and engagement.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #3: NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS AND SUBSCRIBERS
The number of followers and subscribers you have is another important KPI to track brand awareness. And the best thing is that these numbers are easily quantifiable.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #4: AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
Genuine audience engagement such as comments and interactions on your content can help you understand how consumers feel about your brand. Tracking audience engagement can help you analyze which type of content does your target audience engage the most with.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #5: INBOUND LINKS
Are people linking to your content? Is your content being quoted on different websites? If so, this means that your content is making its mark. Getting more brand mentions and links means that the industry sees you as a credible and authoritative source.
GOAL: GENERATE LEADS
You need to track whether or not your content generates high-quality leads for your business. The below KPIs can help you measure the effectiveness of your content when it comes to lead generation:
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #6: CLICK-THROUGH RATE
If you want to encourage users to click-through to your content, you should include a clear call-to-action (CTA) at the end of every post. Whether you want the reader to visit a specific web page, contact you, download your gated resource, or take any other action, a clear and compelling CTA can help you drive leads.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #7: COST PER LEAD
You can calculate cost per lead by dividing the cost of your campaign by the total number of leads it helped you generate. Tracking your cost per lead for multiple types of content and multiple channels can help you analyze what performs better.
GOAL: DRIVE MORE SALES
You want to convert your leads into customers and generate revenue for your business, right? If you want to track how many sales your campaign drives, you should track and measure the KPIs mentioned below:
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #8: CONVERSION RATES
Tracking conversion rates can help you see which content pieces drive the maximum conversions and sales. You can track conversions using custom UTM links for each piece of content you publish and share.
CONTENT MARKETING KPI #9: LENGTH OF SALES CYCLE
You should measure the length of your sales cycle to understand how long it takes for you to convert your leads. This will help you identify channels that help you generate leads that close faster and have a shorter sales cycle.
DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF TO COMMON CONTENT MARKETING KPIs
The content marketing KPIs mentioned above are some of the most common KPIs. This does not mean that you need to limit yourself to measuring these KPIs only. You can dive deeper and identify more relevant KPIs to measure the success of your campaign.
REMEMBER THAT ESTABLISHING KPIS IS NOT A ONE-TIME EVENT
Establishing content metrics is not a one-time event. Instead, it is an ongoing process since the KPIs you need to track can change depending on your business goals.