10 Content Marketing Metrics That Matter

Metrics are code for measurement. Measurement to provide information about your audience. If marketing is about gaining attention, then metrics are about evaluating that attention. In the world of content writing, the objective is to use writing in order to increase brand awareness and ideally gain customers. To determine if your brand has successfully implemented a strategy to entice people, you will need to analyze those tactics. It’s the feedback you want to fine tune your marketing campaign and figure out where your customers are coming from. 

To measure effectiveness of your content, you’ll want to collect feedback such as: 

• Where are our customers coming from?
• What should we change? 
• What are we doing that’s working, and should continue to invest in? 

Content marketing entails creating content material to attract customers and add value. The idea is to inform, educate, persuade or inspire readers to take notice of that brand and ideally encourage them to take some sort of desired action. When done properly, content marketing has the potential to boost outcomes for your company or project.

But how do you really know it’s been done well? That’s where metrics come in. If you use them correctly, they’ll be your finest growth ally. Google analytics is an excellent tool for assessing web metrics. But there are plenty of others that are equally as informative. 

Different platforms will tell you different stories. Selecting the right method depends on what information you require. For example, if you want to know the number of people visiting your website, a monthly average might be useful in some cases. However, knowing the most popular day for visitors is perhaps the most important piece of information if you want to target an ad campaign to one day a week.

Here are the top 10 content marketing metrics you should get your head around: 

1. Website traffic

Your website is your key to your online business. It’s where customers can find out almost everything they need to know in order to make a purchase. You want people to be directed to your website in order to view your content. Content needs to be seen in order to be effective. Google analytics will tell you all the numbers you need to know about how much traffic is reaching your page and where it comes from. From there, you can adjust tactics accordingly. For example, you might want to determine whether traffic is organic and comes through search engines, or whether it results from advertising.

2. Click-through-rate

The click-through-rate (CLR) is described as the percentage of people that click on an advertisement after seeing it. This could be an ad that popped up on a webpage, or one that was sent via email. It tells you what ads are working and how effective they were. This metric can easily be found via the Google Search Console. If users deem your content marketing to be relevant and useful, this results in a high CLR. Conversely, a low CTR means your ad probably didn’t have the impact you intended and needs some modification. 

3. Engagement

It takes a pretty convinced customer to leave a comment. So if you keep tabs on what comments you’re getting, you can quickly understand what you’re doing right, or equally what you’re doing wrong. This applies across all social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok and others.  Comments are instant feedback for what sort of content a viewer loves. Make sure to check that comments are genuine and not from false or spam profiles. 

4. The amount of time spent viewing a page

It’s not always a bad thing if a user doesn’t spend a whole heap of time on your page. Perhaps they got what they needed quickly and easily. But generally, you want people to engage for longer. Perhaps they read an article, which links to another piece of content, which then suggests a product or service that’s for sale. The longer they spend going through this content, the more valuable it likely is for them. This means your content has a high power to influence. If customers don’t spend a whole lot of time on your page, it might be time to investigate whether it’s due to the lack of quality content, technical difficulties or perhaps difficulty to use. 

5. Backlinks

Backlinks are when other pieces of web content link directly to your page. Having a high number of backlinks gives your content a higher authority in search indexes such as Google. They are essential to get people to visit your website. The number of times a piece of material is linked to and mentioned on other websites and sources is a good indicator of its worth. SEMRush is a great tool to measure the number of links to your content. 

6. Is your content converting customers?

The conversion rate calculates the proportion of users who have viewed your material and taken action. The bottom line of any marketing strategy is ultimately to convert potential customers into actual customers, making this metric a valuable one to measure. This could be assessed in the following ways:

• Transitioning from supplying an email address to beginning a trial
• Making the switch from a free trial to a paid subscription
• Making a purchase after clicking on an advertisement
• Using a discount code seen in an advertisement
• Downloading a free ebook or other form of content

7. The bounce rate

In real-life it’s a bit more complicated to get out of a situation you don’t like. But online, it’s as simple as a back button. You only have a quick moment to impress and your content should keep someone captivated, intrigued or answer what they were looking for. All of this should happen within moments of them landing on your page. If it doesn’t, they can just look elsewhere and they will. If your metrics show that visits are short and people are leaving as quickly as they arrive, you’re going to need to shake things up and figure out what will keep them there. Google analytics will give you a strong indication of whether people are engaged in your content or not.

8. Email subscription rate

Are your customers purposely subscribing to emails? We’re not talking about those accidental sign ups, where they needed to put in their email when purchasing something, but those that have intentionally signed up for email content. If your subscription rate is high, people evidently enjoy your content and probably want to see more of it. They may like the useful tips, discounts, or just want to be the first to know about upcoming promotions. This means email marketing is likely a useful tool for you. Efforts to promote products, educate customers and maintain a brand image can be channeled through email newsletters. It’s a powerful way to grow your customer database and keep reminding them of your brand name and what you have to offer. We’re all human and we forget things easily. A little email every now and again ensures customers feel they’re a part of your community. It’s about building trust and making people feel included. 

9. Who is sharing your social media content?

A solid social media presence underlies many successful marketing strategies. It’s a competitive market, but if your content is shared, it means it was influential and the user liked it enough to pass it on. Then that might get shared again and the chain starts. In no time at all, this could result in follows, and new customers. Finally, it enables you to determine what sort of material people want so that you can continue to provide it.

10. Returning visitors

It’s nice to have your content reach new individuals, but having them return to your website is even more critical. This is because converting repeat visitors is simpler than attracting new ones. Measuring the number of returning visitors means you can get an idea of what sort of content you should focus on and who to target it towards. It’s a good idea to personalize material to your returning visitors’ interests in order to keep them coming back and hopefully encourage them to take action. 

The bottom line

A marketing strategy without metrics is placing your bets almost entirely on chance.  Sure you may have noticed a spike in sales. But if you don’t know where that engagement is coming from, you risk wasting money on ineffective efforts or missing out on opportunities to profit from alternative channels. The sooner you get familiar with using metrics to evaluate your content, the sooner you can optimize your marketing strategy.