Every manager who decides to invest in content marketing should be clear about the values used to measure content marketing success. If you’re starting with content marketing, you should know that success doesn’t show up in six weeks.
That’s why you need relevant measurements. With their help, you can assess whether you are on the right path now and in the future. But the corresponding critical figures for measuring the success of your marketing come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. And not everyone is important from the beginning. We have therefore summarized the basic parameters for you in this article. Measuring success in content marketing: Key figures for your website
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Traffic, Visits, And Page Views
The term “traffic” is the generic term for the traffic that comes to your site. It is measured in visits/sessions and page views.
- Visits: A person’s overall visit to your site. Regardless of the number of subpages she visits.
- Pageviews: Also, page views. Indicate how many pages were viewed in total. The page views per visit can be seen as a clear sign of quality. As a rule, the greater the interest of a visitor, the higher the number of page views.
Another criterion for measuring success in content marketing is the so-called user flow or the bounce rate. She shows you:
- How many visitors start their visit on which page
- Which other pages do you look at afterward?
- And from which side they jump off again – i.e., leave this one.
The Origin Of The Traffic
You can also analyze the origin of the traffic (sources). To measure success in content marketing, it is common to distinguish between the following sources:
- Direct: The visitor typed your page into the browser’s address field or copied the URL into the browser window.
- Search: The visitor entered a specific search term into a search engine. He then clicked on a search result. It’s worth taking a closer look here. Which words are particularly relevant for your site? Which ones should still be optimized?
- Paid: This is the traffic generated by clicking on a paid ad.
- Social Media: All visitors visit the website via a social media post.
- Email: This is the traffic that comes from clicking a link in your emails.
About once a month, you should analyze the relevant website data. Assess their development and, if necessary, compare them with the figures from the previous year. This is also how you understand seasonal oscillations as such.
Conversions
The goal of content marketing is basically that the interested party goes one step further. That he decides for your offer or otherwise interacts with your content. To measure success in content marketing, we should always pay attention to the “conversions” or the “conversion rate.”
This could be, for example, the percentage of newsletter subscriptions compared to visitors to the subscription page. Or perhaps at the rate of those requesting a checklist in your blog post. Or maybe the percentage of people who click “Learn More” on an ad.
You can, of course, also find out how many interested parties have accepted a purchase offer and ultimately order online or by other means. The conversion rate looks terrible. Then three free tricks usually help:
- Improve the usability of your website
- Formulate your messages more clearly
- Check whether your message/offer fits the target group at all
These points are often more profitable than some paid measures.
Measure Marketing Success Based On Emails
Opens
To measure success in content marketing and, thus, email marketing, you should keep an eye on the opening and click rates. To determine the open rate of emails, minimal images with an almost invisible edge length of one pixel are inserted into each email. These are reloaded when opened.
The system that carries out the sending automatically packs a different pixel into each email so it can later be determined precisely who opened the email and when. However, this method has a disadvantage: the user can turn off the automatic reloading of images. Then this count cannot take place.
A Click Never Deceives
In comparison, click rates are much more relevant because they represent a direct reaction to the email. Here it is counted how often buttons or links in your emails are clicked. You must keep an eye on changes and work on improving both metrics.
Measuring Success In Content Marketing: Also Look At Financial Aspects
Ad Performance
When investing money into online advertising, you also want to track precisely what you’re getting back. Therefore, regularly check the performance of your ad campaigns. The following must be kept in mind:
- Conversions or clicks generated, depending on the goal
- Costs
- The success of various image-text combinations
From a specific point in time, the target group knows all ad motifs and will react less strongly. You should recognize and counteract this kink in campaign performance. Now is the right time to stop the campaign or create entirely new ads. Under certain circumstances, you can also do without further paid ads from this point because they can already generate enough traffic.
Sales And Other Sales Successes
At some point, the responsibility for contact changes from marketing to sales. For example, because the potential customer has booked a consultation. Or because he responded to a call in the direction of the online shop. Of course, you also want to include this data in measuring the success of your content marketing.
Just As Important As The Pure Measurement Of Success: Test, Test, Test!
For many people, it is strange that professional marketing starts with test runs. Real professionals should know beforehand what works – shouldn’t they? The great advantage of online marketing is that you can test it extensively. Starting with an excellent first draft, you can continue to optimize your content marketing. The tool for this is the so-called A/B test or split test.
The Basic Principle: Measuring Success In Content Marketing With The A/B Test
Starting from a specific design, you create a copy with a slight modification. This could be a different image. Or maybe the title of a text. Or perhaps you want to change the color of a button. Your email tool or content management system independently checks which variant is better received. In addition, it shows version 1 to half of the website visitors/email recipients. The other half sees version 2.
A/B Testing Works On Various Elements Of Content Marketing
- You create two variants of an article to determine a better effect. For example, you can change the text style or the number of images.
- A simple copy of a landing page can be tested with a completely different design or even slight variations in the color scheme.
- With the newsletter, test the subject, sender, or structure.
- You can simultaneously place a simple variant or even a whole matrix of many combinations of ads. Switch off the less appealing motifs or the variants with an unfavorable price/performance ratio. This increases overall performance.
A similar approach is theoretically possible with all types of content on your site. Further optimization runs are then often carried out. To do this, copy the winner and make another copy with minor changes. Then a new test run begins. You can play this game until you no longer notice any performance differences.
