Why Is It Important To Monitor Your Content Marketing Performance?

Content marketing performance is a vital part of the overall marketing strategy in a business. Small, medium, and large enterprises tend to leverage content marketing in multiple forms to achieve their goals. In some cases, content takes the form of social media posts, while in others, blog articles. Regardless of the type, content is an invaluable asset in the toolset of a company.

That is why tracking the performance of your content marketing is important. By getting insights into your performance, you can uncover areas of improvement, possible opportunities, and errors. After all, you want to know about the ROI of your efforts. Is it worth continuing with the current content marketing strategy if it is not contributing to lead generation or revenue?

Now that we have settled on the importance of monitoring the performance of your content marketing, let’s move on to the main course regarding the process.

How To Measure Your Content Marketing Performance

There is no one-size-fits-all in monitoring your marketing performance. There are a few steps to follow prior to the process which will make your time worth it. By following the right path in monitoring, you ensure the collection of valuable insights with which you can improve your content marketing performance. In short, this path consists of three phases: what to track, how to track, and how to use the gathered information.

Decide What To Track

Thanks to rapid technological advancement, you have the ability to track almost every bit of your online presence. However, monitoring a plethora of data can be extremely time-consuming and confusing. Therefore, time management in the process is vital. You need to check only what is valuable for your business goals.

How can you decide what metrics to measure? This is an important question in the first phase of the process. You need to meet with your team, discuss the overall business goals, and decide on the contribution of content marketing in it. In this way, you will spend your time wisely on metrics that are valuable to your business.

In short, to decide what to track, you can follow these steps:

• Discuss with your team the overall business goal
• Find where content marketing fits in the business strategy
• Establish priorities on metrics and data
• Check the costs of the monitoring process

Store, Measure, And Monitor The Data

Monitoring your content marketing effectiveness is a long, ongoing process. After you have decided which metrics to track, you have to discuss the tools to use in this main phase. It is important to pick the right tools to get the appropriate insights.

That said, there are multiple tools available to help you collect, store, manage, and measure data. Regarding content marketing, you might consider performing a content audit to collect valuable insights from your assets. Also, an SEO competitor analysis can help you see what your competition is doing and give you extra ideas.

Equally important is the compatibility of the tools you are going to use. Making sure that each tool is compatible with the other reduces the chances of missing data. Additionally, it will make the process faster and more efficient.

After you have decided on the tools, it is time to build the process. Gather your team and discuss how frequently you want to collect and analyze data on your performance metrics. Ideally, you want a regular basis that is enough to uncover patterns and not overlook issues. Usually, a monthly basis works in most cases, but again, it always depends on your goals.

In a shortlist, following these guidelines can be beneficial:

• Use the right tools to gather content marketing metrics
• Perform a content audit on your current assets
• Ensure the compatibility of the tools you use in the measurement process
• Build a timeline and track performance on a regular basis

Turn Data Into Actionable Insights

Information is valuable, especially when it is translated into insights. You have gathered data, analyzed them, and you are ready to hear what they can tell you. There are efficient tactics to follow if you want to make the most out of it. Among them is the scoring system.

A scoring system will help you see how the metrics are performing according to your business goals. To do so, you need to decide upon a value that will determine success in each of your KPIs. This value varies on each KPI depending on the goal. In this way, the methodology will assist you in determining which assets are contributing successfully to the end goals of the business. Also, you can spot the pain points of your content and act accordingly.

It is worth noting that the metrics you measure should be actionable. Monitoring metrics that are undependable will lead to costly efforts without benefits. Therefore, make sure you measure metrics on which you can act and improve your content marketing effectiveness.

To sum up, make sure that you follow the guidelines below while measuring content performance:

• Monitor data you can turn into actionable insights
• Develop a scoring method depending on the KPIs
• Measure only the data that contributes to your business goals

Which Metrics Determine Content Marketing Performance?

If you are familiar with content marketing, then you have already come across a variety of metrics. However, do you need to monitor all of them? The answer is no. As we stated above, make sure that you measure only the metrics which contribute to your business goals.

Social Media Content Performance Metrics

In this article, we divide the metrics into two segments depending on the format, the social media content metrics, and the on-site content metrics. The first one is self-explanatory; it is about content that is shared on social media. For example, photos, videos, infographics, articles, and other assets your content marketing tactics include.

On social media content, the most important engagement metrics are the following:

This is the main interaction indicator in social media. The higher the number of likes on your post, the more attention is achieved. This attention may also have an impact on your brand awareness.

A comment is a stronger indication of engagement with your content. A comment takes time and effort, and leaves behind the veil of anonymity that a “like” provides. Therefore, comments also show the level of engagement in your posts.

Unlike comments, shares do not require effort. However, they are still a solid metric of engagement, since your audience shares your content on their walls. This is extremely helpful, as it operates like a free advertisement and an indication of quality.

When it comes to content marketing performance, it’s important to know the connection between social media and SEO. Follow the link to read my recent article for more details.

 On-Site Content Performance Metrics

Even though most people are familiar with the content on social media, this is not your main focus. In most cases, you want to leverage social media to drive traffic to your website. Thus, it is vital to mention the content performance metrics on your site as well.

Some of the most important on-site metrics are the following:

1. Acquired Site Traffic

Often, site traffic supports your business goals directly. It indicates the number of potential leads arriving at your website. The higher the traffic, the better the performance of your content marketing. This is also the beginning of your marketing funnel. Solid content marketing can fill up your marketing funnel with leads which can increase your revenue.

2. On-Site Time

Is your content interesting? Appealing? Then your traffic will stay longer on your website. They might also look into other pieces of content you have and end up as leads or even customers. Therefore, on-site time supports lead generation, decreases bounce rate, and increases revenue.

3. Bounce Rate

The absolute opposite of on-site time is the bounce rate. Bounce rate is when your traffic arrives at your website and then leaves without making a conversion. It is often an indication of bad-quality content. By performing a technical SEO audit, you can spot errors that increase your bounce rate and fix them.

4. Returning Visitors

Everyone loves “long-term relationships” with their prospect leads. You want your audience to return and stay longer on your website. Therefore, you should also be aware of the Returning Visitors Metric (RRV) in your content marketing performance measurement. A high RRV means that your content is appealing and your traffic wants to read more of it.

5. SEO Metrics

If you aim to boost your organic traffic, then SEO metrics are important to monitor. In terms of SEO and content, the most vital measurements regard organic traffic, backlinks, and keywords.

The ultimate goal of SEO initiatives is to increase organic traffic. Basically, organic traffic is the audience deriving from Google Search queries. It is extremely valuable to increase your traffic organically. That can be done with the right keyword targeting, link building strategies, and content marketing.

Among the most valuable assets in SEO are backlinks. In terms of SEO marketing, backlinks operate as vouchers for your content’s quality. Acquiring quality backlinks can increase your domain rating and help you rank high in valuable industry-related keywords.

The method for acquiring backlinks is known as link building. The method of link building is a large section of SEO marketing and cannot be covered in a few sentences. Therefore, if you are interested in learning more about it, feel free to check out this article on what link building is.

Keywords are the backbone of SEO. They are the sun in the SEO galaxy. Every initiative aims to increase the rankings of a page in a specific valuable search term. How do you know which keywords to target? Well, you can uncover keyword opportunities and increase your rankings with an SEO report.

Rankings on keywords can be increased in multiple ways. One solid remedy is content. With top-of-the-funnel evergreen content on your blog, you can target multiple keywords and support your lead generation strategy. Moreover, such content works like a “keyword bank” and does not lose its value over time.

It is worth mentioning that the above-mentioned metrics are not the only ones existing in terms of content marketing performance. However, in this article, we presented and analyzed the most important ones for your toolset.

Conclusion

Monitoring content marketing performance is a long, ongoing process, but definitely worth the while. By following this process, you can spectate how your content efforts are performing and uncover opportunities for development. In short, you can:

1. Optimize your content
2. Find and fix errors
3. Maintain top-notch content effectiveness

The process of monitoring content performance consists of measuring certain marketing effectiveness metrics. Even though there is a plethora of metrics out there, you need to focus on the ones contributing to your business goals. For example, if your goal is to increase traffic on your website, then spending resources on measuring only social media engagement metrics like comments might not be enough. Instead, you must find the balance that combines social media and SEO metrics for better results and more conversions.

Content is vital for your marketing strategy. It fills up your marketing funnels, increases lead generation, and supports SEO initiatives. Therefore, make sure to optimize your content marketing by monitoring its performance on a regular basis. In the end, if done successfully, you will see the results in your increased revenue.