Content Marketing Series: Measuring Content Marketing ROI
Measuring content marketing ROI is one of the last — and most essential — steps in the content marketing cycle. It proves that content decisions have paid off and are contributing to greater business objectives. Marketers need to measure ROI across all channels where content is used in a way that makes sense to the maturity of the marketing department.
With this in mind, let’s explore how organizations can measure content marketing ROI and impact and report on results with confidence.
Why Measure Content Marketing ROI?
Content marketing ROI has been notoriously difficult for marketers to measure because of the sheer number of moving parts in a content strategy and the length and complexity of the customer journey.
To gain a clearer picture of ROI, marketers must take into account each channel they’re using to publish and distribute their content. You must also consider how your audience shares and engages with your content, how far your content travels in the digital realm, and the unique non-linear path that each customer takes before they make a buying decision. Throw in the challenges of properly attributing content with revenue and aligning business goals with the right metrics, and you’ve got a Herculean undertaking.
However, “too challenging” isn’t a valid reason to avoid measuring content marketing ROI. For starters, organization leaders expect marketers to demonstrate their effectiveness — something that 68% of marketers say is a top priority.
What’s more, metrics support data-driven decision making within the department. They allow marketers to iterate and optimize, to know what to keep doing and what to stop doing. For example, content marketing metrics should tell you what content is driving traffic to your website, the keywords your content needs to include to resonate strongly, and what content should be refreshed or retired.
Which Marketing Metrics Should You Capture?
To get a view of your content marketing ROI, you need to think about the metrics that really matter. Two things to consider as you’re defining you’re content measurements:
Aligning with the higher-level metrics of the business will allow you to correlate content marketing’s contribution and value to bigger goals.
The metrics tracked by a less mature, developing marketing organization are not the same as those tracked by an established marketing department. Metrics evolve and mature with the department functions, tools and larger business.
Smaller or less-mature organizations may not have the tools or people resources to track every metric. Larger organizations may have the people, tools, and expertise to track more but may find it easier to make sense of their marketing analytics when they focus only on the metrics that matter.
Common ROI metrics include the following:
WEBSITE TRAFFIC, TRAFFIC SOURCES & ENGAGEMENT
An easy place to start tracking content metrics is on your website. Content you develop should be hosted on your website and then leveraged in digital channel activities. When audiences engage with your content in a channel, they are contributing to referral site traffic. Smaller or newer marketing teams need to track various website metrics as a minimum indicator for content impact. Content marketing helps to draw in more visitors from various channels, including social media, search engine results pages, blogs, and other outlets.
And once visitors do land on your site, you can track other pages and content they engage with. Some tools will even track how far down a page a visitor reads. Content that gets a lot of clicks generally indicates a high level of interest and relevance to your audience, especially if those same pages have a high on-page time and a low bounce rate.
LEAD VOLUME AND QUALITY
Fifty-four percent of decision makers say they spend more than one hour per week reading and reviewing thought-leadership content. (Edelman/LinkedIn 2021) This presents big opportunities for marketers to capture the attention of budget holders.
Content can generate leads in several ways, one of which uses a gating technique. To access a gated piece of content, a person must provide contact information through a form. The data provided in this form may constitute a lead. These leads have a direct effect on ROI. The more leads you attract that fit your ideal client profile, the higher the chance of conversions.
There are a few ways you can measure lead quality. For example, if you attach a lead magnet to your content, your opt-in rates can indicate lead quality. You can also track the customer’s journey throughout your website. If they look at sales-ready content, such as a pricing page or FAQ, your content is likely attracting the right type of customer.
SALES
Over 60% of marketers measure the success of their content marketing strategy through sales. A well designed content marketing strategy will include content for each stage of the customer journey. This is important because today, customers self-serve 95% of their customer journey and a typical prospect will consume 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision.
Looking at the total number of leads your content generates and comparing them to how many turn into paying customers is another way to calculate content ROI. However, the content marketing journey is rarely linear. Visitors may engage with your content, then forget to take action until they see more content from you. Or, it might take several pieces of content to build trust and encourage action. Multiple pieces of content may contribute to a single buying decision, which can make measuring content marketing ROI even more difficult.
How To Measure and Report on Content ROI
Marketers can use the following formula to measure content marketing ROI:
[ (Revenue - Investment) / Investment ] x 100 = ROI
This formula requires marketers to calculate the total cost they spent to produce and distribute their content, including:
Payments to content creators (writers, videographers, artists, etc.)
Images
Videos
Audio
Software used in the content creation process
Paid promotions to distribute content
From there, tally up all sales that come from leads generated by content. This is easier said than done, as not all engagements result in immediate sales and you have to have an attribution model and tools to track this over time, but each engagement might incrementally lead to a sale. Developing an attribution model can help you map a more granular picture of the customer journey and improve how you attribute sales to content.
Marketers should also establish reporting governance guidelines to share their findings with the organization. At a minimum, you should work your metrics into your routine business review meetings. Remember, your reports give you a chance to demonstrate the value of your efforts to decision makers and company leaders.
To make reporting and metric collection easier, consider building dashboards and using software that tracks content performance across channels. Collecting real-time metrics on an ongoing basis gives you updated insights at a glance so you can see where your efforts are paying off.
Measuring ROI vs. Impact: Why Both Are Important
When many marketers think of ROI, they think of bottom-line-feeding sales that increase their organization’s revenues and profits. For example, content provides a critical piece of the sales enablement process, particularly in an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy. Salespeople use content created by marketing to make introductions, credentialize the company’s capabilities, and increase average deal sizes.
But when it comes to measuring your complete content marketing ROI, impact also needs to be a part of the conversation.
Impact may include an increase in consumer sentiment, more backlinks to your content to increase its visibility, or higher search rankings. Measuring ROI gives you a chance to review and demonstrate the full value of your efforts and tie your actions back to your business needs.
How Prime 8 Marketing Consultants Can Help
The metrics our Prime 8 clients ask us for aren’t all we measure. We recognize that our clients don’t always know what to ask for, so it’s our job to educate, suggest, and improve content marketing measurements over time with extensible frameworks and tools that grow and mature with the company over time.
If you’d like to explore how we can help you create a content marketing strategy, reach out to us. If you’d like to explore consulting as a career, check out working with Prime 8 to learn more.
