key metrics to track when measuring the success of your content marketing campaign

Content marketing has become an essential strategy for businesses looking to attract and engage with customers in the digital age. You can use content marketing to build your reputation as a thought leader as well as gain links back to your website.

But how do you know if your content efforts are actually working?

While producing high-quality, valuable content is important, especially now that Google is continually tweaking its quality guidelines to ensure people can find the content they need, you must also measure and track key metrics to assess the impact and ROI of your content marketing.

Here are some of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor.

Website Traffic

One of the most basic metrics to track is website traffic. This includes monitoring the number of overall site visitors, as well as tracking traffic to specific pages and content assets. You’ll want to see traffic steadily increasing over time as you expand your content marketing efforts.

Comparing traffic from organic search vs social media vs referring sites can also provide insight into what content is driving the most engagement. Tools like Google Analytics make it easy to dive into traffic data.

Leads and Conversions

A primary goal of content marketing is to generate more qualified leads and eventually convert those leads into customers. So, monitoring lead generation and conversions is crucial.

• What percentage of website visitors are converting into leads by downloading assets, signing up for newsletters, or contacting your sales team?
• How many leads then convert into paying customers?

Linking your marketing automation and CRM software with your website analytics lets you track conversions through the entire funnel.

Social Media Reach and Engagement

Most content marketing strategies rely heavily on social media to amplify content and drive traffic. Measuring social media reach and engagement shows how well your audience is interacting with content on social platforms.

Key stats to track include follower counts, social shares, clicks, and comments, likes and reactions, mentions, and tags. Social media analytics tools provided by the major platforms like Instagram and Facebook make it easy to monitor branded social content in one dashboard.

Backlink Profile

The backlinks pointing to your website are a crucial metric that reflects how influential your content is. Higher quality relevant backlinks indicate that other reputable sites and influencers find your content valuable enough to link to. Monitoring referral traffic from backlinks can also show their impact.

Aim to grow your number of backlinks over time, especially from authority sites in your industry. Backlink analysis tools can help track your overall domain and page authority.

Search Rankings

For businesses investing in search engine optimization (SEO), monitoring organic search rankings provides one of the strongest indicators of content success.

What keywords and pages are ranking in Google and other search engines, and how are they moving up or down?

Improving rankings, and ranking for more competitive keywords, demonstrates that your content strategy is working. Search engine data tools can track rankings. Your SEO agency will also do this.

Brand Mentions and Awareness

Growing brand awareness and positioning yourself as an industry thought leader is a key goal of content marketing. One way to measure this is by monitoring brand name mentions online and in the media.

You want your brand name and your subject matter experts to be mentioned more frequently by influencers.

Another metric is brand awareness surveys, asking consumers if they are familiar with your brand and key content assets.

Content Engagement

While traffic numbers provide one view, you also need to drill into metrics that measure deeper engagement with your content. This includes time on page, pages per visit, and bounce rates for blog posts and other content assets.

Are visitors scanning and quickly bouncing, or sticking around and reading?

Monitoring email open and clickthrough rates shows engagement with your newsletter content. Video view durations and completion rates demonstrate engagement.

Sales Impact

At the end of the day, the true test of content marketing success is the revenue and sales that can be attributed back to your content efforts. This means identifying referral traffic from your content assets to product and services pages. It also means monitoring online and offline customer journeys to see what content prompted sales. Survey customers and ask what content and resources influenced their purchase decision.

Tie this data back to the ROI of your content marketing investments.

Many analytics tools and platforms are available to help track each of these KPIs and provide data visualizations to spot trends. Regularly monitoring the metrics that matter most will let you continuously refine your content marketing strategy. Immerse yourself in the data, while keeping the end goals of leads, sales, and ROI front and center.

With the right metrics guiding your next moves, you can optimize content marketing efforts and demonstrate proven business impact.