Key Content Marketing Metrics To Measure Your Efficiency

Traffic is the backbone of anything that gets posted online. Your website houses everything that can potentially attract users, and no matter how great your content is – for it to work, it has to turn visitors into willing-to-pay customers. Usually, traffic can be split into several categories, such as:

• Users – the total number of page visitors;
• Pageviews – the total number of times your page was viewed;
• Unique pageviews – if a user viewed one page multiple times, the visits are combined into one pageview;
• Traffic sources – how the user found your page (search engine, links on other websites, etc.);
• Session duration – how much time the user spent on your page.

These are just some of the examples. But even that should give you enough information on where your traffic comes from and what it looks like. That way, you’ll be able to make amendments to boost it.

While traffic can show you the number of people who saw your website and clicked on its pages or discovered your social media accounts, engagement is a more reliable metric to understand how efficient your content is.

Usually, engagement is defined by page or post views, bounce rate, and on-page time. However, the metric that puts content quality before clicks – which is far more meaningful – is engaged time. Engaged time measures the time users actively engage with what you post: scrolling, cursor movement, video playing, photo viewing, and more. Engaged time helps you understand if your target audience reads your blog posts instead of just scrolling through them in a matter of seconds.

Another point you can look at is the email engagement rate. Your email list is one of the most important assets in digital marketing to both existing and potential customers. Try tracking how many times your emails are open, read, and answered – this will give you valuable insights into structuring your emails in a way that propels sales.

So, what happens after users access your website? The ideal scenario is getting them hooked on your product and boosting engagement up until the purchase is made. If you manage to create a long-lasting relationship with your customers that goes beyond a one-time purchase, that’s even better. What are we looking at here?

• Blog views;
• Newsletter subscriptions;
• Social media views;
• Direct sales.

While the first three options are more about customer interest and willingness to be updated on your company’s news, direct sales are the ultimate conversion result. In the end, it depends on what you consider a conversion – in some cases, it’s physical trading, while in others it can be raising brand awareness or gaining more followers on social media.

Speaking of social media, one way to assess their efficiency is to simply look at user engagement: the number of likes, shares, and comments. However, detailed information can help you see a bigger picture of how your social media marketing efforts impact users. Consider these questions:

• What​​ types of content boost engagement: photos, stories, videos, infographics, Q&As, etc?
• Which platforms help you reach your target audience better?
• When should you post to capture maximum engagement?

When you factor these aspects in, you’ll be able to reach your target audience faster and redirect users to the content that catches their attention and converts them into buyers.

Aside from everything we’ve listed, backlinks and keywords are just as important. When users type in their requests in Google, the search engine arranges the results based on the algorithms. Your main goal here is to make sure that your content ranks high up in the results, making it easier for users to find your website or social media. If you want to understand how well your keywords perform, look at the pieces of content that drive the most users to your digital sources. You can always refer to a skilled SEO expert to optimize your keywords and gain top positions on results pages.

As for backlinks, they boost your brand’s authority in a particular industry by redirecting users from other websites to your content. While getting backlinks doesn’t typically require special skills, you have to be really good at networking and building relationships. This way, you’ll be able to place a link to your website on a well-respected and high-ranking source.

The concept is kind of similar to reputation management. You’d want to be mentioned by a trustworthy source, right? So, when it comes to securing high-quality organic backlinks, it all comes down to the quality of the content you’re putting out. Stay active on social media, fill your website with valuable information in different formats, and make it easy for others to share what you create – that will improve your chances by far!

Don’t forget to track your own efforts too – this way, you’ll be better informed about ideas to try out in the future.

• For one thing, tracking the time spent on content creation helps you optimize workflow: you can decide to work with your in-house team or reach out to freelancers and reroute a part of tasks to them.
• Another aspect is performance over time. Come back to the article you posted a month ago and check if its engagement or shares dropped after a while. This will help you identify which content is perceived as more valuable by your audience.
• Calculate the costs of content and track your internal expenses. Here, choosing between outsourcing freelancers or working with in-house specialists can also help you plan your spending better and schedule future content spending.
• Take note of distribution costs. Promoting content helps you grasp more attention, but it’s best done with consideration. Keep track of this metric, and you’ll be able to optimize your expenses on advertising and social media promotion.

Identifying your target KPIs helps you stay on track with the current goals. But before you set those goals and decide on which metrics to track, it’s just as important to understand why you’re trying to reach more people with your content. With a clear goal in mind, it’s easier to understand what each metric means and how it relates to your brand’s digital success.