But how can you know if your content marketing activities are effective and deriving the desired results? In today’s competitive world of oversaturation, it is important you create smart content backed up by data. At the same time with the availability of so many forms of analytics, it becomes difficult to recognise which are important to pay attention to.
Here are some ways you can track your marketing activities to understand how they are performing.
1. Consumption (viewing or downloading)
How many users are downloading or viewing your content? What is the time spent by viewers on reading your blog or viewing your video? Consumption metrics will help you answer these questions.
By using Google Analytics you can find out your website’s top performing pages and the views received. To find this information, go to ‘Behaviour’ then ‘Site Content’ and select ‘All Pages’. You will see a complete summary of the top performing pages on your website.
The ‘User’ metrics measures the size of your audience and how many unique viewers your content reaches.
You will also want to know the average time spent on your page, so use the ‘Average Time on Page’ metric. Knowing this analytical data will give you insight into how your content is being received and if viewers are wanting to take the time to engage with it.
2. Retention
How many visitors come back to access your content? How often do they revisit your website? With the help of ‘Retention’ metrics you will be able to find out if you are keeping your visitor’s attention.
The percentage of visitors who leave your website just after viewing only one page is known as the bounce rate. A higher bounce rate means that the content is not engaging enough for the visitor to stay. In order to find out where exactly the user leaves, the ‘User Flow’ report in Google Analytics will tell you what pages they went to and where they exited. If the number of returning visitors is higher than the amount of new visitors, this shows that your content is retaining people.
3. Engagement
How will you judge your audience’s loyalty towards your brand? Engagement metrics help you find this out.
Keep track of the number of comments received on your blogs or videos posted. Not all comments will be useful, however check for anything that can be used as constructive feedback to improve your strategies.
The calculation of the average number of visits by the audience per session is known as the ‘Page Depth’. Interesting content and impressive videos can help improve the Page Depth.
CTR means the number of clicks received on the links to view content. If CTR is good, it means viewers have clicked on the call to action (CTA) links which are present in your content or videos. This shows that what you’ve created are interesting, and have motivated the viewer to gather more information.
4. Sharing
If you are delivering value and providing a bit of entertainment, you’ll like get a share. By monitoring social media metrics like the number of shares by the viewer, or the number of retweets your content has received, you’ll know if you are bringing value and resonating with your audience.
5. Lead generation
The number one priority for content marketers is lead generation. ‘Goal Completions’ in Google Analytics will help you track the exact number of downloads and the sources of referral that lead to an enquiry or sale.
Depending on what you want to achieve, you can use this function to see if you have achieved your targeted outcomes; like the amount of sign ups to a newsletter or enquiries about products or services.
Once you have captured all of the above mentioned metrics, the next step is to determine the benchmarks which you will be using to define the success of your marketing strategies. If you’d like to learn more about how creating content, specifically video content, and how it can be a very effective form of communication, give us a shout!
