Remember these KPIs when Measuring your Content Marketing Plan
Content marketing plans need to incorporate key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor whether a strategy is successful or not. If a marketer is not looking at web analytics data to measure the success of a content marketing campaign, it’s then impossible to know whether they’re on the right path. Evidently, there are some basic KPIs to keep in mind, including customer engagement and conversion rates. There are also more advanced KPIs that you might not be thinking of when it comes to measuring marketing success. This guide on KPIs for content marketing plans can hopefully share some insight into the analytic metrics to watch out for.
Unique visits (UVs) is a great place to start in terms of KPIs and will indicate how many users have viewed your content within a given time frame. Instantly see what forms of content are getting clicks and what kind of trends might be present in the ‘unique visits’ data. Then, there’s geography which shares information on where in the world you are getting your clicks and visits from. This may also show where budget and resources need to be invested. There are ways to optimize according to location or geographic area, which comes with its many advantages. Thirdly, there’s mobile readership. As more of the internet is moving to mobile platforms and mobile-centric searches, this is one of the most important metrics. Also, if the majority of your customers are already arriving to your site from mobile platforms, you may want to consider different mobile-specific strategies to close sales and get customers.
When it comes to customer engagement, there are four KPIs that may matter more than some others. Time spent will let you know how much time a user is spending on your content and bounce rates will indicate what pages are losing visitors. Thereby if bounce rates are high and time spent is low, perhaps your pages are not delivering on the expectation of the user. Then, there are click patterns which are a KPI used to identify what sections of the page are getting more views and which sections are not getting the same amount of attention. Lastly, there are page views. Though page views might seem pretty basic, as a KPI on content marketing plans, they will indicate how engaged the audience is and whether users are continuing to click through your website. High page views combined with unique visits is indicative of a site with strong digital engagement – which is exactly what you want.
There are two other KPIs to consider when judging the success of a content marketing plan. Comments are very important. If people are becoming invested in the conversation your content is creating, that’s a good thing. Social media shares are also a solid indicator of whether content is connecting with users. Think about it – if it means enough to a reader for them to want to share it with friends and followers on social media, that’s a strong sign you’re doing something right.
These KPIs are just the start to measuring a content marketing plan. Always keep in mind the ultimate goals of these kinds of campaigns – which can range from increasing brand reach to maximizing sales on a given product or service.
Working alongside an experienced and expert-level content marketing company, such as Unlimited Exposure, we believe any website can successfully deliver on its goals while hitting strong numbers on these KPIs and others.
