Measuring success with content marketing analytics is a vital part of having a successful content marketing strategy. Analytics show you key metrics that are important to measure so you can determine what is working and what is not. Content marketing analytics also show you trends and behaviors that will give you an extra insight into your customer’s buyer’s journey. There are many metrics out there to determine success, but there is only three that are vital to your content marketing success.
These metrics go hand and hand because traffic to your site doesn’t mean success. Sure you have grabbed their attention, but you need to also keep them engaged and wanting more. This is where time on site comes in or TOS for short. What this metric tells you is how well you kept the visitor engaged or if you didn’t keep them engaged at all. With this knowledge you can then decide on what you need to change or keep. Maybe the title was misleading or maybe your content had no value to your audience. It’s important to keep in mind that when you are writing with your audience in mind. Creating content that adds value to your audience will have a higher TOS then content that does not.
This is also known as referral traffic. Measuring referral traffic lets you know how well your content worked or didn’t work. Your ultimate goal with any piece of content is to get your audience to convert on your site. Content is just one type of referral traffic that can increase your conversion rate. So remember, make your content valuable and engaging, keep your audience wanting more.
Before you can even see conversions, you need to determine what your company would consider a conversion. This could be a download, a purchase, or registration to an event and so many more. Once you have determined this, you will set up goals where you will track visitors that land on a specific landing page (the page where you have determined as a conversion). This would generally be a thank you page. Once you have set all of this up in your analytics account you can now see which piece of content is performing the best or converting the best.
As stated before, your content marketing strategy is only successful if you know what to measure and how to measure it. Content marketing analytics give you vital insights into key metrics that need to be determined to evaluate your contents performance. So start analyzing!