The Blindspots In Your Content Marketing Analytics and How to Fix Them

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1 The Blindspots In Your Content Marketing Analytics and How to Fix Them Build a content-centric approach to analytics and marketing performance. Illustrations by Laura Beckman

2 You can t manage (or monetize) what you don t measure.

3 Better content marketing requires better data insights There s much truth to the adage that you can t manage what you can t measure. Great content marketers live and breathe this reality daily, as they try to glean the most complete view possible of their content strategy s performance. performance measurement. Using these site analytics tools can sometimes provide content marketers with unintentionally misleading data. And the resulting blindspots may leave holes in your strategy or send the program in the wrong direction. Effectively measuring content marketing and building strategy off of that data is an industry-wide challenge. Tools like Adobe and Google Analytics are important for understanding website health, but they were not designed for content marketing We ve grouped these blindspots by where they land in the customer journey, with a focus on traffic, engagement and conversion metrics. By understanding where these gaps exist, you can find ways to obtain the missing information and make sure your content strategy is informed with the best data available. CMOs allocate 9.2% of their total marketing budget on marketing analytics (the most of any marketing capability) CMO Spend Survey, Gartner However, 65% of marketers still report a lack of confidence in measuring the impact of their strategies. PAN Communications And 60% of chief marketing officers view content marketing as a top budget priority for the year Content Fitness Report, PAN Communications And marketers estimate they waste 26% of their budgets on ineffective channels and strategies. Five Strategic Opportunities for 2018, Rakuten Marketing

4 Traffic metrics Traffic metrics are relatively straightforward: how many people visited a page, who were they and where did they come from. However, accessing figures that relate specifically to your content marketing efforts versus your website as a whole allows you to make smarter decisions about what you re producing. What you re tracking: Landing page traffic PRO-TIP Isolate your content traffic To separate your content marketing from the other parts of your site, create a custom segment in Google Analytics that isolates your content pages. Be thoughtful and strategic about what you designate content marketing, though; for example, is there a case study section separate from your content hub that should be included in reporting? You want to accurately report the amount of organic traffic your content receives, but are you also looking at whether people came directly to content pages as their first stop or if they originated from somewhere else on the website? There s no right answer, but having the information will improve your reporting, help you better understand where potential buyers are in their journey, and help you direct the traffic better down the funnel. Evaluate your traffic by channel so that you can see the amount that is organic versus coming via paid social, , etc. Then filter for a landing page view of traffic to the content piece. + + What percentage of traffic is coming from other pages within your website? To truly measure the organic traffic coming to a page, look what percentage of organic traffic is coming directly to the landing page and subtract the organic traffic coming from other sources. What you re tracking: visitor geography and demographics You want to ensure the right audience is consuming your content but you need to be looking in the right place. A big component of any content marketing strategy is targeting content to a specific audience, so make sure you re segmenting your content when comparing to target demographics. First, compare all of your traffic to just your content traffic. + + Are the demographics between the two similar? + + Are we reaching the right age range and gender? This is a good way to gut check whether your keywords and distribution tactics are aimed at the right people.

5 Next, look at the geographic reach of your content. Drill deeper by looking at a state by state view of your traffic as well. + + Are we building audiences in the right places? + + Are there areas/places we need to focus on? What you re tracking: returning visitors, AKA loyalty If overall traffic is up but returning visitor traffic is declining, your program has a problem. Successful content builds loyalty and brings people back to the site and brand. PRO-TIP Invest in returning visitors Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. The success of a campaign often comes from relationship building with a collection of quality content. For NewsCred, an average customer interacts with 14 pieces of content throughout the sales cycle. Creating an environment where visitors return and engage with content is the strongest way to drive ROI, and there are few marketing channels as dependable as an optimized newsletter for regular traffic, high engagement rates, and high returning visitor rates. Any successful program will drive people back to the website on a regular basis. Reporting on returning visitors reveals how effective your content is at this goal. Look at both new visitors and returning visitors. + + How do your returning visitors compare to your new visitors? + + What percentage of your sessions are driven by returning visitors? The last question is especially important. Even though returning visitors may be a smaller percentage of your overall traffic, they re the most engaged on your site. They re becoming more familiar with your brand with every visit, and that means they ll more likely to convert.

6 Engagement metrics Getting traffic to the content is the first step. But then you want to know how engaged the visitors are with the content and getting to that answer may require some digging. What you re tracking: bounce rate The bounce rate measures single page sessions or more accurately, the percentage of sessions in which visitors went to a single page and left. The trouble with using this binary to measure engagement rests in how the bounce rate is determined. A visitor is considered bounced if they only visit a single page. But in an SEO and social media driven world, many people do specifically visit one page and that might be a good thing. It can mean that page the visitors landed on answered their question or gave them what they wanted. Still, per Google Analytics, a one-page visit is considered a fail even if visitors are reading the entire article or clicking through the entire interactive embed. Fortunately, there s a workaround. Duration 0:03 Duration 1:34 Review your bounce rate for individual content pages. Duration 0: Does it seem artificially high? + + Are we sending people specifically to these pages via other campaigns? Your bounce rate becomes zero when an event is triggered. Create events such as a time duration on pages that have high bounce rates. When the event gets triggered, it overrides the bounce rate and you get credit for these single page views. RESULT Success RESULT Bounce

7 What you re tracking: session duration and average time on page Of course you want people to spend as much time with your content as possible, but your duration analytics may not tell the whole story. Again, how these metrics are measured impacts what they re revealing. Google Analytics measures session duration using time stamps of when you arrive at each page (Adobe measures off actual time accrued). This becomes problematic because the time from when a visitor enters the final page of their visit to when they leave the site isn t included in the session calculation. Measures of average time on page are also affected because time spent on the last page before an exit is excluded. Duration 0:10 Duration 1:34 Examining your session duration for specific content pages. ASK + + Is the session shorter than other, comparable pages? + + How can I build a report more specifically for that page? You can use events here as well to gather more data. Set events that are triggered based on time durations per page to get a more complete picture of how long people spend with the content. Duration 0:01 SESSION DURATION 0:10 SESSION DURATION 0:00

8 What you re tracking: Journey length You want to know how far visitors progressed through the content, which is another way to assess engagement. Page level depth is a great metric for understanding the quality and effectiveness of your content. This metric gets beyond how long people spend with a specific piece and reveals exactly when they re losing interest. Using events (again!) to trigger an event as people get through certain percentages of each page. You can then employ a funnel view of where people leave the content. What you re tracking: One engagement time for all formats It s important to categorize content by format so that you can accurately evaluate engagement and set clear KPIs and conversion strategies for each format. Different types of content have different engagement expectations someone will spend longer with a piece of long-form content than a 15-second video. Categorizing your content by format allows for more accurate evaluations of your initiatives. Denote the type of content formats in your analytics platform and build out benchmarks for each format s engagement. + + Where are people leaving the content? + + Where is it most engaging? + + Are the Calls to Action placed in the right spot on the page to reach the most people? Understanding how deep people get into specific content reveals whether the content is the right length, and where to strategically place CTAs to reach the most users. ASK + + What are the expectations for engagement by content format? + + Are we under-utilizing some formats given their performance? Different platforms use different features to sort formats. For Adobe Analytics, utilize classifications. In Google Analytics, use content grouping.

9 Conversion metrics Each piece of content should have a specific call to action (CTA), and as a marketer, you need to know whether the asset is spurring people to take the right action. Effective CTAs can make the difference between a sustainable, measurable, positive ROI program or a short-lived experiment. A conversion strategy is what turns reader engagement into business action. What you re tracking: one CTA and KPI for all content WHY IT MATTERS Individual KPIs make it easier to measure whether your content is achieving what it should. You may want one piece of content to convert to a form or drive a sale, while other assets may just be helping raise brand awareness. If you only use one conversion metric, then much of your content may look like it s failing, when it may be meeting different objectives. START BY Using a measurement framework to show the primary and secondary actions you want customers to take. + + Where do the different content types fit in the overall content marketing strategy? + + What s the intended outcome of each type of content? + + Am I creating a full-funnel conversion program? Also consider what technology you need to obtain all the information for these individualized KPIs. Investigate whether there s a gap in your tech stack preventing you from getting a better sense of your content performance.

10 Key takeaways Designing, executing, and optimizing a mature, ROI-focused content strategy is no small endeavor. Uncovering your blindspots will give you more accurate data about your content performance and the tools to build an even more successful program. FOR TRAFFIC METRICS + + Be careful with landing pages versus midjourney article metrics. + + Organic traffic can be easily misconstrued based on placement in journey. + + Track comparative and geographic data to make sure you re talking to the right people with your content. FOR CONVERSION METRICS + + Develop a conversion journey based on these metrics. + + Align your KPI goals against the content type and purpose. + + Make sure you have the correct view, the right measurements and right tech stack. + + Monitor loyalty metrics such as returning visitor ratio and frequency. FOR ENGAGEMENT METRICS + + Bounce rate is not a bad metric, but it doesn t reveal content engagement. + + Time spent has many caveats, and can easily be misunderstood. + + Page depth metrics can be hugely valuable. + + Categorize content by format for more accurate reporting. PRO-TIP Sync with demand generation To ensure they re receiving credit for content that drives leads, content marketing teams must closely align with demand generation teams and utilize UTM parameters on content links and key calls to action.

11 Newscred s content-centric technology was built to eliminate many of these blindspots. Connect with us to learn how our platform and expertise can help fill in some of your analytics gaps success@newsced.com (212) 989

12 @newscred