How to Check If Your Content Marketing Is Working (Step-By-Step Instructions)

Source: Neil Patel

What does success look like in a content marketer’s world?

There isn’t an easy answer to this question.

Since it’s a question I hear a lot, I’ll tell you something.

Tracking your performance is critical to a successful content marketing strategy.

I’ve heard this statement countless times: “Content marketing isn’t measurable.”

This is a big misunderstanding. You absolutely can measure the ROI of your content.

Why do most marketers neglect this?

Content Marketing Institute revealed that more than 50% of marketers either have zero clarity or are unsure of how effective their content marketing is.

That’s kind of disturbing.

However, I’m not entirely surprised.

It’s easy to get fixated on metrics like social shares and comments on a piece of content.

Of course, it is useful to measure the success of content on an individual post level.

But it’s not enough. You only get a small piece of the puzzle.

Content marketing is a big picture strategy.

If you don’t track performance on many levels and across multiple channels, there’s no way you’ll get a holistic view.

In this article, I’ll show you exactly how to measure your content marketing performance in a quantifiable way.

First, let’s talk about what success might look like for you.

What makes a successful content marketing strategy?

There are several variables that you need to consider.

But there is one overarching theme in every successful content marketing strategy.

Some marketers will tell you it boils down to sales or conversions.

But what if you have no desire to monetize your content?

Sure, lead generation tops the list of content marketing goals, but nearly as many marketers simply want brand awareness!

What’s the key to success?

I’m not trying to sidestep the question, but it depends.

Depends on what?

It depends entirely on your business, your audience, and your objectives.

With that in mind, let’s get into how you can measure your content marketing performance based on these business goals.

Part One: Get clear on the mission statement of your content marketing

In simple terms, if you want to know whether or not your content marketing is working, you need first to define what “working” means for your business.

Before you start thinking about what metrics to track, ask yourself the following questions.

• What type of person gravitates to your content?
• How will your readers be moved by your content? What will they feel?
• What actions will these feelings lead to?
• What transformation will the reader experience upon taking action?
• How will these actions influence your business objectives?

These questions will set the overall direction of your content marketing strategy and will guide your entire content creation process.

Whatever direction you go, your audience will be the driving force. Eventually, the actions that they take will move important growth needles for your business.

But it all begins with committing to an audience-centric narrative. In fact, 71% of companies who surpass their revenue goals use audience personas.

How can you use your mission statement to attract a targeted audience?

1. Place your mission statement front and center. Your mission statement should serve as a gateway for all the channels where you distribute content. This includes your social media channels, your website, and every other customer touchpoint.

2. Your mission statement should be aligned with your core objectives. Your audience’s actions will be connected to your marketing funnels. Audience engagement at the top of the funnel should eventually lead to some conversions.

3. Put your mission statement to action. There’s no point in having a mission statement if you don’t use it. Whatever your ultimate goal is, commit to it. If it no longer reflects your business, change it.

Part Two: Analyze your traffic sources

You may have heard the idea that traffic is a vanity metric that shouldn’t be given much attention.

I disagree.

Although you’re not creating content for traffic alone, keeping tabs on your traffic sources is a critical step.

Why?

No matter what your ultimate business objective is, you first need to get eyes on your content.

Your traffic breakdown at each audience touchpoint gives a broad indicator of how your content is performing.

Content performance on this broad level may have an impact on your performance across the board.

First, you need to measure your traffic across several channels and see how that traffic relates to your core product or service.

With Google Analytics, this is easy.

Alternatively, you can use a premium tool like Ahrefs, but we’ll focus on using the free option.

Here are six different channels that you should pay attention to.

1. Social traffic – Visitors who come to your website via social networks
2. Organic search traffic – Visitors who come to your website by Google search or other search engines
3. Direct traffic – Visitors who come to your website by typing in your URL
4. Email traffic – Visitors who come to your website via your email list
5. Referral traffic – Visitors who come to your website via referring websites
6. Paid traffic – Visitors who come to your website from paid search campaigns

Let’s get into how you can find this data.

Step #1: Go to Google Analytics to find out where your traffic originates.

You’ll find this information by clicking on the tab labeled “Acquisition.”

First, get an overview of your traffic.

You’ll see a pie chart displaying your top referring channels.

After you have an accurate overview, click on the individual channels to view the traffic breakdown for each one.

Create a spreadsheet to track the breakdown of traffic for each channel.

Pay attention to the “Acquisition,” “Behavior,” and “Conversions” metrics for each channel.

You can either export this data from Google Analytics or create a spreadsheet of your own.

Step #2: Tag your email links to get your email traffic data.

The links from your email need to be labeled and tagged.

Some email management systems integrate seamlessly with Google Analytics, so you may not have to do this manually.

If you choose to set it up manually, here’s how.

Go to Google’s URL Builder to set specific parameters for the links in your email campaigns.

Your medium should be set to “email” to match your custom segment.

From the information that you type in, you will receive a correctly formatted URL.

Step #3: Create custom advanced segments to track your email traffic.

Find the tab that says “Personal Tools and Assets.” Click on “Segments.”

Create a new segment.

Name…

Click here to read more