Content marketing is a discipline where art meets science, and reporting is a lot like telling a story about your success as a marketer. In order to make it accurate, it’s imperative that you develop a solid measurement strategy to identify which tactics are working and demonstrate bottom-line results for your brand. Here’s a short guide on how to prove your content marketing ROI.

1. Tracking Content
Marketing ROI
Content marketing is a discipline where art meets
science, and reporting is a lot like telling a story
about your success as a marketer. In order to make it
accurate, it’s imperative that you develop a solid
measurement strategy to identify which tactics are
working and demonstrate bottom-line results for
your brand. Here’s a short guide on how to prove
your content marketing ROI.
Metric type Reach Act Convert Engage
Brand metrics - Unique visitors
- New visitors
- Brand/direct
visits
- Audience share
(vs competitors)
- Lead volume
- Percentage of
product/service
interactions
- Pages per visit
- Sales volume
- Lead volume
- Follower or fan
volumes
- Email list quality
- Repeat
transactions
- Repeat visits
- Exit surveys
Content
performance
metrics
- Share of audience
- Key sites with
your content
visible in search
- Follower or fan
volumes
- Share of search /
search presence
(findability)
- Inbound links
- Referring
domains
- Page
engagement rate
(bounce, pages per
visit, duration)
- Shares by users
(shareability)
- PostRank score
- Comments and
site interactions
- Lead sign-up
and conversion
rate by
engagement tool
- Subscription to
email or RSS
- Active customer
% (site and email
active)
- Conversion to
like or follower
- % social
interactions with
content such as
Facebook page
comments
- Repeat
conversion rate
- Email open and
CTR
Commercial
metrics
- Cost per click and
cost per sale
- Brand awareness
- Goal value per
visit
- Online lead
contribution ($, %
of total)
- Cost per lead
- Customer
satisfaction
- Conversion rate
to sale
- Channel
conversion rate
- Online-originated
sales, revenue and
product
- Avg order value
or cost per sale
- Retained sales
growth and
volume
- Revenue per
visit
- Revenue per
channel and
category
- Lifetime value
of customer /
loyalty
Step 1: Track the right metrics
Remember that, at the end of the day, you need to report on results, not vanity
metrics. Whether your goal is to generate sales, grow subscribers or simply increase
brand exposure, the following chart should help you figure out which metrics matter
for any of your tactics.
Inspired by an article by SmartInsights.com, we’ve categorized different variables by
goal and funnel stage. Names of metrics might vary depending on the tactic and tool;
however, the chart below should suggest the kind of data to be tracked.
Step 2: Calculate your ROI
The metrics above can communicate different types of benefits for your brand. In the
end, the KPIs you choose should show the impact of your efforts on the company’s
bottom line. How do y ou figure out the exact ROI of your content? See the
following:
a) Calculate the dollars invested in different channels.
Writers Designers Paid Ads Software
b) Determine the exact results of your content
marketing efforts. The tools you use to gather data
might vary depending on your tactics and KPIs.
c) Tie each of your objectives to a relevant metric result
and contrast it with your investment. The comparison
of investment vs. ROI could look something like this:
Marketing Investment Marketing Impact
Staff
- Director of Content
- In-house writers (2)
- Graphic Designer
- Marketing Automation
Manager
- Videographer
- Community Manager
Content Distribution
- PR
- Ads
Software
- Automation
- Social Media
- Design
Total Investment
$6,500
$7,000
$4,000
$4,100
$3,500
$3,500
$50
$6,000
$2,000
$100
$300
$37,050
Step 3: Tell your story
Targeted Reach
- % Convert to Sales
# of New Sales
Average Revenue Per Sale
Incremental Revenue
Average Gross Margin
Profit from Additional Sales
Return
ROI
$20,000
1%
200
$250
$50,000
40%
$20,000
$17,050
53%
The last step in figuring out your ROI is formatting your data so that it’s easily
digestible by your staff, the executive team, or any other stakeholders. Depending on
your goals, you should be answering questions that respond to your main objectives.
Sample questions by objective:
a) Increase visibility and memorability of brand identity
- How much has you/your brand subscriber base increased?
- Has the monthly traffic for you/your brand website grown?
- How about growth in social media shares?
b) Increase total monthly revenue for you/your brand
- Has the total number of monthly leads grown?
- How about increase in average purchase value?
- How much has the total monthly revenue grown?
“Content marketing has proven time and time again to be a valuable asset to any market-ing
plan, and with proper strategy and implementation, proving the ROI to executives in
the business can be accomplished. It may take some time, but once tracking is set up,
you’re sure to see your investment pay off.”
Arnie Kuenn, President @ Vertical Measures
created by
1) http://www.smartinsights.com/content-management/content-marketing-strategy/
measuring-content-marketing-kpis/
2) http://hub.uberflip.com/h/i/6608653-content-marketing-roi-what-doers-and-the-c-suite-need-
to-know