Content Marketing KPIs: If You Can’t Measure It, Don’t Do It

Written by Lidia Vijga, co-founder at DeckLinks

In B2B marketing, content doesn’t just inform – it transforms. Where every blog post, every email, every tweet isn’t just a drop in the digital ocean, but a powerful wave that carries your audience straight to your doorstep.

In a landscape where B2B companies typically spend $200 per lead, the right content strategy isn’t just nice to have – it’s an absolute necessity.

Over my decade in B2B marketing, I’ve seen how the right metrics can turn good content into great content, and great content into an unstoppable growth engine.

Let’s explore the world of Content Marketing KPIs together. By the end of this guide, you’ll be seeing your content – and your results – in a whole new light.

What Are Content Marketing KPIs?

Content marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the measurable values that reveal how effectively your content strategies are achieving desired outcomes. Think of them as the scorecards for your content marketing efforts. These KPIs help you assess the performance of various content types, including blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, and videos. With the right content marketing KPIs you can essentially refine your approach, improve your marketing strategy and better allocate your marketing budget.

Why Content Marketing KPIs Matter

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty, let’s talk about why we’re even bothering with KPIs in the first place.

Content marketing isn’t just about creating clever blog posts or pretty social media posts. It’s a strategic approach to attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. And like any good strategy, it needs to be measured and optimized.

KPIs or Key Performance Indicators help us understand what’s working (and what’s not), justify our content marketing budget to the higher-ups, make data-driven decisions for future content strategies, and align our content efforts with broader business goals.

I remember early in my career, I was so proud of a blog post series I had created. It was well-written, beautifully designed, and I was sure it would be a hit. But when my boss asked me about its impact on the bottom line, I was stumped. That was a wake-up call. From that day on, I vowed never to create content without a clear plan for measuring its success.

Now, let’s break down the key KPIs you should be tracking.

Types of Content Marketing KPIs to track

Content marketing KPIs can be broadly categorized into four main types: brand awareness, engagement, lead generation and sales, and retention. Each type measures a different aspect of your content marketing effectiveness.

1. Brand Awareness KPIs: These metrics gauge how visible and recognizable your brand is. They include metrics like social media mentions, press mentions, and branded search volume. High brand awareness means your content is successfully putting your brand on the map.
2. Engagement KPIs: Engagement metrics track how your audience interacts with your content. This includes likes, shares, comments, and click-through rates on social media, as well as on-site engagement metrics like average session duration and pages per session. High engagement indicates that your content resonates with your audience.
3. Lead Generation and Sales KPIs: These KPIs measure the effectiveness of your content in generating leads and driving sales. Key metrics include conversion rates, the number of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and the Lead-to-Customer rate. These metrics show how well your content is moving prospects through the sales funnel.
4. Retention KPIs: Retention metrics focus on keeping your existing customers engaged and loyal. Important KPIs here include customer retention rate, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), repeat purchase rate, and Net Promoter Score (NPS). High retention rates suggest that your content is valuable enough to keep customers coming back.

Traffic and Reach KPIs

These metrics give you a bird’s-eye view of how many people are actually seeing your content. When it comes to website traffic, you’ll want to keep an eye on total visits, unique visitors, page views, average time on page, and bounce rate. But don’t just focus on total numbers. Look at trends over time and how they correlate with your content publishing schedule.

High-quality backlinks and keyword rankings significantly influence a website’s visibility and credibility in the eyes of search engines.

Traffic sources are equally important. You should be tracking direct traffic, organic search, paid search, referral traffic, and social media traffic. Use Google Analytics to see the complete picture of how users discover your content.

Google Analytics (GA4) is a powerful tool for tracking website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. It provides valuable insights into the performance of your content marketing campaigns, helping you understand what’s working and what’s not.

Top KPIs to Track Website Traffic with Google Analytics

This table provides an overview of the key metrics marketers should monitor to get a comprehensive view of their website traffic and its sources.

The quality of content on web pages can significantly influence user engagement and bounce rates, which in turn impacts overall marketing strategies.

Additional Notes:

• Look at trends over time for all metrics
• Correlate metrics with content publishing schedule
• Don’t focus solely on total numbers
• Consider the quality of traffic from different sources

Don’t forget to look at the split between mobile and desktop traffic. Pay attention to the percentage of mobile visitors and how your mobile conversion rate compares to desktop.

I once designed an entire content campaign without considering mobile users. Let’s just say the results were… less than stellar. Learn from my mistakes!

Social Media Metrics and Engagement KPIs

While traffic is valuable, social media engagement reveals the true impact of your content. These metrics provide valuable insights into how your target audience interacts and show how deeply your audience connects with what you share.

1. Social Media Engagement: This includes likes, shares, reposts, comments, and other interactions. High engagement rates indicate that your content is resonating with your audience and encouraging them to interact with it.
2. Reach and Impressions: Reach measures the number of unique users who see your content, while impressions count the total number of times your content is displayed. These metrics help you understand the breadth of your content’s exposure.
3. Click-Through Rates (CTR): CTR measures the percentage of people who click on links within your content. A high CTR indicates that your content is compelling enough to drive users to take action.

Don’t forget about content-specific metrics. For videos, track view time. For podcasts, look at listen-through rates. If you’re creating infographics, monitor how often they’re shared.

Top KPIs to Track Engagement

Here’s a table summarizing the engagement KPIs by platform and content type, making it easy to see which metrics to track for each category.

Remember, high engagement doesn’t always mean positive engagement. Keep an eye on the sentiment behind those comments and shares!

Lead Generation KPIs

At the end of the day, most B2B content marketing efforts are about generating leads. Your conversion rate is key here. Look at your overall website conversion rate, but also drill down into landing page conversion rates and call-to-action (CTA) click-through rates.

Lead quality is just as important as quantity. Keep track of your Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and your Lead-to-Customer rate. And don’t forget about Cost Per Lead (CPL) – calculate this by dividing your total content marketing spend by the number of leads generated.

Conversion Rate Formula

The formula for calculating the conversion rate is straightforward:

So, if you had 1000 interactions, and 20 of them became new customers, your lead conversion rate is 2%.

For content-specific lead generation, track downloads of gated content, webinar sign-ups and attendance, and free trial or demo requests.

“Don’t count the people you reach; reach the people who count.”
– David Ogilvy

SEO KPIs

SEO drives our success at DeckLinks, consistently delivering high-quality leads that convert faster than those from other channels. To maximize your SEO performance, focus on creating high-quality and helpful content that your ideal customers don’t just find it—they bookmark it for future reference.

Make sure you connect your website to Google Console. This is where you can monitor your keyword rankings and everything else for free. Once connected, you’ll track everything that matters: keyword positions, page-specific organic traffic, and the exact search terms visitors use to discover your existing content in Google. Here is a screenshot from one of my friends who took my SEO Bootcamp.

Your backlink profile is crucial too. Monitor your total number of backlinks, domain authority, and referring domains. And don’t neglect technical SEO – page load speed, mobile-friendliness score, and core web vitals all play a role in your search performance.

Top KPIs to Track SEO Initiatives

Here’s a table with the key metrics you can track in Google Search Console:

This table covers the main categories and metrics available in Google Search Console. Keep in mind that Google may update or change these metrics over time, so it’s always good to check the latest documentation for the most up-to-date information.

Revenue and ROI KPIs

Alright, let’s talk money. In this section we will go over the most important content Marketing KPIs.

Content Marketing ROI Formula

ROI (Return on Investment) cuts through the complexity of content marketing metrics to answer one simple question: how many dollars do you get back for every dollar spent?

ROI is calculated by subtracting the initial marketing cost from from the revenue attributed to content marketing, then dividing this new number by your content marketing cost and then multiple by 100.

So, if revenue is $1,000 and the content marketing campaign cost is $200, then the ROI is 400%, meaning for every dollar spent on marketing, you earned $4 in profit.

Calculation:

1. Revenue – Cost = $1,000 – $200 = $800 (This is the profit)
2. $800 / $200 = 4
3. 4 × 100% = 400%

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is another important content marketing metric. CLV reveals the total revenue you can expect from a single customer across your entire relationship. Calculate it by multiplying your average purchase value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan.

For example, if a customer spends $100 per purchase, buys quarterly (4 times per year), and stays with your business for 3 years, their CLV is $1,200 ($100 × 4 × 3).

This powerful metric helps you decide how much to invest in customer acquisition and retention.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) in content marketing measures the total investment required to acquire each new customer through your content efforts. Calculate it by dividing your total content marketing expenses (including content creation, distribution, team salaries, and tools) by the number of customers acquired through content channels during the same period.

Here’s a practical example. Say your quarterly content marketing expenses include:

• Content writer salaries: $20,000
• Freelance specialists: $5,000
• SEO tools: $1,500
• Content distribution costs: $3,500
• Content management system: $1,000 Total: $31,000

If this content strategy brought in 50 new customers in that quarter, your content marketing CAC would be:

$31,000 ÷ 50 = $620 per customer

Revenue attribution can get complex, but it’s worth understanding. Look at first-touch attribution, last-touch attribution, and if possible, implement multi-touch attribution to get a fuller picture of your content’s impact on the buyer’s journey.

Brand Awareness and Thought Leadership KPIs

These might be a bit fuzzier, but they’re super important for long-term B2B success. Track your brand mention volume across social media, press mentions, and industry report citations. Calculate your share of voice by dividing your brand mentions by the total mentions in your industry.

It’s super important to use various metrics to track brand awareness and align them with business goals for continuous improvement in your marketing efforts.

Keep an eye on your branded search volume – the number of searches for your brand name or products. For thought leadership, track metrics like speaking engagement invitations, guest post opportunities, and industry award nominations.

These content marketing KPIs might seem “soft,” but they can have a huge impact on your sales cycle and customer trust, positioning your brand as an industry authority.

Customer Retention and Loyalty KPIs

Don’t forget about your existing customers! Content can play a big role in keeping them happy and coming back for more.

Customer Retention Rate

The customer retention rate measures the percentage of existing customers who remain loyal during a specific time period. Calculate it using this formula:

Let’s say your business:

• Started January with 500 customers
• Ended January with 480 customers
• Acquired 30 new customers in January

Calculation:

1. 480 (end customers) – 30 (new customers) = 450 remaining original customers
2. 450 ÷ 500 (starting customers) = 0.90
3. 0.90 × 100 = 90% retention rate

Calculate your customer retention rate by subtracting new customers acquired from customers at the end of a period, then dividing by customers at the start of the period.

NPS and CSAT

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) are valuable metrics for gauging customer loyalty. For content-specific retention metrics, look at your email newsletter retention rate, customer portal engagement, and usage of educational content by existing customers.

I once worked with a SaaS company that was so focused on acquiring new customers that they completely neglected their existing ones. First, we brought their entire content marketing in-house, and shifted some of our content efforts towards customer education and retention. As a result, we saw our churn rate drop by 15% in just three months.

Content Production and Efficiency KPIs

These metrics help you understand the efficiency of your content creation process. Track your content production rate – how many pieces of content are you producing per week or month? Look at your time to publish – the average time from content ideation to publication.

Content team productivity is another important metric. Divide your total content output by the number of team members. And don’t forget about content repurposing efficiency – how many new content pieces can you create from a single core piece?

Advanced Content Marketing KPIs

To gain deeper insights into your content’s performance and make more informed strategic decisions, I recommend implementing these advanced metrics.

Content Decay Analysis

Over time, all content naturally loses its effectiveness as industry trends evolve and competitors publish newer material. This “content decay” manifests as declining search visibility and reduced organic traffic to your pages. Like a digital expiration date, even the most successful content gradually becomes less relevant to your audience unless regularly updated.

Monitor how your content’s performance diminishes over time by tracking key metrics like page views, engagement rates, and search rankings on a monthly or quarterly basis. This analysis helps identify when content needs updating or refreshing. For instance, if a blog post’s organic traffic drops by 30% over three months, it may be time for a content refresh.

Content Gap Analysis

Content gap analysis examines what’s missing from your website by comparing your existing content against what you ideally should have. This process helps identify opportunities to enhance your content strategy by spotting areas that need development or improvement. Once these gaps are discovered, you can create a plan to fill them with relevant content.

Regularly evaluate your content landscape to uncover untapped opportunities:

AI-Powered Lead Scoring

For content marketers with ambitious goals, consider implementing predictive lead scoring powered by AI and machine learning. This sophisticated approach analyzes historical data patterns to automatically identify and rank leads based on their likelihood to convert.

Advanced Content Attribution

You can also develop a comprehensive attribution model to understand your content’s true impact:

Remember to establish baseline measurements before implementing new tracking methods and regularly review your metrics to identify trends and opportunities for optimization.

Data Visualization Tools for Illustrating Content Performance

I’m currently exploring a few data visualization tools to illustrate content performance to my team, so I think I should mention about them here.

Essentially, these tools transform complex data into easily digestible visuals, making it simpler to identify trends and make informed decisions about your content marketing strategy.

Google Data Studio and Tableau are great options, as they both integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, providing a comprehensive view of your content marketing performance.

Content Marketing KPI Pitfalls

Even with all this knowledge, it’s easy to stumble when it comes to KPIs. Watch out for the vanity metrics trap – don’t get too caught up in metrics that look good but don’t drive real business results. Avoid analysis paralysis by focusing on what truly matters rather than getting lost in a sea of data.

Always consider the context of your metrics – external factors can have a big impact on your numbers. Make sure your content KPIs are directly tied to overarching company objectives. And perhaps most importantly, don’t let data overshadow the importance of creating genuinely helpful, human-centric content.

Common content marketing KPI pitfalls and how to avoid them:

The Future of Content Marketing KPIs

How will we measure the success of content in a world where traditional website visits might become less relevant? What does the future hold for content marketing KPIs?

Expect to see more sophisticated predictive analytics and automated insights powered by AI and machine learning. As voice-activated devices become more prevalent, we’ll need new ways to measure this type of engagement.

New content formats like augmented and virtual reality will require new measurement techniques. And with increasing privacy regulations, we’ll need to find ethical ways to measure performance while respecting user data.

Embracing KPIs for All of Your Content Marketing Efforts

Whew! We’ve covered a lot of ground, haven’t we? From basic traffic metrics to advanced attribution models, we’ve explored the the entire landscape of content marketing KPIs. But all of this isn’t about becoming a data scientist or getting lost in spreadsheets. It’s about understanding your audience, improving your content, and ultimately, growing your business.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen companies of all sizes struggle with measuring their content marketing efforts. But the ones who succeed? They’re the ones who embrace the process, stay curious, and never stop learning.

If you don’t know where to start, start small – you don’t need to track every metric under the sun from day one. Be consistent with your measurement and reporting to spot trends and make incremental improvements. Stay flexible and adjust your KPIs as your content strategy evolves.

But what if the most important KPI isn’t something we can measure, but the lasting impact we have on our audience’s lives and businesses?

Don’t forget those qualitative aspects – sometimes, a heartfelt customer testimonial can be just as valuable as a spreadsheet full of numbers. And above all, keep the human touch. At the end of the day, we’re creating content for people, not algorithms.

And hey, if you ever want to geek out about KPIs or share your own content marketing wins (or epic fails – we’ve all been there!), don’t hesitate to reach out.

Lidia Vijga

Lidia Vijga is a co-founder of DeckLinks, a SaaS platform that supercharges PDFs with Video narrations, CTAs, and real-time Analytics. Lidia is an early tech adopter, and as a passionate tech enthusiast, she actively supports startups. She regularly shares her insights and experiences on LinkedIn, webinars, and speaking engagements. Lidia is committed to empowering client-facing teams with tools that augment their talent, rather than replacing it with automation. She firmly believes that companies grow faster when they showcase their human side.