An Inside Look into Measuring Content
Over the course of the last few years we have seen our clients ask for content marketing more and more often. The two most common questions we hear from clients around content marketing are: A) how can we produce more relevant and actionable content and B) how can we measure that content? To answer the first question, I’ll defer to this post by our SVP and leader of Eastwick’s Digital Brand Lab, Sahana Jayaraman.
As for the second question, well, I’m going to give you an insider’s look at how Eastwick measures our own content. This is the beginning of a series of blog posts on how to measure content marketing. Today I will show you how to start measuring content on a website, as it is often the hub of digital content and communication.
In the Analytics and Insight department, we like to say that you can measure everything in digital marketing, but that you shouldn’t. If you just look at the front page of Google Analytics, you can get lost in it for days. So first thing to do is: make sure that you have an idea of what you want to measure. Take the time to look at your business objectives and create SMART goals for your content marketing program. Without SMART goals you will spin your wheels just trying to decipher what everything means.
1. Unique Monthly Visitors
Unique Monthly Visitors (UMV) is the first metric any marketer should know. This is a pure awareness metric and is meant to answer the question: “How many distinct individuals came to my website?” Often, organizations focus on UMVs over all other metrics. However, just like with Share of Voice, UMV is a useful, but high-level metric. It doesn’t tell you what happened to those users; if they liked your content; if they hated it; or if they converted to leads. This metric is the baseline for everything else that comes next.
2. New vs. Returning Users
Google Analytics allows you to break down UMV into new and returning users. These measures show “How many people had seen my website before vs. coming for the first time.” As you can see from our website data, most of our visitors are new users. This makes sense for Eastwick as we are currently promoting awareness, and because we direct our returning users to our Medium pages.
This may not be the case for you. Depending upon your SMART goals, you may want to increase your new users for awareness or increase your returning users for lead generation.
So why does this metric matter for content marketing? Well, if you’re aiming to increase your returning users, certain content is going to be better at retaining them. The same goes if you’re trying to increase new users. Different content is going to work at different points of user acquisition, and the customer journey. With new vs. returning users you can see page level data to understand what content is working to retain users, and what content attracts new users. You can then create new content that is similar to that which worked for your target audience.
3. Bounce Rate and Exit Rate
Bounce rate and exit rate are two of my favorite metrics for content. Here’s the difference between the two: bounce rate means that someone came to a specific page of your site and then immediately left. For example, they landed on our homepage, found nothing useful, and left without looking at anything else. Exit rate, on the other hand, are people who have seen two or more pages and then left. For example, a user lands on our homepage, is interested by who Eastwick works with, and moves on to our “work” page. They then don’t find anything interesting and leave. Leaving from Eastwick’s “work” page is considered an “exit” and not a “bounce” because the user saw two pages, not one.
Why should content marketing care about Bounce or Exit Rates?
If a page has a high bounce rate, then it is likely that users are not finding it useful. This could be because you are directing them there with click bait, your site isn’t easy to navigate, or the content is off for your audience. High bounce rates are your first warning sign to change content on a particular page. For example, if you’re directing users to a “how to” blog post, but there aren’t any actionable steps, it’s probably time to change your content. On the other hand, if you’re directing users to a page and there is a very low bounce rate, it can often mean they like your content, and that you should start to create content that is similar.
Also, if a page has a high exit rate, it is probable that your content is not working. However, this time, users are not landing on a specific page, rather they are already on your site and have clicked on a page. If they exit in high numbers from that page, it’s probably time to change the content. If they have an especially low exit rate, it’s probably time to make more content like that. The one difference with exit rate is that some pages are planned exits, and you would expect to see a high exit rate from them. For example, a thank you page which is displayed after a user has made a purchase. So exits aren’t always bad. What you need to be careful of is a page that isn’t a planned exit and has a high exit rate.
4. Time on Site
Finally, time on site is a crucial content metric. How much time a user is on your site as a whole, and how much time they spend on a specific page is a great indication of how engaging they find your content. The more time a user spends reading content, the more engaged they are. When you see a page with a higher than average time on site, it would be good to think about ways to emulate that content. If there’s a page that has an extremely low time on site, it is often because it is not as useful to your users. The one caveat with this is that some content is short — a 30 second read perhaps — and some content is written to be read for longer amounts of time. Make sure that you know how long it should take a user to read each page of your site, and then compare to see if it’s taking them less or more time to read that content.
With so many metrics, it can get confusing to understand how to measure success. These four metrics will help you start measuring your owned website content, but there is much more to come. As long as you have set goals and measure over time, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a master of measurement. And if you want help sorting through your content, email us at DBL@Eastwick.com for more information on our Content Health Check.
