Many businesses create endless blog posts and social content. Then they track page views and social shares religiously. But when leadership asks for proof of real value, the marketing team usually can’t show the actual returns.
At www.mattersolutions.com, we help businesses gain a real perspective on what they get from content marketing. We do it by using data-driven approaches that improve our clients’ content decisions.
Today, we’ll cover how to set up proper measurement systems and identify vital metrics for your revenue. You’ll also learn about a simple formula to calculate your actual content marketing returns.
Read on to learn how to cut through the noise and focus on tracking the things that take your business forward.
Setting Up Content Performance Measurement
Content performance measurement means tracking how your content actually helps your company grow instead of just counting page views. All you need are clear goals plus the right tools to capture this useful data.
Sadly, we’ve seen many people skip this step. If you do it too, trust us, you’ll waste months chasing meaningless numbers with no improvement in your performance. Why? It’s because you can’t improve what you don’t measure.
Let’s set up your measurement system the proper way.
Defining Your Business and Lead Generation Goals
Your content needs a purpose beyond just pulling in traffic. After all, traffic doesn’t pay the bills. This is the reason behind successful businesses setting goals that tie directly to revenue, such as quote requests, demo bookings, or phone calls.
Consider a plumbing company that might target 15 new service calls per month from its blog content. That’s specific and measurable.
Also, you probably didn’t know this, but content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional ads while costing 62% less (no, that’s not a typo). But you only see those results if you measure the right things.
That’s why you should always set specific numbers as goals with your deadlines. Like, instead of saying “we need more leads,” write “we’re aiming for 25% more qualified leads from content this quarter.”
The Right Tools for Gathering Marketing Data
Google Analytics (GA4) and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system give you all the insights you need to measure content performance without drowning in extra tools. GA4 shows how people behave on your site, while your CRM tracks what happens after they leave. Together, they connect the dots from first click to final sale.
Let’s talk more about GA4 first. This tool reveals which content pieces drive engaged visitors. Not only that, but you can also track your visitors’ time on the page, form submissions, and how people move through your website. That data tells you a lot about your content’s performance.
What do CRMs do, then? Well, they record the important stuff like phone calls, emails, and meetings that turn into sales. Popular CRM options include HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive.
In essence, both tools work well together and show the real numbers behind your content’s performance.
Pro-Tip: Always connect your analytics and CRM. If they don’t talk to each other, you’ll miss the full story.
Essential Marketing Metrics to Track
Seriously, you need Return on Investment (ROI) data to tell you if your content marketing has been profitable. And marketing metrics that’ll help you gather this information include engagement rates, email performance, conversion tracking, and customer acquisition costs.
Each of them highlights a different stage of the customer journey, so you can see where things work and where they fail.
We’ll now break down those metrics below.
Analyzing Engagement Metrics and Bounce Rate
These two marketing metrics show how well your content grabs visitor attention. Bounce rate counts people who leave after viewing just one page, while engagement rate tracks meaningful interactions like clicks and form fills.
Here’s what those data tell you:
- Time on Page: This metric reveals if people truly read your content instead of leaving immediately. For example, a 15 minute article with 2 minute average time spent signals weak content that fails to hold attention.
- New vs. Returning Users: Healthy businesses typically see 70% new and 30% returning users in their analytics. This balance indicates your content attracts fresh visitors as well as builds loyal audiences over time.
- Low Bounce Rate: If you maintain a good offset between visitor expectations and page content, it’ll keep your bounce rates manageable. In general, blog bounce rates average 70-80%, but landing pages should stay below 40% for better performance.
Measuring Email Marketing Effectiveness
So what do email metrics do? Well, they reveal how well you convert your anonymous website visitors into subscribers. Surprisingly, email marketing delivers an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. Isn’t it incredibly profitable?
These two email metrics are most important for you to track:
- Subscriber Growth Rate: It tells you how quickly your email list is expanding. A steady 5% monthly increase stands out since most industries only see 2-3%. Strong growth like this means your content does a good job convincing visitors to sign up and stay connected.
- Email Click-Through Rate: When your email click-through rate goes above 3%, it usually means people are engaged and your message connects. In that case, the metric shows your emails are driving actions like site visits or phone calls.
Tracking the Conversions That Impact Revenue
Whenever you look at conversion metrics, you’re tracking the actions that create sales leads. These events directly fill your sales pipeline and determine content ROI.
What even is content ROI, though? This is the return you get from the time and money you spend on your content. In other words, content ROI shows whether your blogs, videos, or social posts bring in enough value to justify your effort on content.
You should focus on tracking these important conversions for content ROI:
- Goal Completions: Set up separate goals for contact forms, demo requests, and phone calls in your analytics. Doing so will record valuable website actions and help you find out which content formats drive specific customer behaviors effectively.
- Lead to Customer Rate: Industry averages of this metric range from 2% to 5% depending on your business model and sales process. This percentage reveals how many leads actually become paying customers.
Don’t Forget Customer Acquisition Cost
Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, tells you the exact amount you spend to bring in each new customer. It sets the baseline for profit by showing if your content helps generate revenue or ends up draining your budget.
You can calculate your CAC this way: add all sales and marketing expenses, then divide the figure by the number of new customers you’ve gained in that period. A healthy CAC runs roughly three times lower than your customer lifetime value to ensure sustainable, profitable growth.
For example, if you spend $9,000 on sales and marketing in a month and gain 30 new customers, your CAC is $300. If each customer brings in about $900 over their lifetime, your CAC is in a healthy range.
A Direct Model for Your Content Marketing ROI
In the previous section, we focused on what you should track to measure your content marketing ROI. Now we’ll show you how to use that data to produce a clear financial ROI figure and use it to make effective business decisions.
Keep reading to find out about an interesting model for your campaign.
Attribution Models for a Marketing Campaign
Attribution means giving credit to the content that drives a conversion. The easiest way to do this is with a ‘last touch’ model. In this approach, the final piece of content someone engages with before converting gets the credit for that lead.
Last touch attribution makes sense for many small businesses because it’s easy to track and explain. Like, suppose someone reads your blog with HVAC maintenance tips and then calls you for service. In that case, the blog gets all the credit for the lead.
Of course, there are more advanced models, but they need complex tracking tools. Most businesses don’t need that. It’s better to start with something simple and only add layers later if you really need them (simple math > endless reports, any day!).
Now, attribution shows you which content brought in the lead. The next step is turning that insight into real numbers by finding the actual value of each lead. We’ll get into that now.
Assigning a Monetary Value to Leads
You can figure out how much a lead is worth with a simple formula. All you do is take your average customer lifetime value and multiply it by your lead-to-customer conversion rate.
For instance, imagine your customers spend about $2,000 with you over time. If 20% of your leads turn into paying customers, then each lead is worth $400. Pretty simple, right?
This is where it gets interesting. Lifetime value counts every purchase your customer makes, not just the first one. Think of a heating company. They might earn $500 from a repair job today, but that same customer could spend $5,000 on future maintenance and new equipment over the years. That’s a huge difference.
That’s why it’s essential to track your conversion rate carefully. Industry averages usually land between 2% and 5%. Still, your actual rate depends on your sales process and how qualified your leads are.
Pro-Tip: Revisit your lead value at least once a year. Customer habits, pricing, and even your sales cycle can change. So if you keep using old numbers, your ROI math won’t reflect reality.
The Final Return on Investment (ROI) Formula
Once you know the value of each lead, you can calculate your return on investment (ROI). The formula is simple:
{(Return – Investment) / Investment} * 100
Here’s an example. Say you spend $1,000 on a blog campaign. It brings in 5 leads, each worth $400. And your return is $2,000. Plug it into the formula:
{(2000 – 1000) / 1000} * 100 = 100% ROI.
In plain terms, you doubled your money. Many marketers use 500% ROI as the “gold standard.” That means for every $1 you’ve spent, you want $5 back in lead value. That’s it!
Start Measuring What Drives Real Business Growth
We’ve seen people get frustrated trying to figure out their content marketing ROI. Honestly, it doesn’t need to be that hard. You only have to set clear goals, track metrics that connect to revenue, and use a simple formula to prove returns.
In this guide, we’ve discussed how to set up your content performance measurement systems. You’ve also learned about vital metrics and how to calculate your actual content ROI.
If you’re ready to move from assumptions to data-driven decisions for your content marketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Matter Solutions. Our specialists will help you build content strategies that generate qualified leads and measurable returns.
