Skip to main content
Solutions Customers Talent Industries Plans Resources Get Started Login 1 (866) 501-3116

Solutions

Solutions
SaaS E-commerce ABM
Workflow
Content Strategy & Ideation Content Creation & Workflow Publishing & Promotion Performance & Optimization
Products Blog Posts Web Pages Product Descriptions Content Tune Ups Ebooks Whitepapers
Technology SmartMatch Headline Ideas Recommended Content Scripted Analytics

Customers

Enterprise
Agencies
Media
SMBs

Talent

Find Writers
Join Talent Network
Job Board
Writer FAQs

Resources

Blog
Glossary

Industries

Agriculture Art & Design Automotive Building Materials Cannabis Career Construction Counseling Customer Service Dental Education Energy & Environment Engineering
Fashion & Beauty Family Practice Food & Beverage Gaming Health & Wellness Healthcare Higher Education Home & Garden Human Resources Injury Law Interior Design IT & Security
Insurance Legal Manufacturing Media & Entertainment Medical Law Nutrition Parenting Payments Personal Finance Real Estate Relationships
Retail & Ecommerce Religion & Spirituality Restaurant and Bar SaaS Sales Senior Services Software Sports & Fitness Technology Transportation & Logistics Travel
x Close Menu Solutions
Solutions
SaaS E-commerce ABM
Workflow
Content Strategy & Ideation Content Creation & Workflow Publishing & Promotion Performance & Optimization Products Blog Posts Web Pages Product Descriptions Content Tune Ups Ebooks Whitepapers Technology SmartMatch Headline Ideas Recommended Content Scripted Analytics
Customers
SMBs Agencies Enterprise Media
Talent
Find Writers Join Talent Network Job Board Writer FAQs
Industries
Agriculture Art & Design Automotive Building Materials Dental Gaming Fashion & Beauty Family Practice Cannabis Career Construction Counseling Customer Service Injury Law Interior Design IT & Security Retail & Ecommerce Education Energy & Environment Food & Beverage Personal Finance Healthcare Health & Wellness Higher Education Home & Garden Human Resources Transportation & Logistics Insurance Legal Manufacturing Media & Entertainment Medical Law Nutrition Parenting Payments Real Estate Religion & Spirituality Restaurant and Bar SaaS Sales Senior Services Software Sports & Fitness Technology Travel Relationships Engineering
Plans Resources
Blog Glossary
Get Started Login 1 (866) 501-3116
  1. Blog Home
  2. Blogs
  3. Scripted Writers
  4. How 5 Influencers Measure Content Marketing Success

How 5 Influencers Measure Content Marketing Success

How 5 Influencers Measure Content Marketing Success

Measuring content marketing ROI can be tough. Five influencers, including Joe Pulizzi and Lee Odden, tell us what's most important to them when they're looking at metrics.

Measuring the success of your content can be difficult -- any marketer knows the pain of trying to understand if the content is making an impact or not. In fact, according to Content Marketing Institute's 2015 benchmark report 49 percent of the marketers surveyed cited it as one of their top challenges.

Why is measuring content ROI so hard to do though? For one reason, it could be due to all the options we have to actually measure its success. It's not as simple as taking a look at one set of metrics and observing if it's increasing or decreasing. There is a lot to look at and they're not all indicative of the same trend or result. In the same CMI survey, marketers said these were the metrics that were most important to them:

My theory is that it truly varies from each company and their business goals for their content marketing strategy. It's helpful to see how other marketers are measuring content ROI though; there's always something to be learned. This is why I always ask the question -- "How do you measure the success of your content?" -- in an interview. Here is what some of the most influential people in the space have to say.

Joe Pulizzi

Name: Joe Pulizzi

Title: Founder

Organization: Content Marketing Institute

We have a number of objectives and KPIs that we look at, but our most important metric is the email subscriber. The goal of our blog is to get and keep a subscriber. That means we want current subscribers to stay loyal and new readers to become subscribers. Once someone is a subscriber, we work to get them involved in other types of content we offer (like podcasts, the magazine, etc.). We've found that if our readers consistently engage in three or more content types that we offer, they are much more likely to come to our event -- Content Marketing World -- where we derive most of our funds to support our training, research, and other offerings.

See also: Advice From CMI's Joe Pulizzi

Lee Odden

Name: Lee Odden

Title: CEO

Organization: TopRank Marketing Online

It depends on why a marketer is creating the content, but all content should be accountable to how it's going to pull in an audience, the topics covered and media formats it's published in, and the calls to action. At TopRank we use a model of Attract, Engage and Convert to make sure the content we're creating is accountable.

Attract measures referring to traffic sources and where the audience discovers this kind of information. Engage is anything to do with the consumption of that content. How many people are looking and for how long? Are they interacting with the content? Are they making comments or socially sharing? Convert, of course, is really anything dealing with information capture through a form -- a subscription, a trial, an inquiry, or a sale.

Christian Rudder

Name: Christian Rudder

Title: Co-founder

Organization: OKCupid

Very few people signed up directly from the blog. It was much more like a billboard and it just made people think because online dating isn't relevant all the time for everyone. If you're married or you're dating somebody, you don't need it.

If you read the blog post while you're dating someone and you get dumped, and you're like, "Oh, man. What should I do? Oh yeah, I remember reading that. I think I'll give it [online dating] a shot. I think that happened a lot, but very few direct line-ups.

Zach Kitschke

Name: Zach Kitschke

Title: Head of Communications

Organization: Canva

There are a number of metrics that matter to us: how many new users we have each week, the number of designs created, and the number of designs published. We want to create content that's valuable. If someone gets an email from us or spends five minutes of their time reading a blog post we want to make sure they'll take away something that they can apply themselves.

Dayna Rothman

Name: Dayna Rothman

Title: Senior Content Marketer

Organization: Marketo

Content measurement can be tough, but marketers should look at page traffic, downloads, leads generated, social engagement/reach, and first-touch attribution.

30 Day Trial CTA Blue.png


Published by Scripted Writers on Monday, May 18, 2015 in Blogs, Business, Blogs, Business.

Sign Up For Your 30 Day Free Trial Today!

You agree to Scripted’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Already have an account? Login
©2011-2023
Our Company
About Us Privacy Terms of Use GDPR Trust
For Members
Enterprise Agencies Publishers Customer FAQs Newsletter Customer Sign In
For Writers
Writer Services Agreement Writer FAQs Writer Sign In
Additional Resources
The Scripted Blog Industries Podcast Technology Affiliates Competitors AI Content Writing
Social Buttons