Content marketing fuses art and business, a herculean task. But its impact is still measured against old standards. It’s not a plateau— it’s neglect.
Day in and day out, content marketing teams— the writers, designers, strategists, and managers sit down together and create.
These are curated experiences designed to evoke an emotional response in the audience and inspire them to take action. However, this endeavor is nothing short of exhausting. That’s why marketing folks are addicted to caffeine— we need that boost to survive and thrive.
But content marketing is not easy. Who can guess what a human being wants to see and experience? The constant consumption culture makes it difficult for any guesswork.
Bandwagons and trends make it easier for brands to capitalize on content, but that fades away once the trend dies. Brands, especially the ones that thrive on content marketing, cannot afford to make such flippant decisions.
They need to be original enough to stand out and measure the impact a creative has had on their goals and objectives. And this is the trickiest of all plays in marketing: understanding the effect.
But lucky enough, teams can track Content marketing KPIs to understand if these goals are being met. But unfortunately, most content marketing KPIs are fragmented.
KPIs in content marketing are vital. But why are they so rigid?
Before we dive into the heat of the battle, let’s take an overview to understand the basics.
What are content marketing KPIs?
Content marketing KPIs in content marketing are metrics or milestones that provide a clear and tangible way of measuring impact.
Usually, in the context of content marketing, these KPIs are: –
- Brand awareness
- Click-through rates
- Open rates
- Bounce Rate
- Dwell time/Scroll time
- SEO ranking
- Impressions
- ROAS
- ROI (lead gen)
- Engagement (Likes, Clicks, Shares, Comments, and your subscribers)
Well, you may think this is such a comprehensive list. And by no doubt, it is exhaustive and has depth. But it lacks something crucial— there is a missing piece that hasn’t yet connected and makes this list of KPIs close to irrelevant.
The Rigid Structure
While these Content marketing KPIs are effective on paper- they are often rigid and don’t paint the whole picture. Think of it this way, it’s like watching a 3-D movie without the glasses— you know you’re watching a cohesive whole, but it’s still not the exact picture.
These metrics, while terrific at what they do, are incomplete without their 3-D glasses. Without them, these KPIs are rigid, regulatory, and messy.
They become the end rather than a means to the larger objective.
But ask yourself
- When has a creative moved you?
- Did it always make you click on it?
- Did you see it on the internet? Or maybe it was an OOH?
- Did you revisit it?
These questions, by virtue of the KPIs’ rigidity, are always left unanswered, and the main point is lost in the noise of data.
And yet here we are, talking about the KPIs and what they’re missing without addressing it.
The answer is quite simple, really.
What the KPIs lack is their relation to the market. While that is a simple answer, it is nothing short of revelatory.
The KPIs are devoid of the market they are serving and bear almost no relation to it.
They miss the main KPI: market share.
None of the metrics and indicators describe if you’re influencing behaviors in your favor or looking at data that is wildly disconnected from each other.
Let’s take a simple example, imagine you were running email campaigns. The open rates and clicks were impressive across the board.
But in the European region, you find the CTR is way too high- 100%. Anyone running an email marketing campaign knows that 100% is a bit fishy, and this excludes Apple MPP opens.
At first, the excitement of this successful campaigns must be palatable. But, after the third sequence, you realize that these European opens are dubious— maybe not all of them, but for sure most of them.
The solution is to have conversations rather than drive opens and CTRs.
The response to it will be wildly different— change the copy to reflect your commitment to understanding their problem rather than just solving it. The result? Organic inquires to solve very market-specific queries. (Based on an actual email campaign)
This is what we mean when we say that KPIs don’t reflect market share.
Because they lack the dimensions to uncover your market’s needs. There’s a reason why tech tools track these KPIs. But overreliance on them is why your campaigns are disconnected.
Let’s get something out of the way. All the metrics the industry is using right now aren’t useless. But the habit of looking at it in isolation has lessened its impact.
These metrics have disconnected the campaigns. And, of course, they provide indicators and help marketers make sense of uncertainty.
But, if the pandemic has taught everyone something, it is that uncertainty will plague market conditions, and no amount of KPIs can reflect that.
Or wait, can it? Is there any content marketing KPI out there that can make sense of uncertainty?
Spoilers: There is, and your teams use it quite often. Actually, everyone uses this KPI on a daily basis.
It’s called a conversation.
All these metrics that the tech tools use are to measure conversations in their various forms.
Why do tech stacks track these metrics?
Google Analytics is one of the best marketing tools ever created. The molecular approach it takes is unparalleled.
And that’s not where it stops; anyone proficient with GA will tell you they don’t know enough about it. There’s always more to explore and do.
But they’ll also tell you that the tool is limited. It will give you a full-funnel view of your audience, but it will never tell you the why— that’s something for you to uncover.
So why do these KPIs and metrics exist in the first place?
Because they make tracking the customer easy and are mathematically sound, they fit into relational databases and give you tangibility in lieu of ambiguity. They give you metrics that you can show in meetings with the CFO and CEO.
Now, let’s get into the meat of things.
If you’re paying attention, the content marketing KPIs are right there for your taking.
Creative work is difficult, especially when you want it to hit specific beats and drive campaign-specific goals.
So why shouldn’t the KPIs reflect that? We’ve uncovered two crucial ones that influence each other:
- Market Share
- Conversations
Though this is not a rule of thumb, market share is proportional to the conversations your prospects are having about you. Anyone buying from you is going to talk to people in the market.
There are going to be many more Content marketing KPIs, especially those that are specific to the campaign goal. The questions are: How do we find and track them?
The Content-Marketing KPI Framework
In 1984, Apple released the infamous ad for the Macintosh. It aired in the Super Bowl and never again did it air.
But it was such a historic marketing piece, directed by Ridley Scott, no less. People were abuzz with conversations— it made Apple a global face if it hadn’t been before.
And the end result? The Macintosh was a commercial failure, and Steve Jobs quit (fired?) Apple.
In this case, the content did everything right. It ran conversations and got millions in free press. But that did not translate to market share. What did Jobs miss?
This visionary of art and technology did not see one thing: the product.
It was too expensive for the market and, while revolutionary, underperformed for the cost it was going for. Well, it’s easy to pass judgment in hindsight and dissect his decisions— but it’s difficult to learn from them.
And that’s why it’s necessary. As you can see, each industry has unique content-marketing KPIs, and you can uncover them, hopefully, to drive actual value— not just buzz.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Can your actual problems be solved by the preset KPIs, and are they meeting your needs for the campaign you’re running?
- What specific action do you want your buyers to take at this moment? And what can you do to make that happen?
- In terms of tangibility, what do your industry and its buyers find valuable? What is the way to leverage this in your content?
- What conversations have your pieces generated, or have they gone unnoticed?
- What is the common point that comes up on your sales calls? Does your content meet it?
- What are you saying through the creative, and does it relate to the market? In simpler terms, what is the purpose of the creative piece?
- What gaps has your research identified, and has your audience caught up to it? — This one comes directly from Paul Graham’s essay on great work.
Here’s a codified version: The Market-Conscious Content Framework (MCCF)
Where impact = Creative Resonance × Market Alignment
And KPIs are derived from:
- Observed Conversations (qualitative)
- Market Movement (quantitative, e.g., share of voice, market share)
- Strategic Fit (how well the content hits market truths).
It matters more if your buyers are actually talking about you. Not just visiting your digital footprint and forgetting you exist.
The KPIs you’re tracking are by no means wrong or bad— they are there for a reason. But understand that this is to track your audience, not understand them.
As long as the industry continues with this trend of not evolving with buyer sentimentalities, it’s going to be crushed and downsized.
Marketing is a science and an art, yes? Then, it would be a crime to stop interrogating and looking for better ways to do things.
And as people in charge of the art that drives value and sales, content marketing KPIs should reflect that— not get bogged down by it.
