{"id":2097,"date":"2011-03-21T12:49:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T19:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dlvr.it\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2026-04-13T12:49:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:49:43","slug":"three-simple-measure-to-content-marketing-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlvrit.com\/blog\/three-simple-measure-to-content-marketing-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Simple Measures to Content Marketing Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It may be hard to always know which metrics to track when it comes to content marketing success. You could spend hours in your web analytics tool trying to make sense of all the data. At <a title=\"Dlvr.it\" href=\"http:\/\/dlvr.it\">Dlvr.it <\/a>we believe a few simple metrics provide the biggest impact. And it is always best if you start out with a simple plan in mind, goals that you strive to meet.<\/p>\n<p>We boiled down Content Marketing success into three factors called your <strong>Engagement Score<\/strong>. These three metrics will help you determine if your content marketing program is successfully engaging your target audience:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Time spent on your site<\/li>\n<li>Number of pages each visitor consumes<\/li>\n<li>How many meaningful      interactions occur<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The <strong>Engagement Score<\/strong> is a benchmark that can easily be tracked and improved upon throughout your content marketing strategy.<\/p>\n<p>For example, the <strong>Engagement Score<\/strong> uses a scale of 1 to 5 to rank each metric for each piece of content, where one metric&#8217;s maximum number is 5. The higher the Engagement Score the better. This process assumes you are tagging each headline link and tracking it individually within your analytics system &#8211; if not, that is the first order of business (<a title=\"Dlvr.it measures ROI\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.dlvr.it\/2010\/06\/measure-your-social-media-roi-dlvr-it-integrates-google-analytics-and-omniture\/\">dlvr.it<\/a> appends each headline with a unique tracking code specific to your analytics service).<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to understand where your content ranks today (your benchmark), and create strategies to move towards a higher-rank (5) within each metric, or greater engagement.<\/p>\n<p>Start with a benchmark which is your current average and give each metric a one. You could even give more weight to a particular\u00a0activities that requires the most engagement for example an interaction (comment, sale, form fill) you might start with a score of 3.\u00a0For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Time spent on your site = 1<\/li>\n<li>Number of pages each visitor consumes = 1<\/li>\n<li>How many meaningful interactions occur = 3<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Total Engagement Score = 5<\/p>\n<p>Next, go through your last 10 content items and rank each article individually on each metric and see what content is most engaging. Compare each individual article off the average. Give a 5 to the article that generated the most pages per unique visitor for example. Start building from there. Ask yourself, why did content A have a higher rank versus all the others? Was the distribution different? What was the subject matter compared to the others?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why These Three Metrics Matter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Time Spent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A key measure of the value that the reader takes away from your content is how much time they spend on your site.\u00a0 Are you interesting enough that they will take the time to read through your content?\u00a0 A measure of the time spent on your site lets you know if your audience is interested in your message.<\/p>\n<p>In order to make this measure more meaningful, however, use it to find what makes your audience spend more or less time on your site. \u00a0Have a clear &#8216;next step&#8217; in mind. Think through the next action you want your visitor to make as if you were holding their hand through your site.<\/p>\n<p>If the time spent on your site increases or decreases after adding new content or changing the way things look, you will have some idea of what makes your site effective.\u00a0 Dumb luck does not help future plans.\u00a0 Track your changes and compare them to the time spent in order to make this metric mean something. Test, test, test.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number of Pages<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Along with time spent, the number of pages gives insight into the target audience experience on your site.\u00a0 Is it interesting enough to look at another page?\u00a0 Does the site automatically lead to further exploration?<\/p>\n<p>When you find that there are not enough third and fourth pages looked at, it is time to ensure that the content itself is compelling.\u00a0 <a title=\"Content Marketing Benchmarks\" href=\"http:\/\/www.contentmarketinginstitute.com\/2010\/09\/b2b-content-marketing\/\" target=\"_blank\">CMI\u2019s recent 2010 review of content marketing benchmarks<\/a> finds that the single largest concern among content marketers is the quality of the content.\u00a0 A lack of quality will show up when fewer readers go beyond the first or second page.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meaningful Interactions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here comes the bottom line.\u00a0 What do you want from those that came to your site?\u00a0 Is it a sale? A registration? \u00a0A Facebook friend?\u00a0 \u00a0A comment?\u00a0 What do you want them to do?\u00a0 What is your content marketing strategy?<\/p>\n<p>A clear idea of what makes your site successful is needed here, and a hard number that will tell if what you want to happen is actually happening.\u00a0 It is particularly true if you are using branded content to know exactly when that marketing strategy works for you.\u00a0 Or if content marketing actually draws users or dollars to your company.\u00a0 Set goals, design the metric, and then, measure.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The key to having a useful content marketing <strong>Engagement Score<\/strong> is to define, measure and track the score on a regular frequency. It is a simple methodology to\u00a0evaluate trends and influence overtime.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It may be hard to always know which metrics to track when it comes to content marketing success. You could spend hours in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three Simple Measures to Content Marketing Success -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It may be hard to always know which metrics to track when it comes to content marketing success. 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