According to a recent Content Marketing Institute report, only 43% of marketers are confident in calculating content marketing ROI. This number struck home, emphasizing the significance of honing my content reporting abilities. You will learn from this guide the best reporting practices and the types of data that make up a strong content report, including the actual KPIs that content marketers use.
What is Content Reporting?
Content reporting is a component of content marketing analytics. It collects and analyzes data from a variety of sources, including websites, blogs, social media, and emails. Its purpose is to assess your content’s performance and impact on overall marketing objectives. This allows you to evaluate what is and isn’t working in your content strategy, which helps you improve it.
Content marketing reporting provides a variety of viewpoints, including broad overviews with site-wide reports, individual content marketing reports that go into specific pieces in depth, and custom reports. This spectrum of reporting guarantees that you obtain relevant insights at every level, allowing you to make educated decisions about your content strategy.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 81% of marketers see content as a critical business strategy. Furthermore, 56% of respondents derive insights from their content data.
Why is Content Marketing Reporting Important?
As a marketer, you’ll need reports to track the success of your content strategy.
However, content marketing performance is just the beginning.
A successful report also gives information on attribution (which channels produce traffic) and return on investment (ROI). Both measures are crucial to establishing value.
Here’s how content reporting can help:
- Performance Measurement: Measure performance by determining how many people read your content and how much time they spend engaging with it.
- Channel Attribution: Discover which marketing channels provide the most clicks and conversions.
- Audience Analysis: Discover the themes that appeal to your audience and the search intent (reason for a term search) that delivers the best results.
- ROI Evaluation: Understand which content, topic, and channel provides the greatest value and modify your marketing budget accordingly.
- Plan Optimization: Use the data from your content performance report to iterate and enhance your marketing plan (for example, if your findings show that YouTube traffic has a high conversion rate, you might invest more money in YouTube videos).
What To Include in a Content Marketing Report
In this section of the guide, we’ll go over content marketing KPIs and qualitative feedback so you can create a strong report. These are based on our poll of actual metrics used by marketers, as well as some tried-and-true suggestions from us.
Keep in mind that the final stats may vary based on your strategy. We urge you to customize your reports.
#1. Summary
Summaries are intended for stakeholders who wish to know only the most critical details. They may not have the time or inclination to sift through data and provide a comprehensive picture of your performance. These individuals will expect something like this:
- Content output has grown by 20%, with 20 new pieces published.
- Traffic increased by 35%, to 135,000 monthly visits.
- Keyword rankings: 50% of targeted keywords now appear in the top three SERP positions.
- The audience has grown by 25%, now exceeding 75,000.
- Engagement increased by 15% on all platforms.
- Conversions increased to 5%, resulting in 50 more sales.
- Recommendations: We’re on the right road and are ready to invest more in content scaling.
Summaries are always a good idea, but they are especially valuable when working with large teams or clients.
Summaries are placed at the head of the report but written last. Don’t write them before gathering and analyzing data.
#2. Content output
This section describes the quantity and type of content published within a given timeframe. This will show your supervisor or client how efficient you or your team are.
It may include blog entries, videos, podcasts, infographics, and social media posts.
Simply measure the volume of content created and categorize it by kind to assess productivity and diversity in your content strategy.
#3. Traffic
Traffic indicates how effective the content is at attracting visitors to the site.
Typically, stakeholders want to know the traffic growth rate rather than the number of clicks in a given period. A thousand additional clicks in a month may be spectacular for one website but ineffective for another.
It’s also a good idea to divide traffic increase into:
- Source: In the case of content, the primary sources will be organic, email, referrals (but only from sources you are affected by), and social media. Include direct traffic only if it correlates with the content. Paid traffic is often associated with performance marketing, but if you’re running content advertisements, include them as well.
- Target: This depends on whether you want to direct visitors to the entire website or just certain pages, such as product landing pages, pricing, contact information, etc.
Traffic is simple to measure. Free tools like Google Analytics or Matomo should suffice. However, to receive organic traffic from Google, you must use the Google Search Console.
Google Search Console provides the most accurate organic click statistics, however, SEO tools like as Ahrefs allow you to improve it. For example, you can observe how a site compares to competitors (and analyze their strategy) or which pages gained and lost the most traffic in a certain period.
Organic competitors’ Ahrefs reports reveal a variation in performance from month to month.
Ahrefs’ Portofilos feature can also aid with traffic reporting. You may monitor organic traffic and other SEO indicators for any number of pages. For example, a list of your client’s websites, competitors, and all content directories.
#4. SEO Metrics
SEO (search engine optimization) analytics assist you in analyzing your content’s visibility and ranking in search results.
There are numerous KPIs you may report here, however, according to our findings, marketers typically report the following:
- Impressions: These indicate how frequently a website appears in search results.
- Rankings: which pages rank for a specific term. The higher the rankings, the more organic traffic you may expect.
- Share of voice: This is the percentage of all possible organic clicks (from SERPs) for the tracked keywords that land on your page.
- Backlink growth: the increase in the number of inbound links referring to a website over a given time period. If you’re developing link bait content or building links, this is something you should keep note mind.
- Organic traffic: This was already discussed in the preceding paragraph. It overlaps with the SEO metrics area because, in general, effective SEO leads to increased organic traffic.
To report these metrics, you’ll need two tools: Google Search Console for organic traffic (clicks) and impressions, and an SEO tool like Ahrefs for everything else.
If you believe the recipient of the report will only be interested in top-level metrics, try reporting solely the share of voice and organic traffic.
The benefits of being visible on Google are obvious even to non-marketers, therefore, you’ll deliver a clear and strong message if you can demonstrate with these metrics that your content makes the brand stand out on Google, resulting in more visitors.
On the other side, if your audience is SEO-savvy and that channel is an important component of your plan, you may enhance your report with extra metrics covered in this guide to SEO reporting tools.
#5. Audience growth
This metric monitors the growth of your content’s audience over time, including new email subscribers, video and podcast channels, and social media followers.
Tracking these indicators allows you to analyze how effective your content is at attracting and retaining a growing audience. In other words, audience growth indicates a desire for more content like the one you’re already creating.
For example, Ahrefs tracks subscriber growth on the AhrefsTV YouTube channel using YouTube’s native metrics.
#6. Engagement
Engagement metrics indicate how actively your audience engages with your content.
Marketers typically monitor the following engagement metrics:
- Likes and comments on social media: This can be readily tracked using native social media platform analytics or a solution like Buffer, which collects all data in one location.
- Email list engagement: How many people open your emails (open rate), how many click on the links inside of them (click rate), and how the unsubscribe rate rises are common ways to gauge email list engagement. All email marketing platforms have these metrics.
- Time on page: This refers to how long visitors spend reading or interacting with a certain page on your website. Tracking is by default enabled in GA4, but Matomo requires configuration.
- Scroll depth: This describes how far down a page a visitor scrolls. In many circumstances, deeper scrolling should signal that the content is interesting enough to keep users engaged. GA4 and Matomo can be configured to display an event when a predefined scroll threshold is achieved (10, 25, 50%). If you want more data without having to go technical, try Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity.
It’s nearly never a negative thing to achieve high scores on those criteria. In an ideal world, they would suggest that people genuinely love your content, but in practice, these indicators are fairly complicated. For example, some forms of content are less likely to receive likes on social media, and a brief time on page may indicate that individuals discovered what they were looking for and then departed.
As a result, engagement measurements may be most effective when used in the appropriate context.
- Use likes and comments to compare content. You may also use it to determine interest in new types of content or topics.
- On Twitter, use engagement rate rather than total engagement: (Likes + retweets + responses) / (total number of followers).
- Scroll rate and duration on the page should only be used for long-form content, i.e., pages that will keep the user on the page for an extended period.
#7. Conversions
Conversion metrics assess how well your content motivates people to do a desired action, such as signing up for a free trial.
Examples:
Revenue/signups are related to traffic: the more people who visit your site, the more opportunities there are to convert them into subscribers or paying customers.
Conversion growth from bottom-of-funnel content: conversions are only recorded for visitors who are thinking about purchasing (comparisons, white papers, customer success stories, etc.).
If your content is the first page a visitor sees and then converts into a paying customer, it shows the content is effective.
- Content downloads: A high download rate indicates that your audience values your content.
- Leads: Leads are persons who provide contact information in exchange for access to content. Marketers frequently keep track of contacts who the sales team is likely to contact as well as MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads), which are people who have expressed interest and might be prepared to make a purchase in the future.
Leads, downloads, and even income vs. traffic correlations are relatively simple to track (and verify). Most platforms that allow you to develop a lead capture form will have analytics and complex data analysis tasks such as correlation can now be done easily using ChatGPT.
However, it will be difficult to demonstrate that a certain piece of content created X number of sales or Y amount of monthly recurring revenue. Essentially, you’ll be attempting to demonstrate the ROI of content marketing, which everyone wants to know but can’t really explain without using the term “probably”.
It’s highly probable that the individuals who will read your report, or even you, will want to know the “return on investment,” so let’s pause here for a while.
The challenge with ROI in content marketing stems from faulty attribution models and non-linear customer journeys.
Customer journeys are rarely as simple as we’d like. One person may read 50 articles and never buy anything, while another may read one article, disappear for a year, and then purchase. What role did content play during those journeys?
However, the ROI of content is not a topic to avoid. You essentially have two options here:
- Try calculating ROI using imperfect but reasonable methods.
- Assume positive content ROI based on its strategic importance.
Essentially, ROI is a fantastic reason to pursue content marketing, but it isn’t the only one. Content marketing is strategic since it provides numerous benefits that are difficult to pass up. Think about it. Can you afford to be the exception when all of your rivals produce content? In what additional ways will you show the audience how your product/service solves their problems? If your supervisor or client is skeptical about the concept of content, it’s a good idea to talk about it and moderate expectations before diving in.
#8. Qualitative feedback
Finally, conclude your report with anything noteworthy that goes beyond raw statistics or the commonplace.
They could be:
- Mentions in newsletters and content roundups.
- Social media praise.
- The audience provided feedback on the content’s quality.
- Prospects referenced this content in their talks.
For example, every month, I use Ahrefs to locate sites that feature my work. This example displays two industry leaders linking to my most recent SEO study.
This is also an excellent opportunity to discuss operational feedback:
- Roadblocks include the design team’s lack of availability.
- Projections, for example, try to regain lost organic traffic by upgrading outdated content.
- Opportunities for improvement include better-aligning content with sales goals.
Setting Clear Objectives for Effective Content Reporting
Setting clear objectives is essential for efficient content reporting. Are you looking to boost brand awareness, drive traffic, or create leads? Each goal necessitates a unique strategy and set of measurements. For example, brand exposure could prioritize social shares and impressions, whereas lead generation would concentrate on conversion rates and lead quality.
Why Moving Beyond Basic Metrics Is Important for Content Reporting
Most content marketers use simple indicators like page views and bounce rates. While these are significant, they do not paint a whole picture of content performance. Incorporating engagement metrics like average time on the page, social shares, and comments provide further insight into audience involvement.
I recall a time when one of my blog entries received a lot of traffic, but the average time on the page was under 30 seconds. This suggested that visitors did not find the content engaging. By introducing more relevant and interactive features, such as movies and infographics, I was able to improve the average time on the page to over two minutes.
Using Advanced Analytics Tools for Better Content Reporting
Investing in advanced analytics technologies can lead to richer insights. While Google Analytics is an excellent starting point, tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and BuzzSumo provide more in-depth information. These tools allow you to track keyword performance, backlink profiles, and content reach across multiple platforms.
Using SEMrush, I saw that my content was ranking for various long-tail keywords that I had not previously targeted. This offered me new content-generating opportunities and allowed me to further adapt my strategy.
Using A/B Testing to Improve Content Reporting
A/B testing entails developing two versions of a piece of content and determining which performs better. This could include testing alternate headlines or complete landing pages. A/B testing can provide insights into future content initiatives, assuring consistent production of high-performing content.
I ran an A/B test on two different newsletters. The first had a typical subject line, whereas the second was more customized and appealing. The personalized subject line increased open rates by 50%, highlighting the potential of personalization in content.
Using Heatmaps to Improve Content Reporting
Heatmaps are extremely useful for visualizing how users engage with your content. Hotjar and Crazy Egg are tools that reveal where people click, how far they scroll, and which portions are the most interesting. This helps to optimize content arrangement, ensuring that important information is noticed.
Using heatmaps, I observed that users did not scroll beyond the initial section of my content. This encouraged me to place key information to the front and divide the content into smaller, more consumable chunks. As a result, engagement increased while bounce rates reduced.
Regularly reviewing and adjusting your strategy for continuous improvement in content reporting.
Content reporting necessitates frequent analysis and change. Monthly data analysis identifies trends and patterns, allowing for strategic experimentation and improvement.
During one of my monthly reviews, I noticed a decrease in reader interaction with my long-form pieces. Analyzing the data, I discovered that my target audience liked shorter, more concise content. I adjusted my strategy and focused on writing shorter articles with visual components, which resulted in a 20% boost in user engagement.
How Templates Can Help Streamline Content Reporting
Templates help to streamline the content reporting process and assure uniformity. A decent template helps you organize data, focus on relevant metrics, and develop useful conclusions. For example, a content performance template monitors indicators like as traffic sources, engagement rates, and conversion rates, offering a clear strategy roadmap.
I created a complete content reporting template with sections for key performance indicators (KPIs), monthly comparisons, and actionable insights. This form proved to be a useful tool for quickly identifying areas for improvement and assessing the efficacy of strategies.
Content Reporting Template
Key Takeaways
- Content reporting is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of your content strategy, allowing you to refine and optimize it for better results.
- Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as traffic, engagement, conversions, and audience growth provide a comprehensive view of content performance.
- Advanced analytics tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Analytics can offer deeper insights into keyword performance, backlink profiles, and overall content reach.
- A/B testing and heatmaps are valuable methods to identify the most effective content strategies and optimize user engagement.
- Regularly reviewing and adjusting your content strategy based on detailed reports and templates can significantly improve the impact and ROI of your content marketing efforts.
Conclusion
Moving beyond basic metrics, employing advanced technologies, performing A/B testing, using heatmaps, and assessing your approach regularly are all necessary to elevate your content reporting. It is an ongoing process of learning and adapting, but the benefits are well worth the effort. By following these guidelines, you may improve your content reporting and produce greater results for your company.
So, are you ready to take your content reporting to the next level with these tips? What new tactics will you incorporate into your content reporting process?
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