4 Proven Methods To Measure Content Marketing ROI

One of the biggest problems for companies that put lots of money into marketing campaigns in the past is that it used to be nearly impossible to get a good grasp on their return on investment (ROI). Sure, there would be spikes in revenue after a big advertising push, but there was no guaranteed way to check to see if a campaign was to thank for an increase. It could have come from any number of outside sources.

Thanks to the rise of the internet, though, figuring out where leads and customers are coming from is easier than ever. But how do you track these things? Well, we’ll look more in-depth at content marketing to see which proven methods work for measuring your ROI on the campaign.

Directly Asking Those Who Convert

Even though the customer survey isn’t a new tool for companies to use, it’s a much more effective one. Back in the day, businesses had to either mail off their surveys or call customers to ask them questions about them. Both methods were quite ineffective, easily ignored, and quite intrusive.

These days, the delivery of most surveys is through email. This gives users more freedom on if and when they want to fill them out, leading to more frequent and positive results. However, there’s still no guarantee that an interested party will take the time to complete a survey. That’s why many companies have opted to ask in a different way.

When signing up for a newsletter or making a new account, it’s not uncommon to see a question asking how you discovered this new company. By making this question a part of the sign-up process, businesses can more reliably find out if their leads are coming from their marketing efforts. Therefore, it’s easier to gauge the ROI on them.

Looking Into Website Metrics

Of course, no matter how you ask, you’ll still have people who either avoid the question or lie about how they discovered you. That’s why you can’t rely on those results alone. Due to how the internet works, though, it’s possible to track where your new leads and customers came from. Maybe they clicked on a link directly from one of your ads, or they came from another site that promoted your product. Either way, this is vital information for you to work with when determining your ROI.

However, many online users choose to disable cookies and use third-party services to mask their IP addresses to protect their own privacy. While you can’t fault them for this, it does make your job harder, which is why companies still need to rely on some older techniques.

Measuring Social Media Engagement

Luckily, social media is a great place to measure customer engagement and check it against your sales. Even if your main goal is to use stand-out social media platforms to grow your brand, you can still focus some of your posts and ads on sales. Whenever these go up, you can check your sales numbers to see if there’s a sudden spike in the number of conversions you’re making. This is similar to how companies once measured their ROI back in the day. But you have complete control over when your content marketing goes live on these sites, making this kind of tracking much easier.

Checking Search Rankings

Since posting to social media isn’t going to work for every business model, a better way to do this kind of tracking is to pay attention to your company’s search rankings, especially if people aren’t clicking on your links. When your content marketing goes live, the chances of people searching for your business to learn more about you increases. Even if they don’t type in your brand name, they might hit one of the keywords you’re currently targeting, sending them right back to you.

Once you notice these trends emerging, you’ll know your marketing strategy is working. Whether they lead directly to a sale or simply a conversion that can turn into one later, any of these methods can successfully measure a company’s content marketing ROI. If you play out your campaign correctly, you’ll notice spikes in your revenue that are direct results of your efforts.