Definition: Content performance
What does content performance mean?
Content performance refers to the outcomes of content and its alignment with your overarching marketing objectives.
Your content's performance should contribute to the achievement of your marketing goals, ensuring that any marketing investment yields valuable results.
The data and insights from content performance analysis can directly inform the creation of new content.
Done well, performance-driven content assesses consumers’ needs, behaviors, and attitudes, and helps create a more user-centric approach to content creation.
Which types of content can be measured for performance?
Many different content types can be tracked and measured, including:
- Web pages (and campaign landing pages)
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- Social media posts
- Marketing emails
The actual metrics employed for measurement will vary depending on the nature of the content and how it is shared. Generally speaking though, any data or findings gleaned from analyzing how a piece of content has performed should, where possible, be used to help inform future content creation efforts.
For example, the outputs of assessing the performance of a content item might include any or all of the following:
- Making recommendations for optimizing existing content
- Identifying new areas worth investing in for future content
- Validating which content performs well
- Earmarking items of content that can be deleted or archived
How to select the right content KPIs
You can’t accurately measure content performance without having first set the proper KPIs.
That's why it’s important to know which performance indicators correspond to which content types. For example, for blog posts and articles, you might measure website traffic, new vs. returning visitors, bounce rate, time on page, unique page views, page views per visit, referral sources, and geographic trends.
Yet, for a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, KPIs would differ. They would include cost per click (CPC), click-through rates (CTRs), conversion rate, cost per conversion (CPC), return on ad spend, and so on.
So, for every type of content you produce, you need to decide on the right metrics to track.
It can also be helpful to work backwards from the goals you set; identifying each step in the customer journey toward that objective. You’ll then notice that each step corresponds with a metric such as website traffic, engagement or sales.
