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Content Marketing Measurement Guide: 23 Definitions To Know

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Every time I use the words “analytics,” “metrics,” or “KPIs” in a discussion about the impact of content, a little voice goes off in my head. It’s the voice of Inigo Montoya from the movie, The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

While content marketers may recognize these terms relate to content measurement, it’s easy to confuse their distinctions. Read on for explanations of 23 common measurement terms and how they fit into your content’s performance strategy.

Content measurement definitions

Analytics

Marketo defines analytics as the practice of managing and studying metrics data to determine the ROI of marketing efforts like calls to action, blog posts, channel performance, and thought leadership pieces, and to identify opportunities for improvement.

Bounce rate

According to Google Analytics, a bounce rate is a single-page session divided by all sessions on your site. A bounce is a session that triggers a single request to the analytics server, such as when a user visits a page on your site and exits without taking further action. While a site exit doesn’t tell you much about your content (everyone leaves your site at some point), a page with both high exit and bounce rates may need changes to the content.

The bounce rate is a single-page session divided by all sessions on your site, says @joderama via @CMIContent @Acrolinx. Click To Tweet

Click-through rate (CTR)

A click-through rate is the percent of total viewers or recipients who clicked a link in a content asset (clicks divided by total recipients). It’s commonly used to gauge success for email campaigns, newsletter-driven website visits, and content promotions (e.g., display ads, native advertising), where the total number of recipients can be quantified (rather than estimated).

Conversion/conversion rate

A conversion happens when a consumer takes an action after engaging with your content. The action is what your organization designates as meaningful – purchasing a product, registering for an event or a gated asset, subscribing to a blog or newsletter, or joining a social media community. Calculate the conversion rate by dividing the number of visitors to the content who converted by the total interactions with that piece of content.

Customer acquisition cost

A customer acquisition cost is how much the company spent to obtain that customer. Take all the expenses – product research, development, manufacturing, marketing, advertising, etc. Divide that total by the number of customers within a designated time frame.

Calculate the customer acquisition cost by adding up all expenses and divide by number of customers in the time frame, says @joderama via @CMIContent @Acrolinx. Click To Tweet

Downloads

The download metric is commonly used to gauge performance for lead-magnet content assets like white papers, e-books, and infographics. It indicates a deeper level of engagement and interest than a view or visit because the user found the content valuable enough to save a copy to explore in more detail or share with others in their networks.

Engagement

Engagement is considered both a fundamental content metric and a content marketing goal. As a metric, it’s broadly defined as an act of content consumption –opening an email newsletter, reading a blog article, clicking on an ad or an interactive asset, or liking/commenting on a social media post. While engagement indicates at least a passing interest in your content, it’s not a particularly informative indicator of why the content captured audience interest. It’s often best used to contextualize other metrics rather than as a definitive decision-making tool.


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Entrances/exits

Entrances are the number of times visitors enter your site through a specific page or set of pages. Likewise, exits indicate how often visitors end their site visit on that page. A page with a high entrance rate could indicate it’s well-optimized for search. However, neither entrance nor exit rates are clear indicators of content success (or failure) on their own. It’s a good idea to correlate this data with other insights – bounce rates, time on site, user flow, and referral traffic sources – to get a clearer picture of what it indicates about your content performance.

Goals

Goals are the desired business outcomes to be achieved through your content marketing strategy. While the stated goal of content marketing is to drive a profitable action, your goals should be more specific and quantifiable, such as increasing sales conversions, saving the company money, building (or growing) a subscribed audience, or driving greater customer loyalty and brand satisfaction.

#ContentMarketing goals should be specific and quantifiable, says @joderama via @CMIContent @Acrolinx. Click To Tweet

KPI

KPI stands for key performance indicators. They are standard, agreed-on measurements for assessing progress against your content marketing goals. Potential KPIs might be average conversion rates, number of leads, quality of leads, or revenue per new customer.

Marketing-qualified lead (MQL)

MQLs are leads generated by the marketing team that satisfy the criteria to pass along to the sales team for further outreach.

Metrics

In contrast to KPIs, metrics are the business-as-usual measurements for things that add value to your organization but aren’t focused on the most critical goals. They might include website page views or likes on social media posts. Think of these as the “what-needs-to-be-true” numbers that can help you achieve or optimize your KPIs.

Objectives and key results (OKR)

OKR is a method to determine which metrics best gauge performance against your goals. It starts with designing a measurement pyramid that includes goals, key performance indicators, and metrics. CMI’s chief strategy advisor Robert Rose details the OKR process here. The end result should be your business mission segmented into strategic objectives. Each segment should connect to the OKR pyramid and be a source tool for each metric that goes into it.

1651661024 399 Content Marketing Measurement Guide 23 Definitions To Know

An example of OKR architecture results, mapped out.

Click to enlarge

Open rate

An open rate is a metric related to content delivered via email. It measures the percentage of subscribers who opened the email regardless if they clicked on any of the links in that content. Already limited in value due to its narrow focus, its reliability has come into question even further with the advent of Apple’s iOS email tracking changes.

Page views vs. unique page views

Commonly used to gauge website traffic, page views are the total number of times a site page is loaded by all visitors over a set time called a session, usually lasting 30 minutes. If a visitor views the same page three times during a session, total page views increase by three.

In contrast, a unique page view tracks views based on the visitor’s unique IP address, device, and browser. In the example above, the visitor who viewed the same page three times in a session would count as one unique page view. However, let’s say the visitor viewed the page two times in a Google Chrome browser and one time in a Microsoft Edge browser from the same URL. That would count as two unique page views.

If your website content is configured for Google’s Universal Analytics, look for page views and unique page views for each of your site page URLs under Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. If you’re working with Google Analytics 4, you’ll find the pages report under Engagement > Pages and screens, but will need to do some additional configuration to view data by page URL instead of the page title.

Referral traffic/rates

When a visitor reaches your domain through a third-party link (other than a search engine), it’s tracked by Google as referral traffic. In Universal Analytics, you can find referral data under Attribution > All Traffic > Referrals. For GA4, click on the Reports link in the left-side menu, navigate to Acquisition > Traffic acquisition, then type “referral” in the search box and hit enter.

You can see the sources that led visitors to your site, how many visits were referred from each source, and additional data on their behaviors after arriving on your site. As a metric, it’s a useful indicator of brand awareness and thought leadership. The more sources that send traffic your way, the more highly regarded your domain likely is – an outcome that leads to better domain authority and better rankings of your content on search.

The more sources that send traffic your way, the better domain authority and ranking of your #content on search, says @joderama via @CMIContent @Acrolinx. Click To Tweet

Registrations/subscription numbers

While gaining subscribers is among the top goals for content marketing (particularly for content brands and entrepreneurs), it’s also a metric tracked to gauge progress toward other achievements in the marketing funnel.

It refers to the total number of people who completed a form or other action to gain access to your content – attend an event, download a lead-magnet asset, receive email newsletters, join your brand community, etc.

When registrants or subscribers renew, that renewal rate is a metric that can be used to gauge brand loyalty.

Return on investment (ROI)

Return on investment is a broad term to describe how a company’s marketing initiatives drive profitable actions and business growth. Knowing ROI for content campaigns enables marketers to determine appropriate budget allocations, maximize the efficiency of each marketing expense, and demonstrate the impact of their efforts to their executive stakeholders.

Though it’s (arguably) the most critical measurement of a marketing technique’s effectiveness, the complex nature of attributing conversions to a particular asset can make content ROI difficult to calculate precisely, let alone prove definitively.

Sales-qualified lead (SQL)

An SQL is lead qualified by the sales team as active in the market. These leads are more likely to become a customer than an MQL.

Subscriber count

Subscribers are defined as audience members who have taken an action around your content (and provided some personal data to do so) in exchange for an expectation of receiving ongoing value. It is a core metric for measuring content marketing value.

Time on site/time on page

These metrics indicate how long a visitor spends on the site or a page. Visits that exceed the average time on page (or site) are a positive indication of interest and engagement with that content. However, it’s impossible to tell using this metric alone whether the user actively engaged with the content all that time or simply left it open on their browser.

Video views/duration

Video views measure how many times a video asset is watched. Duration indicates the time the average viewer plays that video. Just because a video was viewed in its entirety does not mean the viewer actively engaged with all of it.

Visits/unique visitors

A visitor is any internet user who arrives on your website (or mobile website). Seems simple, right? But what’s involved in characterizing that visit and how it gets factored into content measurement is more complicated.

In Google Analytics, to track site visits, the user needs to have enabled tracking cookies. (This is why the end of third-party cookies was likened, at least at first, to the end of digital marketing.)

There also is a distinction between visits and unique visitors. Visits encompass any time a user visits your site. Unique visitors refers to the number of people who browsed your site during a session. A unique visitor who visited several times during that session would count as one unique visitor. If they returned after the session, that would count as another unique visit.

Know what’s in the measurement name

Every content marketing program requires a solid measurement strategy. By knowing the terms and understanding how they fit in your brand’s content marketing, you’re at the start of a successful evaluation of your content’s effectiveness.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Take back your ROI by owning your data

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Treasure Data 800x450

Treasure Data 800x450

Other brands can copy your style, tone and strategy — but they can’t copy your data.

Your data is your competitive advantage in an environment where enterprises are working to grab market share by designing can’t-miss, always-on customer experiences. Your marketing tech stack enables those experiences. 

Join ActionIQ and Snowplow to learn the value of composing your stack – decoupling the data collection and activation layers to drive more intelligent targeting.

Register and attend “Maximizing Marketing ROI With a Composable Stack: Separating Reality from Fallacy,” presented by Snowplow and ActionIQ.


Click here to view more MarTech webinars.


About the author

Cynthia RamsaranCynthia Ramsaran

Cynthia Ramsaran is director of custom content at Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land and MarTech. A multi-channel storyteller with over two decades of editorial/content marketing experience, Cynthia’s expertise spans the marketing, technology, finance, manufacturing and gaming industries. She was a writer/producer for CNBC.com and produced thought leadership for KPMG. Cynthia hails from Queens, NY and earned her Bachelor’s and MBA from St. John’s University.

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Revolutionizing Auto Retail: The Game-Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai

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Revolutionizing Auto Retail: The Game-Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai

Revolutionizing Auto Retail The Game Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai

In a groundbreaking alliance, Amazon and Hyundai have joined forces to reshape the automotive landscape, promising a revolutionary shift in how we buy, drive, and experience cars.

Imagine browsing for your dream car on Amazon, with the option to seamlessly purchase, pick up, or have it delivered—all within the familiar confines of the world’s largest online marketplace. Buckle up as we explore the potential impact of this monumental partnership and the transformation it heralds for the future of auto retail.

Driving Change Through Amazon’s Auto Revolution

Consider “Josh”, a tech-savvy professional with an affinity for efficiency. Faced with the tedious process of purchasing a new car, he stumbled upon Amazon’s automotive section. Intrigued by the prospect of a one-stop shopping experience, Josh decided to explore the Amazon-Hyundai collaboration.

The result?

A hassle-free online car purchase, personalized to his preferences, and delivered to his doorstep. Josh’s story is just a glimpse into the real-world impact of this game-changing partnership.

Bridging the Gap Between Convenience and Complexity

Traditional car buying is often marred by complexities, from navigating dealership lots to negotiating prices. The disconnect between the convenience consumers seek and the cumbersome process they endure has long been a pain point in the automotive industry. The need for a streamlined, customer-centric solution has never been more pressing.

1701235578 44 Revolutionizing Auto Retail The Game Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai1701235578 44 Revolutionizing Auto Retail The Game Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai

Ecommerce Partnership Reshaping Auto Retail Dynamics

Enter Amazon and Hyundai’s new strategic partnership coming in 2024—an innovative solution poised to redefine the car-buying experience. The trio of key developments—Amazon becoming a virtual showroom, Hyundai embracing AWS for a digital makeover, and the integration of Alexa into next-gen vehicles—addresses the pain points with a holistic approach.

In 2024, auto dealers for the first time will be able to sell vehicles in Amazon’s U.S. store, and Hyundai will be the first brand available for customers to purchase.

Amazon and Hyundai launch a broad, strategic partnership—including vehicle sales on Amazon.com in 2024 – Amazon Staff

This collaboration promises not just a transaction but a transformation in the way customers interact with, purchase, and engage with their vehicles.

Pedal to the Metal

Seamless Online Purchase:

  • Complete the entire transaction within the trusted Amazon platform.
  • Utilize familiar payment and financing options.
  • Opt for convenient pick-up or doorstep delivery.
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Hyundai’s Cloud-First Transformation:

  • Experience a data-driven organization powered by AWS.
  • Benefit from enhanced production optimization, cost reduction, and improved security.

Alexa Integration in Next-Gen Vehicles:

  • Enjoy a hands-free, voice-controlled experience in Hyundai vehicles.
  • Access music, podcasts, reminders, and smart home controls effortlessly.
  • Stay connected with up-to-date traffic and weather information.

Driving into the Future

The Amazon-Hyundai collaboration is not just a partnership; it’s a revolution in motion. As we witness the fusion of e-commerce giant Amazon with automotive prowess of Hyundai, the potential impact on customer behavior is staggering.

The age-old challenges of car buying are met with a forward-thinking, customer-centric solution, paving the way for a new era in auto retail. From the comfort of your home to the driver’s seat, this partnership is set to redefine every step of the journey, promising a future where buying a car is as easy as ordering a package online.

Embrace the change, and witness the evolution of auto retail unfold before your eyes.


Revolutionizing Auto Retail The Game Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai

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How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]

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How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]

It’s no wonder that responsive search ads have steadily grown in popularity in recent years. Through Google’s machine learning capabilities, RSAs provide a powerful way to automate the testing of multiple headlines and descriptions to ensure a closer match to user intent. The benefits are clear: RSAs mean broader reach, better engagement, and improved performance metrics.

However, all these benefits come at a significant (but reasonable) cost – they can be extremely difficult to manage, especially when it comes to updating ad copy to promote limited time offers.

I know this firsthand – I work with several ecommerce clients with promotions that constantly change. Not too long ago, I found myself going through the consistently tedious process of updating a client’s RSA headlines and copy. As I was making the changes, I thought to myself: “There must be a better way to update this ad copy. I shouldn’t have to use find and replace so many times while pausing and enabling my ad campaigns.”

After expressing this to my colleague, Jordan Stambaugh, the two of us agreed there must be a better way. But we’d have to make it happen. A few weeks later, we put that idea into action and created a more efficient process for updating RSA ad copy on a scheduled basis. If you want to try this process for yourself, just keep reading.

Responsive Search Ad Customizers 101: Basic Options & Execution

Before diving into the process of scheduling automatic updates for your RSA customizers, it’s essential to understand some key Responsive Search Ad fundamentals.

First, you can customize three main options within RSAs: the Attribute Name, the Data Type, and the Account Value. Each of these plays a vital role in personalizing your ads:

  • Attribute Name: This is essentially the identifier for the customizer. It is how you’ll reference the specific piece of information you’re customizing within the ad. For instance, if you’re running a promotion, you might name an attribute “Promotion.”
  • Data Type: This indicates the kind of data the attribute represents and it determines how the information can be formatted and used within the ad. Common data types include Text (for plain, non-numeric text), Percent (to represent percentage discounts), Price (to denote monetary values), and Number (for any numerical value).
  • Account Value: This is the default value for the attribute that you set at the account level. It acts as a fallback if more specific values aren’t provided at the campaign or ad group level.

For example, if you wanted to promote a 10% off discount using RSAs, you’d use the “Discount” attribute, a data type of “Percent,” and an account value of “10% off.” Then, when someone is searching for products, Google would test automatically inserting a copy regarding a 10% off promotion into your ad.

Once you’ve set up the right customization options, you can start to format your RSAs with customizers.

Here’s how:

  • Start by typing in {
  • Click on Ad Customizer then select your attribute
  • Google will populate your attributes that are already uploaded
  • For a simple offer, use the “Default text” attribute as a catch-all. This will ensure your ads run smoothly if Google can’t pull the right messaging from your RSA feed

 

 

How to Schedule Your Ad Customizers with a Feed

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s cover how to schedule your ad customizers.

Just follow this three step process:

1. Create the feed

Start by creating two sheets: The Parent sheet, and the Child sheet. The “Parent” sheet will act as the primary data source, while the child sheet will pull data from the parent sheet.

We’ll start by building the parent sheet. After opening the sheet, start by renaming the active tab to “Promotions.” Don’t skip this step, it’s crucial for referencing this range in formulas later on.

In your “Promotions” tab, head to the top row and label columns A, B, and C with the headers of your ad customizer attributes. For example, you might have “BrandSaleHeadline” as your attribute in column A, “text” as the Data Type in column B, and “Shop the Collection” as the Account Value in column C.

Once your headers are in place, move to cell C2. Here, you’ll input the expression =lookup(today(),F:G,E:E). This formula will play a key role in dynamically updating your RSA customizer based on the current date.

Next, go to columns E, F, and G, which will be used to manage your scheduling. In these columns, you’ll list out the different values your chosen attribute might take, alongside their corresponding start and end dates. For example, under the “BrandSaleHeadline” attribute, you might schedule various promotional headlines to appear during different sale periods throughout the year.

Here’s how your sheet might look:

Now look back at the first 3 columns on your sheet. They should look like this:

Now create a second sheet. We’ll call this sheet the Child sheet. It’s going to automatically pull in data from the parent sheet you just created, and will be the one you link to Google Ads later on.

Columns A, B and C will be almost identical to the child sheet, but we will be using a special formula later so we can automatically populate this. So, start by labeling Row 1 Column A “Attribute,” then the next column as “Data type,” then column C as “Account value.” 

Then go to C2 and use this expression to populate the right account value from the parent document: =importrange(“[PARENT DOCUMENT URL HERE]”,”Promotions!C2″)

Your sheet should now look like this:

We recommend adding a date range with default text for any days you’re  not running a promotion. In the example above, we have “Shop Our Collection” appearing as default text.

2. Input attributes

Once you have your feed created, the next step involves inputting your attributes into the Google Ads platform. This can be done either manually or through a bulk upload.

For the manual approach, navigate to “Tools & Settings” in your Google Ads interface, then go to ‘Setup’ followed by “Business Data.” Here, you’ll find an option for “Ad Customizer Attributes.” Click the plus sign to add your attributes. It’s crucial to use the same attribute names that you’ve established in your Parent Google Sheet template to ensure consistency and proper data synchronization.

 

 

Alternatively, if you prefer the bulk upload method, again head to “Tools & Settings.” This time, select “Bulk Actions” and then “Uploads.” For this process, you only need to upload columns A to C from your template. 

Be aware that it might take some time for your uploaded attributes to be reflected in the business data section of Google Ads.

3. Set up an automatic schedule

At this point, you’ve almost finished scheduling your ad customizers. Navigate to Tools & Settings, then Bulk Actions, then Uploads, then click the Schedules tab at the top. Select your Child Google Sheet as the data source, and share your Google Sheet with the appropriate email.

 

 

And there you have it – Google will automatically pull in the data you populated in the sheets into your RSAs.

Common Challenges When Scheduling RSA Ad Customizers

When we test these sheets with our clients in the wild, we’ve uncovered five common challenges. Be on the lookout for these issues – solving them before they happen can save you a lot of trouble down the line.

Not scheduling your upload when the site changes 

The first and most significant hurdle is the mismatch between the scheduled data upload and website content updates. For instance, if the Google Sheet is set to upload at 11 am, but the website changes occur at 3 pm, there’s going to be a discrepancy where the wrong message could be displayed for several hours, or new messaging could appear prematurely. Conversely, if the website updates happen before the scheduled sheet upload, outdated promotions might linger until the new data is imported. Synchronizing these schedules is crucial; it’s best to align them so updates occur simultaneously.

Skipping QA during a message change

Another pitfall is neglecting quality assurance (QA) during message updates. It’s vital to regularly check the business data section to verify that the correct values are in place post-update.

Issues with the IMPORTRANGE function

Then there’s the technical aspect of setting up the IMPORTRANGE function correctly in the Google Sheets template. The ‘child’ template must reliably pull data from the ‘parent’ sheet. If this function isn’t configured correctly, data won’t be imported as needed.

Not sharing access of the Google template for automatic uploads

Pay attention to your access permissions for the Google Sheets template. Google will prompt you with the email address that needs permission to access the ‘child’ sheet for automatic uploads. Overlooking the sharing of your sheet with this address will prevent the system from working.

Having date range gaps in your parent sheet

Lastly, a common oversight is leaving date range gaps in the ‘parent’ sheet. Every single date must be accounted for without overlaps. A practical tip is to have an ‘evergreen’ backup message ready, scheduled to run continuously, ideally through the end of the year, to cover any potential gaps.

Conclusion

Leveraging Google Sheets in conjunction with Google Ads to schedule RSA ad customizers is a game-changer for managing dynamic promotional content. This process not only streamlines your workflows but also ensures that your ads remain relevant and up-to-date, reflecting current promotions without the need for constant manual intervention. 

By adopting this method, you’ll save significant time and effort, allowing you to focus more on strategy and less on the minutiae of ad copy updates. Give it a try and experience a more efficient way to manage your RSAs, keeping your campaigns fresh and engaging with minimal hassle.

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