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How To Explain Content Marketing ROI to Win (or Keep) Buy-In

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How To Explain Content Marketing ROI to Win (or Keep) Buy-In

Updated March 15, 2022

Many key figures for buy-in and implementation of content marketing still don’t even know what content marketing is or why it’s a worthy investment.

That could well affect why only 26% of B2B and 29% of B2C marketers rate their content marketing as extremely or very successful in the latest CMI research. If you can’t get initial buy-in, if you don’t get enough support behind your content efforts, how can you be successful?

Explaining the nitty-gritty inner workings and ROI of both content marketing and content strategy to bosses or clients is difficult for everybody. This difficulty multiplies, especially when you want to get your content strategy off the ground. And if you can’t find the right way to explain ROI, you may never move past “go.”

If you can’t explain #ContentMarketing, #ContentStrategy, and ROI to executives, you may never move past go, says @JuliaEMcoy via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Being able to explain content marketing’s worth and rewards can make all the difference in this situation. How do you explain content marketing and its ROI? How can you phrase this explanation in a way that’s persuasive, urgent, and incredibly convincing?

Fear not. There ARE ways to make it happen.

1. Explain content marketing and strategy in understandable terms

Start with the basics in your explanation of content marketing and strategy. Metaphors are always a great way to relate new concepts to something people already know. Here’s an apt one for the content duo:

If content marketing is a vehicle, content strategy is its engine. The vehicle can transport you to your destination (i.e., goals), but it needs an engine to get you there.

Perhaps the goal is to increase organic traffic to your brand website – your destination.

  • The vehicle to get there is content marketing.
  • The engine that powers content marketing is your content strategy. In this example, the strategy might be to blog three times a month, targeting keywords your desired audience uses in its searches.
  • The ROI for your engine-powered vehicle is measured by the increase in average monthly visitors to the site over a predetermined time in your content strategy.

Simply and succinctly breaking down content marketing and content strategy with this analogy gives your bosses or clients a ground-floor understanding of how it all works.

#ContentMarketing is the vehicle. #ContentStrategy is the engine that powers the vehicle. Your goal is the destination, says @JuliaEMcoy via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

After you lay it out, though, you need to dig in and really show them why it works and why they should care.

2. Use these methods to demystify content marketing ROI

All the metaphors in the world won’t help you explain content marketing and its worth if you aren’t using language your boss, clients, or higher-ups understand. Here are some other approaches that help show how content marketing works and make them care.

Gather evidence (case studies, examples, stats, and more)

To drive home the impact and potential of content marketing for whoever needs convincing, show them the numbers, don’t talk about the potential.

Gather examples of other businesses and individuals who have used content marketing to bolster their brand success. These are easy enough to find online. Search for case studies that show the true gains from content in terms of hard data.

For example, this CMI article looks at four companies that shared the results from their content marketing campaigns. The article shares concrete examples of the content each company created, plus the major results each campaign netted. For example, software development agency Coding Sans shared that its 2019 State of Software Development report attracted 5,000 downloads, 291 backlinks, and an estimated $300,000 in new projects.

Phrase your argument in terms of what your boss or client will gain

For your content argument to win, you need to emphasize what your boss/client/stakeholder will gain from it.

To win the argument for #content, emphasize what your boss will gain from it, says @JuliaEMcCoy via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

As Gary Williams and Robert Miller write Harvard Business Review: “All too often, people make the mistake of focusing too much on the content of their argument and not enough on how they deliver that message.”

The right delivery is key for achieving content marketing buy-in. Don’t just gather all the examples and throw them like a pitcher throwing fastballs. Think about the key person you’re trying to convince and tailor your argument for them.

Present examples that will appeal to their interests and knowledge. Then, describe how a tailored content strategy for the brand will drive traffic, build relationships with an audience, create leads, and ultimately pull in new customers. Emphasize whichever of these results that person will deem most important.

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3. Predict the ROI on implementing (or continuing to invest in) content marketing

If the higher-ups want to know how you’ll show the ROI of content marketing in hard numbers, don’t despair. You can estimate the eventual payoff for the brand depending on what they invest in content marketing at the outset.

Let’s get into the formula you need to follow for confidently making this prediction. This is where you literally show them the money.

Hit them with a tested formula for predicting ROI

Here’s the foundation of the content marketing ROI formula: conversions.

Conversions are a basic metric to determine the success of a content marketing strategy.  You can use content marketing to:

  • Attract or increase traffic to a site.
  • Convert that traffic into high-quality leads.
  • Convert those leads into sales.

1647339243 553 How To Explain Content Marketing ROI to Win or Keep

If you can quantify conversions in terms of their potential sales, you can estimate the eventual ROI from investment in a content marketing strategy.

Benchmarks

Benchmark numbers help you determine conversion potential. For this formula, use data that quantifies two big parts of the conversion process:

  • Your industry’s average conversion rate to high-quality leads (the ones most likely to become sales)
  • Your company’s average rate of high-quality leads that convert to sales

Use these numbers, plus monthly traffic numbers from your brand, to predict content marketing ROI in the form of projected leads and sales.

Formula

To estimate earned leads per month:

  • Number of monthly visitors multiplied by (average traffic-to-leads conversion rate) = X leads per month

To estimate sales per month from those leads:

  • Number of monthly leads multiplied by (average lead-to-sale conversion rate) = X sales per month

4. Use numbers to encourage investment in content marketing

Sure, showing the ROI potential of content marketing is great, but it won’t hit home unless you also show why it’s better than other types of marketing investments. Here’s how to do that:

Estimate the investment

Up-front investment is necessary for content marketing. Show what that investment will look like.

For example, if you pay about $375 on average for one authority content piece every week, the total yearly investment for content creation is $19,500. (I’m using this single cost to simplify the example. You should consider all related costs for publishing, promotion, etc.)

Explain what the investment will produce

Now, outline what the company will get from that investment.

For example, show that your content creation will focus on high-performing keywords (low competition, high search volume). Assume you’ll hit at least the third position in Google rankings within a year for at least two-thirds of those targeted keywords (34 out of 52, give or take a few).

If each of those higher-ranking keywords has a search volume of 1,500 a month, you could expect a CTR (click-through rate) of 11%, according to Sistrix data.

That would net a total search volume of 51,000 (34 keywords multiplied by 1,500 searches per month) and an average of 5,610 monthly visitors (51,000 total search volume x 11% CTR).

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Show why that investment is better and how it translates to ROI

Now, find out how much it would cost to reach that number of website monthly visitors through paid search.

For example, Semrush shows (with a Pro subscription) organic traffic and how much that amount of traffic would cost in paid search each month. Here’s an example from my website that shows I’d have to pay $2,400 a month for the 841 monthly organic visitors the site currently attracts. Find that number for your own organic traffic and compare it to your content costs.

1647339243 364 How To Explain Content Marketing ROI to Win or Keep

To make the deal sweeter, let’s look at the ROI potential of those 5,610 monthly visitors from content marketing using the earlier conversion benchmark formulas:

  • 5,610 monthly visitors x 10% (benchmark traffic-to-leads conversion rate) = 561 monthly leads
  • 561 monthly leads x 15% (benchmark leads-to-sales conversion rate) = 84 monthly closed sales

(I used numbers to make the calculation easy to understand. You’ll use the numbers you gathered on relevant industry benchmarks and your own company’s lead-to-sale close rate.)

Pulling it all together

It’s time to pull it all together and create the most convincing argument possible for content marketing and strategy.

Use each facet to build your case and make it irresistible, and always phrase your argument in terms of how content will benefit your boss/clients/higher-ups/stakeholders:

  1. Lay out a ground-floor explanation of how content marketing and strategy work. Use relatable metaphors.
  2. Present examples of content from various companies AND the results netted from these campaigns. (Use hard data and stats – case studies are excellent for this.)
  3. Use the formulas above to predict the brand’s potential for ROI-based traffic and lead conversions. Compare those numbers to investments for other marketing tactics to get the same results.
  4. Accept handshakes and pats on the back for your marketing genius.

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Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute




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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

Introduction

With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Ads

  • Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
  • Types:
    • In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
    • Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.

Display Ads

  • Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
  • Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).

Companion Banners

  • Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
  • Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.

YouTube Ad Specs by Type

Skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
    • Action: 15-20 seconds

Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
  • Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1

Bumper Ads

  • Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
  • File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 640 x 360px
    • Vertical: 480 x 360px

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
  • Headline/Description:
    • Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
    • Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line

Display Ads

  • Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
  • Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
  • File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
  • File Size: Max 150KB.
  • Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
  • Logo Specs:
    • Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
    • File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
    • Max Size: 200KB.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
  • File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).

Conclusion

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.

To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.

Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots

Salesforce’s evolving architecture

It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?

“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”

Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”

That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.

“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.

Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”

Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot

“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.

For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”

Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”

It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”

What’s new about Einstein Personalization

Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?

“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”

Finally, trust

One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.

“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”

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