There isn’t a single metric that can successfully tell you whether your content marketing plan is working. To truly determine your blog or websites success you will need to create an array of metrics.

Since there are so many metrics for content marketing, and even more tools used to measure them, the framework is broken down by channels, so you can get specific examples of each metric. You have to break things down into channels to be sure you are using the proper metric.

Let’s take a look at four metrics that you should get to know well.

1. Consumption Metrics

The consumption metric is the most fundamental metric. It is a critical data point and you can easily derive it using Google Analytics and YouTube insights.

This metric can answer how many people read your content measured as page views or downloads. You will need to look at your website or blog’s page views and unique visitors.

What is the point of producing content if it isn’t being viewed? By measuring the number of unique visitors that visit your website you will be able to determine if your content marketing campaign is working. Many businesses produce their own content while others hire a content writing agency.

Some experts think that you should not put too much stock in this particular metric. Remember that raw traffic counts aren’t nearly as important as what the reader does once they visit your site.

2. Sharing Metric

The sharing metric is the most loved metric. It is the most public metric and is often determined by your businesses tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn shares, Diggs, instagram posts and more.
The best way to track your blogs sharing metric is by using PostRank Analytics.

3. Lead Generation Metrics

It doesn’t matter if you require registration before letting customers download your content or if you are measuring leads after your content is read, you need to determine if your content marketing is financially helping you or hurting you.
Remember that keeping your website and blog with fresh valuable content is what will boost your views as well as your income. Keeping your blog filled with fresh content will allow readers to become engaged and continue to return to your site. It is also important to cover a wide range of topics instead of reviewing the same topic over and over again.
It is also a good idea to set a browser cookie to track when someone fills out the lead form after they viewed your content.

4. Production Metrics

Production metrics is an internal assessment of your content marketing strategy. You can assess how your team is performing in relation to your editorial calendar’s goals.

Whether metrics tell you that your content marketing is good or bad, make sure that you take action. Even if your results are good there are always ways to improve your strategy. If your results are bad, it is time to figure out how to fix it. Ensure that you or a member of your team is trained and prepared to act on the metrics results.

Make sure that you have a metrics dashboard where you can see your actionable metrics all in one place. Seeing everything in one place is the key to properly evaluating and fixing issues.

It is important to evaluate key metrics on a regular basis, since the more you check them the quicker you can respond to any issues. If you only check your metrics monthly, you may find issues when it may be too late to deal with them.

Daily analysis isn’t a great idea either. The key is to find balance. Try checking your metrics every two weeks and if you feel that they need more attention start checking on them weekly. Once you find the right time span you’ll reach a comfortable balance.
Using metrics can be difficult at first, but you will quickly learn how to use them as well as which metrics are best for your business to rely on. Balance is the goal.

Content marketing is the best way to reach customers and by keeping your content fresh and listening to your customers questions and evaluating their needs, you can run a successful content marketing campaign that will not only benefit your business, but your consumers as well.

With time you will discover the proper time to analyze your content marketing and just how to properly measure the contents success with metrics. Once you are comfortable producing and measuring content the sky is the limit!

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