how to measure the efficacy of content marketing initiatives

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Congratulations! You’re a Publisher!
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Content Marketing Metrics
eMetrics New York
Oct. 19, 2011
Charlene Li Rebecca Lieb
Founder and Partner Analyst, Digital
Advertising & Media

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Measure What a Publishers Measures:
 Page Views
 Time Spent on Page
 Top Stories
 Subscribers
 Ad Sales
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4. Sample Default Slide Master)
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B2C Content Marketing Case Study
Pepsi Refresh
Monitor web for project mentions, assess sentiment. “What
consumers say about us is more important than anything that we
say. It’s an indexed competitive score looking at how our brand is
doing compared to our competitors, indexed on a hundredth
scale. The formula accounts for volume and sentiment, and then
weighted by platform." –Shiv Singh, PepsiCo
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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B2B Content Marketing Case Study
Eloqua
Company closed $2.5 million in annual contracts from clients who
downloaded 2010 Grande Guides, additional $3.2 million in
contract stage. People who discover Eloqua through its content
are 21% more likely to view a demo and more likely to be VP level
or higher than the average site visitor, i.e. “quality leads”
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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Figure Out What You Want to Measure
& Why You Want to Measure It
 Subscribers
 Fans
 Likes
 SEO (visibility; ranking; as traffic source)
 Leads (quality; lifetime value; customers referred by
existing leads)
 Sales (volume; dollar value; length of sales cycle)
 Traffic
 Conversions (Sales? Subscribers? Leads?)
 User/Lead/Sales Acquisition Costs
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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One Approach:
Assign a Dollar Value to Each KPI
 The average chair costs $500
 Analytics show 50 people start the process of purchasing a chair
online every day, but only 10 finish the process
 User research shows the instructions on the purchase pages are very
confusing
 We assume 5-10 people leave the purchasing process because of
something unrelated to the site. 5-10 leave the process when they see
shipping costs
 We assume the remaining 20-30 people would complete the
purchasing process if instructions were more helpful
 Ergo, the value of the instructional content is likely c. $300,000 -
$450,000 per month ($500 X 20-30 people X 30 days)
 The cost of fixing the content is approximately $25,000
Source: BrainTraffic
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9. Image by StreetFly_JZ used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/streetfly_jz/2760882758
Measuring More Than Money
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10. Source: “A Framework for Social Analytics” by Susan Etlinger
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11. Source: “A Framework for Social Analytics” by Susan Etlinger
© 2011 Altimeter Group

12. Source: “A Framework for Social Analytics” by Susan Etlinger
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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Soft Content Metrics
 Facebook likes, Google + +1s
 Retweets
 Social network shares
 Blog citations
 Links back
 Comments
 Time spent on page
 Average page views per visitor
 Followers
 @Mentions
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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Soft Content Metrics
 Facebook likes, Google + +1s
 Retweets
 Social network shares
 Blog citations
 Links back
 Comments
 Time spent on page
 Average page views per visitor
 Followers
 @Mentions
© 2011 Altimeter Group

15. Image by randomcuriousity used with Attribution as directed by Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomcuriosity/3445573373/
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Recommendations
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top-converting
referrers
pages
keywords
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sales attribution
ecommerce
dedicated 800 numbers
online forms for downloads
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lead quality
define it:
job title?
prospect who first watched a video or
downloaded a white paper?
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search & social media visibility
web analytics, Alexa.com, Compete.com
tie SEO to specific keywords
goal: awareness, buzz, brand, traffic
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be patient
These aren’t advertising or e-commerce
metrics.
Clear content marketing ROI takes time to
become manifest.
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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THANK YOU
Rebecca Lieb
rebecca@altimetergroup.com
www.rebeccalieb.com/blog
Twitter: @lieblink
© 2011 Altimeter Group

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ABOUT US
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We have four areas of focus: Leadership and Management,
Customer Strategy, Enterprise Strategy, and Innovation and
Design.
Visit us at http://www.altimetergroup.com or contact
info@altimetergroup.com.
© 2011 Altimeter Group