The click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who see an advertisement or promotion actionable from that ad. It’s essentially how often users interact with it.
For example, suppose you have an advertising campaign promoting a new restaurant in your city. You run one digital ad during the day and two print ads in different local newspapers.
How many people saw each ad and interacted with it? Well, that's basically what CTR is.
A conversion is when someone clicks on one link or button, or completes another action (buy product, sign up for a newsletter, etc.). Conversions are what we call “actions” in content marketing.
A common mistake that people make with conversions is to focus only on them. We should be measuring engagement levels as well.
Consider this example: Assume that you created a webpage featuring a new car model. Thousands of people visit your page every week to see the details about the vehicle.
Most will wander around the page and look at the pictures but few will click through to learn more about the product.
You might have converted some visitors into customers by adding special offers and discounts to your website. But it matters since they count as a conversion if you want to measure effectiveness.
We can guess who clicked which links, but it doesn’t matter unless our assumptions were correct. And even then, comparing results between websites helps us identify weak areas of conversion that need improvement.
The first step to determining the effectiveness of content marketing is submission. This refers to actively putting your message forward, rather than simply having it appear online. You will be required to specify an end date for each article or video that you submit, in order to ensure that it shows up within a specific timeframe.
It also helps if you have a team of people who can edit and review the contents of your publication before they go live. That way there’s less chance that something will get left behind in the editing stage.
The best measure of success for any content marketing campaign is how many downloads/views the piece will receive after its release.
However, this method is not very effective because often times the audience does not share the same view as the writer about what matters to them.
To improve this number, try incorporating questions into your articles and videos to see which ones are being viewed and read most frequently. Use these questions and comments to shape future pieces to increase engagement.
Given that content marketing is an effective way to attract traffic to your website, the next step is to measure how successful you are at it.
One of the most common ways to do this is by looking at the number of visitors arriving from Google, comparing before and after periods when you published content.
You can also look at social media statistics, where you will see traffic coming directly from your posts/pages as well as followers and likes. By analyzing this data along with other methods, you can determine what subjects interest your audience and bring in steady traffic.
Google analytics helps you track visitor activity on your site. You can set up automated notifications which notify you if people are visiting your page (via email or smartphone app) without clicking onto the link currently displayed.
These links can be added into their own line of code, so they can be clicked on quickly, rather than having to visit the homepage or go through the sign-up process. Clicking on these items should result in a notification about what item people were searching for.
Tracking keywords is another useful tool to understand what interests users and what is trending. They release new features constantly so make sure to check back often!
The lead gen rates can be calculated by conducting an audience survey or analyzing past sales records.
An audience survey can be conducted in many ways, such as sending out questionnaires, performing interviews and having people listen to a audio recording of a presentation.
The results from the survey will contain information about the type of products/services that person uses, his or her age group, gender and income level. This allows for the creation of content that is relevant to the type of product/service that the person utilizes.
It also helps determine which types of content have greater appeal to different audiences. For example, video content seems to attract men more than text alone. More men are likely to view videos than read blogs.
Sales records can be analyzed through tracking website visits and shopping behaviors. Based on this research, profiles of potential customers can be created using data collection tools (analytics). Information collected through browsing behavior patterns can be used to predict future purchasing behavior.
This method can help you generate leads quickly because it gives you something immediate to promote within your marketing campaign.
If you sell goods or services, this is the most important measure of success for your content marketing campaign.
It can take a while to see a return on your investment from content marketing, so it’s useful to know what results people are getting.
How do you track this? You can use dashboards that show you how many sales came from specific content links, articles, posts, etc.
You can also pay attention to where the readers who come from link clicks are going next (if they click on more than one article, for example).
This helps you find other relevant articles which you may want to promote via content links.
You can also look at page views and comments for similar information. People may be reading your articles because they need help with something related to the topic you covered in the text.
Tracking sale rates is time-consuming but gives you an idea of whether the work you did was worth it.
An effective content marketing campaign will develop brand awareness, increase traffic to your website, and boost conversion rates.
Brand awareness is when visitors to your site learn more about you and what you offer, without buying anything.
Conversion rates are how often people buy from you. If you have an online store, for example, but few people visit it, then many people never go through with a purchase.
If you make your shopping experience easy, however, they’re much more likely to buy in that moment.
Content helps you get ahead by creating quality resources that attract potential customers and keep them involved.
It can also help drive traffic to your web pages, which is one of the main ways content drives sales. By appearing in my stream of life and having me spend money somewhere, content marketing has helped my business tremendously.
More than anything, brand awareness is what content marketing is all about. When done correctly, it can boost traffic to your website, increase conversion rates, and improve overall revenue.
Content marketing works because it introduces products or services that are valuable to customers without being salesy. It increases customer confidence in you, your business, and your product.
That leads people to either buy something or become loyal consumers. Here’s how content marketing accomplishes this:
By creating quality content every week or month that attracts links and readers, your brand becomes more recognizable and important to potential buyers. This increased recognition boosts your search engine rankings (if you work hard to create them).
Consumers want to know who they should do business with. If they hear others talking about your brand, they will trust their words more than yours.
Content marketing helps build relationships between you and other businesses and individuals. Once they like you, people will feel more inclined to purchase from you.
Shares are how much of your content gets spread to other people and websites.
Sharing on social media is one of the most effective ways to advertise your business and inform your followers about new products and services.
But making an effort to attract more shares means giving away valuable advertising space for no extra money.
Shares also make their way into your original content, like blogs and articles. Making an effort to give away free pieces time after time will help them count toward your overall goal.
There’s no single method that guarantees increased sharing, but here are some tips that may help :