How to Measure Content Marketing ROI: Formulas, Tips, Resources, and Processes

The content you share is the force that breathes life into your business.

All businesses know that content marketing is incredibly valuable.

However, the challenge lies in figuring out whether their content efforts have made an impact on the target audience and are helping them achieve their goals. 

The internet is full of data on how effective content marketing can fetch the returns you desire. Consider these content marketing ROI statistics, for instance.

• 71% of B2B buyers shared that they go through a business’s blog content before making a purchase decision. 
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing but drives 3X as many leads. 
• In a CMI survey, 93% of the most successful B2B content marketers shared that their business is extremely committed to content marketing. 
• Businesses that consistently share content on their blog receive 97% more links to their website than companies that don’t.
• A simple content face-lift can increase a site’s organic traffic by more than 40%.

You’ll find these and many other statistics talking about the effectiveness of content marketing.

However, merely sharing these statistics may not be successful in getting you a bigger budget for your content marketing campaigns. 

There’s no proof greater than experiencing content marketing success yourself.

The simple exercise of routinely measuring content marketing will –  

• make you more passionate about achieving your content goals 
• help you create content that resonates with your audience
• convince the major stakeholders to invest more in content marketing strategies

Hence, in this post, I will share the importance of measuring ROI and demonstrate how to measure the ROI of a content marketing strategy. 

So, let’s get going! 

What Is Content Marketing ROI?

Content marketing ROI is often directly tied to business revenue.

It uses several content metrics to give marketers a clear picture of whether or not their content is making an impact or triggering an action. 

The ROI of content marketing is determined by comparing the sales with the amount spent on producing and promoting content.

A high return indicates that you can effectively generate sales and leads through your content marketing campaigns. 

However, revenue is not the only indicator of content marketing success.

When considered separately, customer loyalty, brand reputation, and customer engagement are a few other parameters that contribute to ROI measurement.

Hence, to gauge the overall effectiveness of your campaign, you should consider all these factors. 

Why Should Marketers Calculate Content Marketing ROI? 

A lot of research has shown that per dollar spent, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing campaigns.

But not all of us are wowed by such impressive statistics. 

To get convinced and invest in content marketing, executives need to hear about its tangible benefits.

Also read: Why B2B Content Marketing Matters? (Now More Than Ever Before)

In other words, they need to know how much revenue is being generated or how is content marketing contributing to the bottom line.

Here’s why every business should consider calculating and tracking the ROI of their content efforts.

1. Boosts Your Chances of Success

Measuring the ROI of content marketing not just points to campaign success but also helps businesses discover opportunities for improvement.

For instance, it offers insights into investing future marketing dollars. 

Firms investing their time and effort in measuring content ROI get a serious edge over the competition.

In fact, a survey by CMI proves that this is precisely the difference between successful and unsuccessful businesses. 

72% of all successful brands measure content marketing while 65% of the unsuccessful ones do not.

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Thus, to be successful measuring the ROI of content marketing is crucial.  

2. Helps Marketers Set Clear Goals

Creating clever content isn’t the challenge. What’s tough is creating content that achieves marketing goals.

Figuring out how to measure sales versus expenditures can help content marketers measure the success of their campaigns and set clear marketing goals. 

This, in turn, allows them to create better strategies that take them closer to these goals.

In fact, marketers who measure ROI are more than 12 times likely to achieve their ROI goals and generate year-over-year returns. 

3. Assesses the Impact Your Content Is Making

If your objective is to determine how many site visitors are converting to leads or customers, just going by the website traffic numbers isn’t enough.

In fact, such vanity metrics will only give a blurry picture. 

Content marketers are under constant pressure to prove the worth of resources invested in videos, blogs, infographics, social posts, and other content forms.

Calculating the ROI of content marketing will point out whether your content is compelling enough to trigger action. 

Moreover, it will tell you which content forms are performing well and which aren’t.

With this information, you can optimize your resources to get maximum returns. 

4. Puts You on the Fast Track to C-Suite Buy-In

Without a doubt, when you compare the ROI of companies that use content marketing versus those that don’t, you’ll find the former doing better.

But it isn’t always easy to convince the top management on how content marketing is well worth everyone’s time.

Comparing the ROI of content marketing and native advertising or other forms of marketing can be tricky.

That’s because it will be quite sometime before anyone sees returns from your content efforts. 

Hence, asking the C-suite to not only fund content campaigns but also wait several years for them to pay off is a bitter pill to swallow.

In a report shared by Content Marketing Institute, 41% of the respondents shared that the leadership doesn’t give them ample time to produce content marketing results.

Determining content ROI can help marketers get buy-in for the budget increase they are looking for.

The company decision-makers may not understand the ins and outs of a content marketing strategy but they surely speak the ROI language. 

So, if you want them to decide in your favor, measure and track content ROI. 

Besides publishing stellar content, marketers should be able to determine whether their content efforts are helping them achieve their business goals.

Calculating ROI and setting up a mechanism to evaluate content efforts will allow you to sharpen your existing content marketing strategies and plan effective ones in the future. 

Measuring Content Marketing ROI Is Tricky! 

Most businesses are aware that it’s crucial to measure content marketing ROI.

However, very few are good at figuring out ROI.

A recent Gartner survey found that nearly half of the responding marketers are unable to measure their marketing ROI. 

This inability to measure marketing ROI tarnishes the value of the analytics and marketing team.

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In fact, in another survey, only 39% of marketers shared that they were somewhat successful at ROI tracking. 

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Marketers across the globe are facing this issue.

So, what makes measuring the ROI of content marketing so dicey? Let’s see! 

A. Content Is a TOFU Activity 

Content in the form of blog posts, guides, and videos is primarily a top-of-the-funnel activity.

It helps people in the discovery phase of the buying cycle.

Most marketers aim at creating content that revolves around the buyer’s pain points, not the product. 

In time, most of the website visitors will end up making a purchase decision.

However, by then, several other channels play a role in influencing the prospect. 

The complexity of this process makes it difficult for marketers to quantify the role of content marketing in making a conversion.

This makes measuring content marketing a tough endeavor. 

B. Content Marketing Is a Long-Term Game of Iterations and Discovery

One of the most common questions clients ask us is, ‘How long will it take for a content marketing campaign to give returns?’ 

The truth is, content marketing is a long-term game.

Almost every content marketing campaign begins with a negative ROI that improves over time.

That’s because a myriad of variables influences the success of a campaign. 

Several content metrics, namely reach, engagement, and conversions are used to prove the value of content marketing.

But in most cases, these metrics aren’t fully reliable for months after the initial publication. 

Simply put, the timeline for returns is a gamble in the case of content marketing.

A piece of content may not generate traffic immediately but gain traction after a few months. This may make it challenging for marketers to track marketing ROI metrics. 

C. It Is Challenging to Quantify the Esoteric Benefits of Content Marketing 

Improved brand perception is one of the major benefits of content marketing. But how does one measure it? It is tough to quantify several such abstract benefits in numbers. 

It’s tough to put a number on subjective standards, such as brand perception, reputation, and authority.

Though these standards correlate with higher conversions and sales, measuring them isn’t easy. 

D. Marketers Tend to Focus on Too Many Key Performance Indicators 

At times, marketers tend to focus all their attention on multiple KPIs, even if they aren’t relevant to their content marketing campaign. 

For instance, vanity metrics, such as likes, shares, followers, open rates, views, and traffic can be ambiguous when it comes to ROI measurement. 

Tracking too many KPIs makes it tough to measure the impact of content. 

E. Marketers Often Focus on the Incorrect KPIs

Measuring the ROI of marketing campaigns involves tracking only a few relevant factors.

For instance, social conversation and shares outside your customer base aren’t relevant to measuring marketing ROI. 

These metrics are useful to look at when you are trying to build an audience or may initially impress the budget decision-makers. However, they do not contribute to the marketing ROI formula. 

In a B2B Content Marketing Report,

• 63% of marketers used vanity metrics like website traffic and visits.
• Only 21% considered revenue to gauge content marketing success.

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In other words, to understand how to measure content marketing, we need to start looking at final conversions and the specific actions that push visitors deeper down the funnel.

Also read: Visual Content Marketing: Why You Should Include it in Your Marketing Strategy

Pre-Requisites for Calculating Content ROI 

Before proceeding to calculating content ROI, we need to pay attention to a few essentials.

Once we are clear on these, we can talk about how to measure content marketing ROI?

1. Monitor Performance before Strategy Implementation (Baselining)

Regardless of how expressive you expect your content marketing ROI to be, it’s incomplete without a comparison with other periods.

Hence, before getting into the content marketing ROI calculation, it’s wise to pay attention to a few essentials. 

Get a sales and revenue curve before creating the content strategy.

Tools like data visualization software can help you see how your business is performing in various scenarios. 

2. Count of Social Media Analytics 

All social channels have tools that can be used for data collection and analysis.

Instagram Insights, for instance, allows businesses to check the number of profiles they have reached.

It also allows them to identify what the audience likes and engages with. 

This kind of information can help in assessing whether the calculated ROI is acceptable.

3. Define the Purpose of Your Content Marketing ROI 

Not having a clear purpose for measuring content ROI is often the root cause of a misguided tracking strategy. 

Are you looking to justify your business’s content budget?

If that’s your sole purpose, you may get a confusing analysis when determining the impact of your strategy. 

Further, the constant pressure to demonstrate the value of their campaigns often tempts content marketers to resort to tracking vanity metrics. 

Hence, before procuring data or defining the metrics, it’s critical to define the purpose of this task.

Once you’ve figured this out you can move on to how to measure content marketing ROI.

4. Get Used to Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is an excellent tool that provides data to evaluate and optimize content strategy.

It enables marketers to measure the critical metrics.

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For instance, a high bounce rate could indicate that your visitors are accessing a page and leaving because of poor content or UX.

This means you need to take measures to improve your site’s experience. 

If your team isn’t used to this tool, it’s time to change that!

5. Be Aware of the Metrics That You’ll Need

Content marketing ROI cannot be calculated if you do not have data on the earnings and expenses of your campaigns. This handy table will help you track the right metrics for this purpose.

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The above-mentioned metrics can put a number on the content marketing costs and the results experienced through various content campaigns. 

How to Calculate the ROI of Content Marketing

Content marketing ROI isn’t just about cold cash! It comprises several goals that businesses desire to achieve.

Since content powers all inbound strategies, its impact can be measured in various ways, besides the standard marketing ROI formula available all over the internet.

In this section, you will understand how to determine the ROI of content marketing by using the ROI formula and a few KPIs and metrics.

These will give you a reliable picture of your content marketing efforts.

1. Revenue

Through this approach, we are trying to attribute money, sales or revenue, to the content strategy.

The Content Formula: Calculate the ROI and Never Waste Money Again!

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We’d recommend measuring the ROI of each content initiative or program.

For instance, you need to calculate the  ROI of your webinar series, blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Once that’s done, the data can be rolled together to calculate the overall content ROI for your business. 

I would like to demonstrate this calculation using a few examples of ROI in a content marketing campaign.

Let’s say, you run a commercial tire business that promotes tires and other automobile parts to car manufacturers.

Yours is a targeted B2B firm with moderate competition.

You aim at creating brand awareness among your high-value audience.

Hence, you are looking to create content that’ll increase the number of leads and conversions. 

You decide to leverage podcasts to increase awareness and e-newsletters for data collection. How can you determine whether or not these efforts will pay off? 

How to measure ROI of content marketing in this case?

Let’s apply the ROI formula here! 

A. Calculate Your Content Marketing Costs

Say, from preparing to recording the podcast, your monthly content marketing cost for the program is about $3800. Here’s the breakdown. 

$400 – Podcast host (charges $100 per hour X 4 shows a month) 

$600 – Your participation cost ($150 per show X 4 shows a month)

$300 – Content coordinator (works on podcast episodes and newsletter) 

$800 – Audio editor (charges $200 per episode X 4 shows)

$500 – Social media ads

$800 – Podcast hosting, landing pages, logo design, and email software

$400: E-newsletter 

B. Calculate the Returns 

Let’s say, by using a special tracking URL on the podcast episodes, you see an average newsletter download is 50 per month. These are stemming from the podcast episodes where the host kept promoting it. 

Besides, you earn 100 new subscribers for the newsletter through these episodes. 

Your sales team’s conversion rate from lead to sale is 2% and you observe that 1% of your subscribers get converted to customers. 

Thus, each month, your podcast is responsible for 2 new customers (1 from e-newsletter – 50 downloads X 2% and 1 from email – 100 subscribers X 1% conversion rate). 

Let’s assume, each customer will spend $50,000 over the course of their association with you and your profit margin is about 20%. 

Thus, each customer is worth $50,000 X 20% = $10,000. 

So, every month, your podcast brings in 2 X 10,000 = $20,000 of net revenue. That’s your return. 

C. Calculate the Return on Investment

Going by the formula shared earlier, the ROI for this activity can be calculated as follows – 

$10,000 – $3800 = $6200

$6200/$3800 = 1.63

1.63 X 100 = 163% 

Once you have sorted the types of content marketing by ROI, you will know where to invest your resources. 

Considering the same example I used above, if your video marketing is outperforming your podcast content, it’s time to divert some of your resources to video. 

2. Leads 

Another sure-shot way to measure the worth of your content efforts is to track the leads they capture.

Depending on what stage of the customer journey your content is targeting, a lead could be someone clicking on your page in the SERP, commenting on your social post, or calling up for a quote. 

However, not all leads are equal.

Hence, it’s important to attribute them based on the type of content that attracted them and the future sale they may get.

This attribution can help you determine the top-contributing leads. 

For instance, if 20% of leads from a specific content campaign are expected to buy your most profitable product, you can safely calculate a reliable ROI for that campaign. 

Track leads by setting up event measurement in the Events reports of Google Analytics.

This exercise will help you track lead-specific interactions like CTA clicks, video clicks, form interactions, and more. 

3. Conversions 

Google Analytics allows users to set and track goals for specific actions.

Thus, you can measure any conversion type for your business and optimize your content efforts to boost conversions (completion of a goal).

Simply put, you can attribute conversions to a piece of content leads engage with before taking any type of action.

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GA uses the Last Click Attribution model for this purpose. This default model attributes the final page to the conversion.

However, you may use the multichannel funnel attribution model (MCF) to assign values as per the interaction, as shown in the graphic above. 

Watch this video by Google Analytics to understand how MCFs work.

Also read: Content Strategy: 5 Tips that Lead To Sales

4. Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

This metric should closely follow your content marketing ROI.

To increase the returns on your content efforts, you can either generate more revenue without increasing investments or reduce investments without reducing the revenue. 

CPA is a strong indicator of your content marketing investment in relation to acquiring a new customer.

By reducing your cost per acquisition and maintaining sales volumes you can boost the ROI of your content campaigns. 

5. Other Factors to Consider When Measuring Content Impact 

The below-mentioned factors cannot be attributed to a specific content marketing campaign. Yet, they have an impact on a business’s bottom line.

A. Brand Awareness

59% of customers prefer buying from familiar brands. This clearly shows that brand awareness is increasingly important for customers. Content marketing allows businesses to consistently add relevant content to the digital space, thus building brand awareness. 

B. Brand Reputation and Customer Loyalty

Each successful content campaign wins customer trust. For instance, consistently sharing value-adding content will build brand equity and position you as an authority in the domain. 

As you continue sharing quality content, these followers will not just spread the word in their network but also stay loyal to you. 

C. Backlinks from Authoritative Sites and Influencers 

When experts from related domains comment or link back to your content, your business will earn more reputation and ranking. These factors are tough to quantify but significantly contribute to business revenue. 

I hope by now you are clear on how to measure the ROI of content marketing.

Now, let’s understand a little about finding the relevant data to work out the ROI.

Procuring Data to Plug the ROI Equation! 

As I shared earlier, not all data and metrics we track are relevant to measuring the ROI of every content campaign.

Oftentimes, businesses waste a lot of time and resources making sense of the data available to them.

After all, harnessing 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated each day across various channels, devices, and technologies isn’t a cakewalk. 

In fact, only 30% of B2B marketers can leverage data to inform their decision-making process. 

Here’s a graphic I created to walk you through the milestones of the journey of data discovery.

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So, when you begin the journey of measuring content marketing ROI, you may not have clarity on what data to use.

This is a journey of discovery and relevance and it will allow you to iteratively fine-tune KPIs and the underlying data needed to come to a figure.

Need to Get a Buy-In? Tips to Build a Strong Business Case

It isn’t always easy to convince your C-suite to increase the budget and support for content marketing.

Content marketing is quite unlike any other traditional form of marketing.

Hence, it demands a different mindset and approach when challenging the status quo and convincing marketing leaders to get on board. 

Here are a few tips that can help you create a strong business case for content marketing. 

1. Speak the Language of the Executives

Marketing leaders care about revenue growth, cost savings, brand loyalty, and operational efficiency.

Hence, your business case should mention these ‘keywords’ and explain how the content strategy will impact them. 

Show them the end goal. What is it that you’ll be able to deliver and by when? 

Here’s an example of showcasing the end goal.

2. Model What Content Marketing Campaign Will Look Like for Your Firm

The business case should build a model of everything you plan to achieve through your content efforts.

When presenting a business case, you need to be prepared with answers to questions shared here. 

• How will content marketing drive results from your existing digital channel? 
• Will it have an impact on your ongoing lead generation efforts?  
• How will additional traffic from organic search or social channels contribute to your top-of-the-funnel efforts? 
• Will the campaign increase the number of sales opportunities?
• How will all this contribute to the KPIs that senior stakeholders care about?

3. Test Your Assumptions

Presenting a business case to the top management is also a part of your discovery process.

It is an opportunity for you to build, test, and hone your assumptions with your team and senior management. 

Not all business cases can ensure that the decision-makers have a precise understanding of how content marketing will impact the bottom line.

However, the iterative process will boost your conviction in the case. 

Ultimately, your case should provide the level of detail that shows your team has done their homework.

Brands Leveraging Content Marketing to Steer Their Business Decisions

To better understand how it works, let’s look at a few case studies that show the positive impact of content marketing.

In these cases, you’ll see how content marketing has helped these businesses secure coverage in top publications, improve brand awareness, and build authority in their niche.

Case 1 – Growfusely Has Always Been Ahead of the Content Game 

We at Growfusely specialize in creating quality content and data-driven SEO.

The content agency has built an incredible personal brand by – 

• Sharing top-notch content on their blog that informs, educates and engages the target audience.
• Contributing stellar content to authority websites in their niche.
• Offering superior customer service, earning us a great reputation in the content realm.

The results are evident here!

Organic keywords:

Organic traffic:

Traffic value:

Case 2 – Oneupweb Aced at Email Marketing with Content-Packed Emails

It’s a well-known fact that email marketing can fetch businesses $38 for every dollar spent.

In fact, email marketing is one of the highest ROI marketing activities a company can undertake. 

That’s exactly how Oneupweb, a Michigan-based firm pulled off strong engagement from their email strategy.

In July 2019, the firm ramped up its email marketing through intensive testing, surveys, and tweaks to the email template design and consistently sharing quality content.

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On the left, The Digital Digest in July 2019, and on the right – December 2020

Source – https://www.oneupweb.com/case-studies/email-case-study/ 

Here are a few tactics they adopted as a part of their email strategy. 

• Launched the Digital Digest, a content-packed newsletter.
• Auto-enrolled anyone who filled out the subscription form on the website.
• Incorporated effective CTAs and placed them strategically throughout the website. 
• Created gated content like downloadable guides and templates. 

The result?

They achieved an open rate of 24.78% and a clickthrough rate of 25.41%. (versus the industry average 15 – 25%).

Case 3 – Fanatics Creates the Perfect Recipe for Content Success

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The online sports merchandise retailer, Fanatics wanted to offer strong reasons for its target audience (sports lovers) to visit their website and engage with their brand.

They used content marketing to build an impressive blog, grow their audience, and attract media coverage. 

Here are a few tactics they adopted. 

• Published high-quality sports-related articles to attract immediate attention. These were published during popular sporting events and seasons.
• Shared evergreen articles on their blog. For instance, check out this post related to the history of the NFL champions.

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• Published content as per the trends to maximize the big sports themes, match-ups, and player stories.

The result?

• They are featured on popular and authoritative websites like USA Today, MSN, and The Score. 
• They experienced a 1,100% increase in organic search traffic.
• They saw a 230% increase in the number of ranking keywords.

Content Marketing ROI FAQs

Before concluding I would like to address a few questions that are commonly asked by content marketers.

In case you do not find your question or query in this list, get in touch with us! 

#1: How long does it take for content marketing to work? 

Content marketing works! It can take anywhere from six months to a year for your content campaigns to show results. 

The timeline of your content efforts usually depends on your firm’s business model, the industry, your goals, your execution, and your definition of success.

Content takes time to gain traction. Hence, you need to be patient as your brand builds authority and awareness through content. 

I would call this ‘Surviving the Content Slog’ similar to what Rand Fishkin shared in Moz’s Whiteboard Friday episode on the SEO Slog.

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Also read: How Content Marketing and SEO are Same Yet Different from Each Other

#2: What results can I expect to see?

OR

How do I know that my content strategy is working?

Content is a long-term investment that precisely delivers the results you expect from it. 

Say, your content marketing circles around lead generation where your sales team uses the content generated to answer questions and expedite the sales process. 

You use all the inbound tactics to move on-site visitors through the funnel, converting them into viable leads.

In this case, here’s what you can expect!

At three months, it may not be realistic to expect thousands of leads to pour in. However, at this stage, you should focus on ensuring you have a system to track leads. For instance, you could create gated content or invest in a CRM to track and nurture leads. 

At six months, most businesses should engage in tactics like getting guest-contributed content published with links back to their website. At this stage, it’s normal to have about 2-3 quality leads per post. 

At 1 year, you can expect a steady stream of leads. By this time your content strategy team should have a clear understanding of the type of content that works best for the target audience. 

#3: What is a good marketing ROI? 

An average content marketing ROI will depend on your industry and the company’s history.

For instance, if your firm has always invested in offline marketing campaigns, you’ll be thrilled with a 20% ROI from content marketing. 

On the other hand, if this isn’t your first content campaign, your firm would expect more. 

The key here is to adjust your plan and goals as you proceed. Not every initiative will give you the same results.

Monitor your campaign and count on analytics to determine what’s best for your business. 

#4: How is the quality of content measured?

Content quality is assessed using several factors. Here are a few questions that can help you measure the quality of your content.

• How well it addresses the pain points of the target audience and the user intent? Is it engaging enough?
• Does the content include the relevant LSI keywords? (keyword-rich phrases)
• Is it structured to better readability? 
• Is it optimized to perform well in the SERP? 

#5: I have calculated my content marketing ROI. What next? 

Figuring out your content marketing ROI isn’t a one-time exercise. The prime objective of measuring ROI is to inform your marketing efforts and ensure that your content investments are worthwhile. 

Determining how to measure content marketing ROI gives marketers insight into what the audience prefers and the direction they should head.

Hence, it’s advisable to keep measuring the returns and other KPIs. This will help you know where to shed what isn’t working and which profitable campaigns to prioritize.

Wrapping Up: Calculating Content ROI Is Necessary Evil! 

Tracking content marketing ROI may not sound like fun to most of us.

Yet, the process is an inseparable part of every content marketing strategy.

Measuring ROI allows marketers to realize and showcase the fruits of their content efforts and secure the investment it deserves. 

I am sure this guide has offered you enough clarity on how to measure ROI of content marketing.

If you are thinking of rolling out a content marketing campaign, use the information and tips shared above to assess your content strategy. 

Need more content marketing advice? Feel free to visit Growfusely’s blog that’s loaded with action-packed content!