It’s no longer a secret that content marketing can help brands achieve all of their marketing goals — from lead generation and thought leadership to sales enablement and customer retention.
But how does content marketing drive these positive results? By tracking the right content marketing key performance indicators (KPIs), you can measure the impact of your content, prove the ROI of your content marketing, and make more strategic decisions about your content.
In this post, we’ll review the top KPIs to track for content marketing and how to measure them.
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
How much does it cost your business to acquire a new customer? To find out, divide your total sales and marketing spend for a given time period by the number of customers you acquired during that time.
Customer acquisition cost is an important metric because it shows you how much you need to invest in sales and marketing in order to grow your business. If your CAC is too high, you may need to find ways to reduce it in order to maintain profitability.
2. Marketing Percentage of Customer Acquisition Cost
This metric answers the question, “How much of our total revenue does the marketing team spend to get a new customer?”
This is a great way to measure your marketing team’s efficiency. Calculate it by dividing your total sales and marketing spend by the number of new customers.
Then, multiply that number by 100 to get your marketing percentage of customer acquisition cost.
This percentage should be compared to your other costs. If it’s high, it might mean that you need to reevaluate your marketing strategy and cut costs.
3. Incremental Sales
Incremental sales are new sales that can be directly attributed to a specific marketing campaign. This is a very important metric because it can help you determine which marketing channels are bringing in new business.
If you find that a particular campaign is not driving incremental sales, you may want to re-evaluate your strategy and try something new.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value represents the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend with your business throughout their lifetime. This number is important because it helps you understand how much you can spend on marketing to acquire a new customer.
To calculate CLV, you’ll need to know the average purchase value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan. Once you have these numbers, you can multiply them together to get the customer lifetime value.
5. CLV:CAC Ratio
The Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is a measure of the relationship between the lifetime value of a customer and the cost of acquiring that customer.
If the lifetime value of a customer is much higher than the cost to acquire them, it’s a sign that your marketing is doing well. But, if the cost to acquire a customer is much higher, it’s a sign that you may need to focus on retention and customer loyalty.
A good CLV:CAC ratio is 3:1, but it can vary depending on your industry. For example, a SaaS company may have a higher ratio than a retail company.
6. Time to Payback CAC
Time to Payback CAC measures how long it takes for a company to earn back the money it spent on sales and marketing. This is an important metric because it can help you determine if your sales and marketing efforts are effective.
If it takes a long time for a company to earn back the money it spent on sales and marketing, it may be a sign that those efforts are not as effective as they could be. On the other hand, if a company is able to earn back that money quickly, it may be a sign that those efforts are working well.
To calculate Time to Payback CAC, you simply divide your CAC by your average monthly revenue per customer.
7. Marketing Originated Customer Percentage
This metric helps you understand what percentage of your customer base was generated by your marketing efforts.
This can be calculated by dividing the customers acquired by marketing over a specific time period by the total number of customers acquired over that time period. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
8. Marketing Influenced Customer Percentage
The marketing influenced customer percentage is the percentage of your customer base that has been influenced by your marketing efforts. This is an important metric to track because it shows how effective your marketing is at getting customers to take action.
If this percentage is low, it could mean that your marketing isn’t reaching your target audience. If the percentage is high, it could mean that you’re marketing is doing a great job of reaching the right people.
9. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Your Net Promoter Score is one of the most important metrics for determining customer satisfaction. This one-question survey asks, “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Customers can rate their answer on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 meaning “not at all likely” and 10 meaning “extremely likely.”
Customers who respond with a score of 9-10 are considered “promoters,” and they are most likely to recommend your business. Those who respond with a score of 7-8 are considered “passives,” and they are satisfied customers but not likely to recommend your business. Lastly, those who respond with a score of 0-6 are considered “detractors,” and they are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
Your NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Passives are not included in the score. The result is a number that can range from -100 to 100. A score of 50 or higher is considered excellent, and a score of 70 or higher is considered world-class.
10. Online Marketing ROI
The online marketing ROI metric is a bit different from the others we’ve covered, as it looks at the overall return on investment for all of your online marketing activities.
This can include your social media, email, and content marketing, as well as any paid online advertising (like Google Ads or Facebook Ads).
To calculate your online marketing ROI, use the following formula:
(Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold – Marketing Costs) / Marketing Costs x 100 = Online Marketing ROI
11. Offline Marketing ROI
Finally, it’s important to track the ROI of any offline marketing campaigns you’re running. This is especially important for businesses with a brick-and-mortar location or that rely heavily on in-person events to generate leads and customers.
One way to track the ROI of your offline marketing efforts is to use call tracking. This allows you to assign unique phone numbers to different marketing campaigns, so you can see which campaigns are driving calls to your business and, ultimately, which calls are leading to sales.
You can also use promo codes, QR codes, and other offline tracking methods to see which campaigns are driving sales in your store or at your events.
Of course, the most important thing is to make sure you’re tracking your offline marketing ROI in the first place. If you’re not, you could be wasting a lot of money on marketing that’s not working.
12. Marketing Originated Customer Percentage
This metric tells you the percentage of customers that marketing brought in.
To calculate, divide the number of customers that marketing brought in by the total number of new customers in a given time frame. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
Conclusion
When you’re tracking the ROI of your marketing efforts, there are a few key metrics that you should always keep an eye on. A few of these metrics include customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and the marketing ROI formula. For those looking to integrate affiliate marketing strategies, consider leveraging a Shopify affiliate app to streamline and optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.
