Content creation is a creative process. From the outline to the first draft, multiple revisions, and the final product, creating content takes time.
No matter how creative or well-written your piece is, the real value comes from what happens after you hit publish. Whether it's a blog post, email campaign, landing page, or social media update, every piece of content has a job to do. You will only ever know if your content is successful through content performance analysis.
Content performance analysis helps you elevate your content production and ensure it's aligned with your business objectives. The way you measure content performance uncovers what's resonating with your audience, what's not quite working, and where there is room for improvement.
By utilizing engagement metrics and performance data, you can refine your strategy, optimize your messaging, and make informed decisions based on real user behavior.
Those working in the content marketing field already understand the pressure to prove that their efforts are driving results. It's not enough to know that something was published or sent. The goal behind content strategy is understanding what impact it had.
Thoughtful content performance analysis helps you make connections between the content itself and the outcome.
In this guide, we'll cover how to use content performance analytics to inform smarter decisions, amplify your top-performing content, and continually improve your strategy. It reveals the secrets to taking what doesn't work and making efforts to the next level.
What is a content performance analysis?
Analyzing content performance is all about how individual pieces of content contribute to your overall marketing goals. It's the process of evaluating marketing metrics to understand how your audience interacts with your content.
Your main goal is to gain insights into what actions your audience takes as a result of interacting with your content, so you can make data to understand its impact, which differs from a general content audit? Typically a general content audit focuses on taking inventory of all existing content and assessing its quality, relevance, and alignment with your brand.
Content audits are often employed to help clean up or organize content libraries. In contrast, performance analyses are focused on measuring the effectiveness and impact of content over time. It's less about what content you have, and more about how well your content is working.
What types of content can you analyze? You can review key metrics for just about any piece of digital content you produce, including blog posts, email campaigns, landing pages, social media posts, editorial content, and more.
No matter the format, each piece of content provides an opportunity to learn more about your audience and how to better meet their needs.
Why is content performance analysis important?
If you're wondering how competitive the content landscape is, buckle up. As reported by tech business news, there are over 600 million blogs worldwide contributing to 7.5 million blog posts each day. And that's just blog content!
Publishing content without tracking performance is like launching it out to sea without a paddle. It's like creating a product without knowing if anyone is buying it. Content performance analysis bridges the gap between creation and results.
By providing visibility needed to understand what's working and what's not, content analysis based on key metrics enables you to make informed decisions that propel efforts forward.
Consistency offers. By measuring content performance regularly, you can better meet their needs, relying on real data and content marketing analytics to guide your content strategy. The result? More targeted, impactful messaging and better outcomes across the board.
Here are some of the main benefits of utilizing content performance analytics:
- Improved ROI: By identifying high-performing content, you can double down on what delivers results and reduce wasted efforts on underperforming assets.
- Smarter content planning: Knowing which topics, formats, and channels resonate most with your audience helps you create content that’s more likely to succeed.
- Better audience understanding: Performance metrics reveal how your audience interacts with content, offering valuable insight into their needs and preferences.
- Stronger campaign alignment: Analyzing content performance ensures your efforts are aligned with your broader marketing and business goals, from lead generation to customer retention.
- Faster optimization: When you know what’s underperforming, you can pivot quickly. Use performance data to determine when to adjust headlines, tweak copy, or change your call to action.
- Increased consistency: Tracking performance over time allows you to develop benchmarks and refine your brand voice, messaging, and cadence across channels.
Ultimately, content analysis transforms your content from a creative asset into a strategic tool. It allows you to create with purpose.
How to conduct a content performance analysis
Ok, so you get that content performance analysis is important, now what? Let's break down how to incorporate content analysis into your digital marketing strategy.
The process involves more than simply reviewing relevant metrics and keyword rankings. It's about setting goals, tracking essential metrics, using the right analytics tools, and drawing meaningful conclusions from the data.
Whether you're evaluating blog content or social media posts, this approach can help you identify trends and continually improve your content strategy.
Determine your goals
- Before diving into the numbers, start by determining what you're trying to achieve. Setting clear objectives will help you choose relevant metrics, understand performance in context, and stay focused on what matters most.
- Common goals include: increasing website traffic, growing your email list, boosting social media engagement, driving sales, and reducing bounce rates on landing pages.
Choose key performance indicators (KPIs) to track
- Once you've set clear goals, it's time to identify the most important key performance indicators. Depending on the type of content you're analyzing, these may include:
- Page views, average time on page, bounce rate, scroll depth, click-through rates, open rates, likes, shares, and more.
Collect data with the right tools
- Good analysis relies on accurate insights. This is why it's vital to use the right mix of tools. Luckily, there are a variety of platforms offering built-in analytics and third-party options.
- Tools like Google Analytics are ideal for tracking website traffic, blog performance, and landing page metrics.
- Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn provide native metrics around engagement, reach, and audience demographics.
- Email platforms like Mailchimp offer detailed reporting on email opens, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and conversions. Mailchimp also integrates with other popular marketing tools, allowing for centralized content monitoring across channels.
Review metrics and report insights
- After collecting your data, the next step is to figure out what it all means. Whether you're reviewing Google Analytics, social media metrics, or other content analytics, you should be looking for patterns, outliers, and trends.
- Content grading is also helpful here, making it easier to prioritize content updates, promotion, or retirement.
What to do after analyzing content performance
To effectively measure content performance, you need to act on insights discovered. Analyzing your content is only half the job. Engagement metrics and insights are only useful if you act on them. So, what do you do with the results?
Here are some actionable next steps:
Refresh underperforming content
If a blog post or landing page isn't performing as planned, don't give up on it. Instead, consider updating outdated information, adding more relevant keywords or internal links, or embedding visuals to increase engagement.
Repurpose top-performing content
Part of content marketing is developing content that can be used across platforms. If a certain piece is resonating with your audience, try extending its reach.
For example, you can transform a popular blog post into a catchy video for social media. Repurpose key insights from a report into an email campaign. Expand a high-performing email into a blog series or landing page.
Experiment with variations
If your data indicates that certain subject lines, formats, or post times are outperforming others, use this to guide your future strategies. Conduct A/B tests and experiment with different content formats to discover what your audience likes best and update your content calendar accordingly.
Best practices for content performance analysis
Not sure where to begin with your content analysis? It's helpful to approach it with structure, consistency, and clear objectives. Here are some best practices to help you get the most out of your content performance analysis:
- Align KPIs with goals: Track key engagement metrics that directly align with your business objectives, such as increasing leads, boosting engagement, or improving conversion rates.
- Monitor consistently: Schedule time weekly or monthly to review performance. This will help you catch trends early and stay proactive.
- Segment your data: Break down results by content type, channel, or audience to understand how your content performs.
- Set benchmarks: Use past performance data to establish benchmarks so you can track and evaluate progress over time.
- Share results: Summarize key takeaways to keep teams aligned and guide strategic decisions.
Measure content performance for improved marketing
Whether you're a social media marketer, website content editor, or analytics expert, content analysis is the keystone of your strategy. By setting clear goals, tracking the right KPIs, and acting on your insights, you can create more strategic and impactful campaigns.
Unsure of where to start? Mailchimp offers tools and built-in analytics reporting to make your marketing journey easier. From audience segmentation to landing page creation, campaign reporting, and everything in between, Mailchimp is your go-to solution.
Whether you're comparing blog engagement or testing landing page conversions, Mailchimp helps you tie your performance data back to real outcomes.
By building a habit of content monitoring and ongoing optimization, you're not just improving content, but you're building a strategy that can grow with your brand. Ready to turn insights into action? Mailchimp gives you the tools to do it.
Key Takeaways
- Content performance analysis provides valuable insights into how well your content is resonating with your audience and how often they are taking action because of it.
- Align your marketing goals with the right KPIs to track content across platforms effectively.
- Tools like Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and others provide actionable insights that can help you refine your marketing strategy.
- Findings from your content performance analysis will indicate what content needs to be refreshed or repurposed and how you can update your content calendar for better performance.