Content Creation and Marketing is an integral part of Brand Building. Unlike PPC Ads, which has clearly defined performance metrics like Click Through and Conversion Rates, performance metric for Content is still limited to page views. Our team at ByteFive has shortlisted a couple of metrics that can give marketers and publishers an additional insight into the impact of their articles.
1) Article Conversion Rate (ACR)
We noticed that a simple way of calculating article impact would be to calculate the conversion rate from each article.
Example: With an article promotion, 100 people read an article about Internet Marketing Tutorial through one of the partner sites. From every 100 reads, 20 visitors clicked a link mentioned in the article and performed one of the conversion actions:
a) Download E-Book/White Paper/Brochure
b) Sign up for an Event/Newsletter
c) Purchase a Product
d) Click on a Sponsored Ad close to the Article (Leaderboard, Sidebars or Below Content)
Article Conversion Rate(AC) = Number of Unique Reads * Conversion Rate
= 100 * .20
= 20
The article influenced 20 readers towards an action. With Article Conversion Rate, the impact of each article can be measured to the last dollar and marketing activities can be fine-tuned towards increasing Article Conversion.
Before calculating Article Conversion Rate, certain number of housekeeping is required like:
1) Insert Conversion Code in the landing page
2) Define conversion action – Download Brochure, Sign up for an Event, Purchase a Product
etc.
3) Set the Google Analytics visitor cookie to track conversion for 1 year
By setting the cookie, Businesses can measure the first point of influence and the source that attributed towards the conversion.
The click through rate in an article is influenced by the following factors:
a) Frequency of links
If you have read Steve Blank’s blog - http://steveblank.com/ , you will understand what I am talking. 2-3 links in every paragraph gives you a headache and I have hardly read his post in one sitting; too many link distractions. To get the gist of what he was trying to convey, I bought The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Maybe that is a strategy for conversion :) so test it out in your blog and check if high link frequency leads to higher conversion.
b) Hover to Click Rate
The placements in the article just after information or advice, which gives immense value to readers, are Impact Points. Value is subjective and therefore metrics should be set to measure impact points and processes developed to change them if they are not working.
A useful metric to measure impact point is the Hover to Click Rate. When we read an article, our first instinct is to avoid hovering over any links; unless the brand and the author are influential.
Did you hover over steveblank.com?
Most of the time our mouse will be pointed close to the scrollbar or towards the right end of the article.
Hover to Click Rate = Number of Clicks/ Number of Hovers
c) Position of Links
Above fold links have a better chance of getting clicked, but the visits can also lead to low conversion, as the article played very little role in influencing the visitor but one factor that influence conversion is ‘Search Intent’.
If someone is researching with the keyword
“utm_source”
And reaches ByteFive’s article about Understanding utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, (/) the second paragraph is:
What is the difference between utm_source, utm_campaign and utm_medium?
Reader’s immediately understands that the article clearly explains about utm_source and the difference between utm_source, utm_campaign and utm_medium
It is tough to tune your article exactly to search intent, but by analysing the keywords, related links can be placed accordingly.
2) Article Click through Rate (ACTR)
Another option that is simpler for most Business blogs is the calculation of Article Click through Rate (ACTR).
ACTR is influenced by just one metric – click through rate
From every 100 unique reads, 40 visitors clicked a link mentioned in the article, then ACTR would be
ACTR = (Number of Unique Reads * Unique Click through Rate)/100
= (100 * .40)/100
= 40%
By measuring these two metrics, in addition to page views, publishers and marketers will get a much accurate view of the return on article production.
If you want expert help in content creation and marketing, contact us or you can call us at: India (Ph): +91 9497189032, UK (Ph): +44 (0)20-3371-9976 or US (Ph): +1 650-491-0004
ByteFive provides Internet Marketing Services (Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Develop processes and best practices for Internet Marketing, Manage and Analyze Web Analytics packages, Perform Landing page Optimization, Manage E-Mail Newsletter, Perform Competitor Research, Create & market Content, and provide customized training to help you achieve your revenue and business goals.