Marketing KPIs for earned, owned and paid media
Performance data for specific channels will help you gauge how engaged your audience is, based on the type of action they’re taking. However, tracking, analyzing and reporting against a content marketing campaign can be tricky.
There’s a wealth of data you can pull from your website, blog and social channels. So instead of leaving your team to guess which metrics are important, use these KPIs as a guide for earned, owned and paid content.
Paid promotion metrics
Digital advertising platforms have become increasingly informative. Marketers can be as general or specific as they choose targeting audiences. To ensure your investment pays off, take a look at a few specific metrics that will help determine campaign success as well as audience intent.
- Awareness KPIs – Metrics associated with the awareness phase (the first in the buyer’s journey) are passive. Awareness KPIs on social media include: number of views and number of impressions.
- Consideration KPIs – These metrics indicate more engagement from your audience. For paid social media, pay attention to view-through rates, video watch times and clicks.
- Action KPIs – Sign-ups and lead generation from social media are most indicative of audience fit and intent.
Also pay attention to the cost per impression and cost per action on social media sites to be sure you’re getting the most bang (action) for your buck (dollar spend).
Earned media metrics
Media relations efforts are among the most difficult to truly measure and quantify, outside of sheer number of placements. Use these KPIs to track the performance of your earned media placements.
- Awareness KPIs – Calculate the number of impressions a specific media placement earned.
- Consideration KPIs – If your placement includes a link back to your website, take a look at Google Analytics to determine click-throughs (how many people clicked from the placement to your website) and source (which placement garnered the most traffic back to your site).
- Action KPIs – It can be tricky to get a true CTA in an earned media placement, but stick with the Google Analytics insights to see if your referral traffic triggered any of your website conversions. Additionally, for certain clients, you may see an increase in foot traffic or donations following media placements.
Owned media KPIs
Owned media is the content your organization publishes on the channels it owns, like your website and blog, and a core element of your content marketing strategy. Use the KPIs below to determine how your owned channels stack up against paid and earned media platforms.
- Awareness KPIs – Traffic (views) to your website and blog will help you gauge the popularity of your site and its headlines and links.
- Consideration KPIs – Take it a step further and take a look at how long visitors are staying on your web and blog pages before leaving. Time on page is a good indicator of how informative and useful your content is to your audience.
- Action KPIs – Are visitors signing up for your blog (subscribing), filling in forms on landing pages or making contact inquiries? If so, your site is effectively pulling audiences through the buying funnel, taking them from visitors to possible leads.
Focusing on the KPIs listed above will help take the guesswork out of earned, owned and paid media performance before campaigns end. That way, they can amp up what’s working and pivot where necessary to get the most out of each of your EOP channels.
This blog post was originally published in September 2018. It has been updated and republished to keep you up to date.
Leave a Reply