Content marketing is a powerful tool to reach and engage with customers, but it can be difficult to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Google Analytics provides a useful way to track the performance of content marketing, but it’s important to understand the limitations and how they affect your ability to measure ROI. This article will discuss how to measure content performance using Google Analytics, including distinguishing between last interaction and last click conversions, understanding cookie-based tracking limitations, and other factors that affect the customer journey. It will also provide tips for telling clients about these limitations while still helping them get a lower limit estimate of their ROI from content marketing.
What is Content Marketing Attribution?
content marketing attribution is the process of measuring the performance of content and campaigns to understand how they contribute to a company’s overall success. This can be measured by tracking website visits, customer engagement, and conversions. It is important for companies to measure their content performance in order to determine which campaigns are successful, and which need improvement.
Different Models of Attribution
There are two main models of attribution used for content marketing: first interaction and last interaction models. The first interaction model gives credit to the first piece of content that a customer interacted with before making a purchase or completing a desired action. The last interaction model assigns credit to the last piece of content that was seen before a customer converted.
How to Measure Content Performance using Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools used for measuring content performance. It allows companies to track website visits, customer engagement, and conversions in order to better understand how their content is performing. Google Analytics also allows companies to distinguish between last click and last interaction conversions, as well as understanding how it cannot always determine if multiple sessions are from the same user.
Using Google Analytics, companies can measure the effect of their content on branded search, word-of-mouth, brand awareness, and other factors that affect the customer journey. While it may not be possible to get an exact number of leads generated by content, it is possible to get a lower limit on the ROI generated from content.
Content marketing attribution measures the performance of content & campaigns for a company’s success. Two models are used: first interaction & last interaction. Google Analytics tracks website visits, customer engagement & conversions to measure content performance.
First Interaction Model
The first interaction model is a way of measuring the performance of content marketing using Google Analytics that assigns credit for conversions to the first touchpoint in a customer’s journey. This model gives credit for conversions to the first piece of content that a customer interacts with, regardless of whether it was the last interaction or not.
How it Works
In this model, each conversion is attributed to its original source, which could be an organic search result, an email campaign, or any other type of content marketing effort. For example, if a customer clicks on an email link and then visits your website multiple times before finally converting, the conversion will be attributed to the original email link. This allows you to measure how effective your content is at driving conversions, even if it isn’t the last interaction in the process.
Examples from our Clients
At our agency, we have used the first interaction model with several clients to measure their content performance. One client wanted to measure how well their blog posts were driving leads and sales. We set up Google Analytics tracking for each post and then tracked how many visitors converted after reading them. We found that certain blog posts had higher conversion rates than others, allowing us to optimize our content strategy accordingly.
Another client wanted to measure how well their email campaigns were performing compared to other channels such as organic search and social media. We used the first interaction model to track which channel drove users to their website and then measured how many of those users converted into customers or leads. This allowed us to compare different channels and optimize our efforts accordingly.
C Pros and Cons of this Model
The main benefit of using the first interaction model is that it allows you to accurately measure how effective your content is at driving conversions, even if it isn’t the last step in the customer journey. It also allows you to compare different channels and optimize your efforts accordingly.
The main downside of this model is that it doesn’t take into account other factors such as brand awareness or word-of-mouth referrals that may have influenced a customer’s decision-making process along their journey towards conversion. Additionally, since this model only takes into account one touchpoint at a time, it can be difficult to get an accurate picture of how all your channels are contributing towards conversions overall.
first interaction model is a way to measure content marketing performance using Google Analytics, attributing conversions to the first touchpoint in a customer’s journey. It allows accurate measurement and comparison of different channels to optimize efforts. Drawbacks include not accounting for other factors and lack of overall picture.
Last Interaction Model
The last interaction model of content marketing attribution is a popular method for measuring the performance of content marketing. This model assigns all credit to the last touchpoint in the customer journey, which is typically the final click or action before conversion. It’s important to note that this model does not take into account any interactions prior to the last one, so it can be difficult to determine how effective certain pieces of content have been in driving conversions.
How it Works
In order to measure content performance using the last interaction model, you need to measure events and assign them a value. For example, if you are running an email campaign, you can assign a value to each email open or click-through rate. You can then use Google Analytics or other software tools to track these events and calculate the total value of each piece of content.
Examples from Our Clients
We have seen many of our clients use this approach with great success. For example, one client was able to increase their ROI by 10% by tracking email campaigns and assigning values based on open rates and click-throughs. Another client was able to track blog posts and measure how much traffic they were bringing in from organic search engine results pages (SERPs).
Pros & Cons of This Model
One advantage of using the last interaction model is that it provides a clear picture of how effective your content has been in driving conversions. However, it does not take into account any interactions prior to the last one, so it may not give an accurate picture of how effective certain pieces of content have been in influencing customers throughout their journey. Additionally, this model only takes into account direct conversions and does not factor in any indirect effects such as brand awareness or word-of-mouth referrals.
Main Idea: Last Interaction Model is a popular method to measure content performance by assigning values to events and tracking them. Pros & Cons exist.
Limitations with Both Models
Measuring the performance of content marketing using Google Analytics is not without its limitations. As previously discussed, it is difficult to measure the effects of content on brand, word of mouth, branded search and other factors that affect the customer journey. This means that while it is possible to get a lower limit of the ROI generated from content, it is impossible to know exactly how much each piece of content has contributed to a user’s decision-making process.
It is also important to distinguish between last interaction and last click conversions when measuring content performance. last interaction conversions are attributed to the last piece of content a user interacted with before converting, while last click conversions are attributed to the last piece of content a user clicked on before converting. It is important for marketers to understand which model they should use in order to accurately measure their content performance and make informed decisions about future campaigns.
Finally, marketers must be aware that Google Analytics cannot always determine if multiple sessions are from the same user or not. This means that it cannot track users across multiple devices or browsers, making it difficult to accurately measure conversions from multiple pieces of content over time.
To counter this limitation, marketers should tell clients that they won’t ever know the exact number of leads generated by their content marketing efforts but they can still get a lower limit based on data from Google Analytics. By understanding these limitations, marketers can still get an accurate picture of their overall content performance and make informed decisions about future campaigns.
Content marketing is a powerful tool for businesses, but it can be difficult to measure its performance. Google Analytics can help provide insights into the effects of content on brand, word of mouth, branded search and other factors that affect the customer journey. However, it is important to understand the limitations of this method, such as how it cannot always determine if multiple sessions are from the same user or if last interaction or last click conversions should be used. As a result, it is not possible to get an exact number of leads generated by content, but businesses can still get a lower limit of the ROI generated from their content.
Overall, this article provides an overview of how businesses can measure the performance of their content marketing efforts using Google Analytics. It explains that while there are limitations with this approach, it can still provide valuable insights into how content affects the customer journey and overall ROI. Businesses should also keep in mind that they won’t ever know the exact number of leads generated by their content, but they can still get a lower limit of the ROI generated from their efforts.
