Content creation should carry the brand throughout the customer journey that 1. aids the customer decision process and 2. integrates the brand in their everyday lives. This can lead to increased conversions, repeat visits and much more. Learn more at http://www.pistonagency.com

1. CONTENT MARKETING
KPIs for Data-Driven Content Marketing
August 20, 2015

2. AGENDA
 About Piston
 Content Marketing – what is it?
 Redefine Content Marketing
 How do we monetize it?
 Define KPIs
 Creating a foundation
 Data-driven content strategy
 Tactical measurement
 Key takeaways
 Case study
2

6. LET’S TALK ABOUT
CONTENT MARKETING

7. CONTENT MARKETING (let’s
discuss)
What is it?
Why is it important?
What are your challenges?
8

8. YOU’RE NOT ALONE
9

9. LET’S REDEFINE CONTENT
MARKETING
10
CREATE CONTENT THAT CARRIES THE BRAND
THROUGHOUT THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY!
① The goal is to aid customers’ conversion decision
process.
 Content creation can solve customer shopping needs that
can lead to increased conversions, rankings and domain
authority from all marketing channels.
② Content marketers should also strive to integrate their
brand in customer everyday lives
 Leading to repeat visits, increased customer support, brand
loyalty, thought leadership and more

10. UNDERSTAND THE CUSTOMER
JOURNEY
11
Customer
Awareness
Consideratio
n
Intent
Due
Diligence
Conversion
On-Going
Engagement
Customer
Loyalty

11. HOW DO WE MONETIZE IT?

12. CONTENT MARKETING KPI’S
(CONVERSION)
13
Secondary
Repeat visits Assisted conversions
Growth in brand
consideration/awareness
(search demand)
Time on site
Increased domain
authority
Primary
Traffic Conversions and revenue Keyword rankings
Increased SERP real
estate (more brand
ownership)
Lower overall bounce
rates

13. CONTENT MARKETING KPI’S
(ENGAGEMENT)
14
Secondary
Conversions and revenue Keyword rankings
Increased SERP real estate (more
brand ownership)
Time on site
Primary
Traffic Assisted conversions
Growth in brand
consideration/awareness
(search demand)
Repeat visits
Lower overall bounce
rates
Increased domain
authority

14. CREATE A FOUNDATION FOR
SUCCESS
15
 Define goals
 What do we want to achieve?
 Traffic, increased brand awareness,
conversions, activations
 Define audience
 persona, demographics, other
 Data research
 How to?, what’s available, frequency
 What is needed?
 Copywriters, blog, schema, social media,
executive buy-in, dev resources, content
framework (guidelines, governance)
 Who is needed (stakeholders)?
 Content writers, calendar based on
events, developers, designers, social
media, equipment
 Develop process
Content
Process
Research
Calendar
Create
Approval
LaunchPromote
Measure
Test
Continue

15. DATA-DRIVEN CONTENT
MARKETING

16. LET’S GET STARTED
Content creation should best align the brand with
customer demands/needs, competitive strengths and
other quantifiable methods as well as brand strategy
and business goals.
Data-driven content strategy is a two-way street:
1. Create content to capture the most targeted and
largest audience possible relevant to KPIs
2. Measure KPI performance of content in-market and
its impact to overall business goals and brand
demand
17

17. COMPLETE THE CUSTOMER
JOURNEY
18
 How we create content to complete the customer
journey
1. Define the customer journey based on the
brand’s industry and map keywords to each stage
of the journey based on user intent
2. Content gap analysis (where the brand has assets
and where it does not)
3. Determine what is needed
 Research new content ideas based on data
sources
 PPC vs. Organic
 Content Ideas
 Competitor keyword rankings
 Internal search data
 Persona merchandising / merchandise by needs
 GA / Search Console
 Other sources
 Top-down optimization and search-informed
strategy
 Brand campaigns / product launches
4. Gain approval of topics
5. Go Live!!!
PPC vs. Organic
Competitive Ranking
and Estimated
Performance
Content Ideas based on
social feedback

18. COMPLETE THE CUSTOMER
JOURNEY
19
Merchandise by
Customer Needs Top-Down
Optimization

19. BRAND INTEGRATION
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 How we integrate the brand in customer
everyday lives
1. Listen to customer sentiment of brand
 Solicit / analyze reviews, competitive brand
rankings
2. Cross-channel integration
 SEO optimization for PR, social media, articles
 Schema / microformats
3. Demonstrate product usage / care
 How to videos, recipes, events, articles
4. Provide thought leadership / corporate
responsibility
 Respond to reviews / resolve customer issues
 Communicate corporate responsibility /
community care
5. SEO should be a part of the creation process
/ governance (PR, corporate responsibility,
branding, etc.)

20. TACTICAL MEASUREMENT
1. Set Baselines
 Add new content to Page Types
 Create Keyword Tags
 Create Dashboards (detailed and summarized)
for KPIs
 Set-up Events
2. Analyze data in regular intervals
 Socialize / evangelize internally
 Share data with colleagues
3. Make adjustments as needed
4. Test
5. Repeat
6. Create internal case studies
 Set realistic expectations
 Rome was not built in a day
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21. TACTICAL MEASUREMENT
 What to measure in dashboards
1. Page Types (traffic, conversions, revenue)
2. YOY traffic, conversion, revenue growth
3. Direct vs. Channel Conversions
4. Page Performance (associated keywords,
bounce rates)
5. Rankings
 Rank growth trend
 Share of Voice
 Competitive
 Gains/Losses
6. Keyword Performance
 Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Avg. Pos.
 PPC vs. Organic
 Reduction in non-performing keywords
7. Domain Authority
 Link growth (Majestic)
 Trust flow (page, domain)
 Links acquired from PR
 Increase in Google Trend index score
22

22. CASE STUDY
23
Customer
Awareness
Considerati
on
Intent
Due
Diligence
Conversion
On-Going
Engagemen
t
Customer
Loyalty
Challenge:
 A retailer had strong sales and rankings for
each brand they carried.
 While the SEO success was strong, it was
limited to Awareness and Conversion levels
of the customer journey
 Blended SEO/SEM data showed strong SEM
traffic and high consumer search demand,
but there was zero content and low
conversions for mid-tier searches (sub-
category / brand + product type).
Solution:
 Created sub-category pages at the Intent
Stage for three top-selling brands.
Results:
 SEO orders increase: YOY: 32% (90-days
post)
 SEO revenue increase: YOY: 27% (90-days
post)
Challenge:
 SEO team completed a research study
based on adwords data to outline the
customer journey (> 2k keywords)
 SEO performance for most of the terms was
strong
 SEM only bidded on 2% of the terms in the
study
Solution:
 SEM launched new campaigns to run
complete coverage on all terms with SEO for
90-days
Results:
 Competitive SEM clicks were 25% than all
brands in their category
 Both SEO and SEM generated the highest
revenue in the site’s history during this
timeframe (Q4)

23. KEY TAKEAWAYS

24. KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Realign content strategy to a more data-driven and monetary path
Group content marketing into two key areas
1. Complete the conversion process based on the customer journey
2. Integrate the brand in customer everyday lives
 Map the customer journey to best understand consumer behavior and
connect your brand to it
 Establish KPIs for each key area and get management buy-in
 All content topics / pieces should be suggested based on data that
presents the brand to the largest and most relevant audience
 Measure performance based on primary and secondary KPIs and share
data across the organization

25. pistonagency.com
San Diego / New
York
Thank You.