Text Performance: Content KPI Assessment

How to measure the effectiveness of commercial text, for example, on a website? What are the main content KPIs? What services exist for evaluating the effectiveness of texts?

Let’s define: an effective commercial text is the one that solves the tasks:

• attracts and retains site visitors with useful information;
• increases the ranking of the site in search engines;
• sells and motivates to a new purchase;
• solves other marketing tasks.

Who is responsible for the effectiveness of texts?

Texts are created by copywriters and content managers. If the former write, then it’s not so simple with the latter: in some companies, content managers only post the finished material, in others they completely manage the process: they look for authors (and possibly write themselves), check, finalize, upload, analyze and again finalize.

Do these people guarantee the effectiveness of texts? No.

No participant will give a 100% guarantee that the written text will be useful. Why? On the one hand, readers are not static in characteristics: their mood changes, they constantly receive information from direct and indirect competitors. In addition, global events affect goals and landmarks. Therefore, the same information by the same person in the same environment will be perceived differently. Therefore, the effectiveness of texts must be dealt with purposefully and constantly.

Besides, articles and descriptions are only a small part of marketing. Even the most effective text will not bring results if the site is not optimized for conversions, with usability problems, sales managers are incompetent, and prices are unreasonably high.

How to evaluate the effectiveness of the text: defining goals

It is necessary to set the KPI of the text based on the current stage of the sales funnel. For the material to be effective, it is important to understand why it is being created. All readers of the material can be divided into 4 groups:

• total traffic – all readers;
• leads — those who left their contact details;
• warm leads — communicate with the sales manager, prepare to close the deal;
• customers – bought the product.

Let’s consider the main tasks of the text, taking into account the stages of the funnel.

KPI texts to drive traffic

The goal is to attract people. It uses not only your website or social media profiles, but also third-party resources: thematic groups, reviewers, information portals of a particular city. There you can place an article, news or post with a link to the site.

At this stage, it is important to track the following indicators.

• Total traffic to the site. Yandex.Metrica (section “Attendance”) will tell you how many visitors came to the site today, yesterday, during the week, etc. There, traffic is divided into regular and new customers, conversion tracking for a specific page.
• Traffic from search engines. This text KPI allows you to evaluate the relevance and popularity of selected queries, the quality of SEO optimization. Keyword checking will evaluate the effectiveness of the text in search engines. Track the relevance of keywords by Yandex.Wordstat. We wrote a book about how to write texts so that they appear in the TOP search engines – download it for free and follow our recommendations.
• The number of natural backlinks. Ask to mention your site of partners, clients/readers, media in the form of a working link that is not closed from indexing by search engines. You can track how many links are added monthly, for example by Ahrefs. It controls the growth of natural link mass – links posted in profiles and on third-party resources by users. Consider the topics of your articles that readers share.
• User location. The geography of visitors is important if the site is focused on the whole of Russia. According to statistics, it will become clear in which region at what time people are active.
• Traffic sources. The source of site visits (ads, social networks, forums, etc.) is tracked in Yandex.Metrica. The data will show an effective platform for promotion. So that you can more accurately evaluate the articles you publish, place links in them with the so-called. UTM tags (additional code added to the link URL after the “?” sign).

Metrics of coverage in social networks will tell you what information and type of content are in demand among visitors and useful to the company. In statistics, you can see 4 types of reach:

• full coverage – all page visits for a specific period;
• subscriber reach – audience engagement;
• viral reach – engagement of unsubscribed visitors;
• ad reach – clicks from ad posts and stories.

Subscriber reach and viral reach play the biggest role.

This data will help identify the highest quality texts and effective platforms for posting content.

Related material: Content analysis: how Yandex.Metrica content analytics works

KPI texts for user engagement

Visitors are already on the site, it’s time to get them interested in the possibilities. Provide detailed information: functionality, service, cost, discounts, etc. From one page, let’s link to others with related topics.

At this stage, the following indicators are monitored:

• scrollmap. Allows you to evaluate whether users read the text completely, whether they linger in some places, or simply scroll through the article and leave. In the latter case, it can be assumed that the text has a poor structure, the user does not understand how the material is useful to him. Perhaps the title was chosen poorly: visitors expected different content, got disappointed and left. If users read the text carefully, then scroll and leave before reaching the conclusion, perhaps the material should be shortened;
• click map. Shows which element (active or not) users click on. For example, if a reader carefully examines a product, goes to a page with a description of delivery and payment, and never becomes a customer, the problem may not be in the text or the product, but in the working conditions;
• Rejections. In Google, only one page view is considered a bounce, regardless of how much time was spent on it. In Yandex, visiting a site for less than 15 seconds is considered ineffective. There are a lot of reasons for this: an uninteresting article, inconvenient markup, outdated or non-adapted website design for gadgets. Yandex.Metrica has a bounce map, where you can see at what point the user stopped reading and left;
• interaction with the brand. This indicator reflects reposts and comments. The more users read and share company content, the more people will learn about it.

KPI texts to increase conversion

Conversion is an indicator of the targeted actions performed by the visitor. The most desirable action for a company is to order a product or service. But this is not the only thing – it is important to work for the future. And what can better demonstrate serious intentions than a left phone number or email address, with consent to a subscription (according to Federal Law-152). These contacts are sent out, involving the person in the sales funnel.

• Number of leads. These are people who have become interested in the content and provided contact details, but have not yet become customers. Lead magnets and the use of sales schemes for writing texts will help increase the conversion of readers into leads.
• The conversion rate to customers. A low score with a large number of leads indicates that the text gives the wrong idea about the product or the sales manager makes a mistake when communicating with the client.
• Sales statistics. Not only the sales ratio is important, but also the duration of the transaction cycle, the cost of the client.

Related material: Metrics for a marketer: how to figure it out

How to improve the effectiveness of advertising and informational texts

• Find your audience. Determine the age, social status, field of activity, possible hobbies. No advertising or sales text aimed at a wide range of consumers is 100% effective. Even if a generic product is being sold, the presentation for each group of buyers will be different.
• Understand audience concerns. People come to websites and commercial profiles to solve their pains. If the problem is incorrectly defined, miss the customer and the text won’t work as attachments. For example, a girl clicked on an advertisement for a cream for oily skin, and the product card tells how well it nourishes dry skin. The effectiveness of the text will be zero, even if it is perfectly written.

Related material: Target audience: analysis and client profile

• No to allegations. Consumers are already accustomed to advertising slogans, so they are skeptical about the phrases: “recommended by experts”, “ideal option”. What kind of experts? What is ideal for? Convince people with concrete facts.
• Speak correctly. Having understood who the potential client is, convey the information in his language. Use appropriate style, professionalism, jargon.
• Make text neat and literate. It is unpleasant to read an article in which there are many errors, the author’s thoughts jump uncontrollably. Every word and sentence must be clear, and the layout must be perfect.
• Don’t overuse keywords. Texts like “Buy a computer in Moscow cheaply” are gone. Today, keywords are inserted so that even the thought does not creep in that they are written there.
• Make text comfortable. First of all, convenience lies in the headings and table of contents. Headings should be descriptive and briefly communicate what the body of the part is about. And the table of contents is a current trend. Sections are listed after the introduction. And it’s better to make this listing clickable so that the visitor does not twist, but clicks and is immediately redirected to the desired part.

Do not analyze the effectiveness of texts a couple of days after publication. The result takes time: the optimal period is a month. But you shouldn’t hesitate with edits: as soon as you understand what the problem is, fix it right away.

But don’t just focus on quantitative content KPIs. Ask the visitors themselves what they think about the site or profile. Create a short test or survey with expanded options (better expanded, because not everything can be thought through and a person may not find a suitable option in a test format). Use everyone’s desire to be heard, for example: “Share your opinion about … We work for you, so every impression matters.” Clients will appreciate such attentiveness and will be imbued with great confidence.

These tips will help increase the conversion of the text. We have written a separate book about effective sales copy – download it for free.

Do you want the highest content KPIs? The content marketing service at the Exiterra agency will help to achieve such results.

Exiterra.com Digital Agency