5 Content Syndication Metrics Every Marketer Should Track

Danielle Hammond, ActualTech Media's content syndication lead, said, "The success of your content syndication campaign depends on your goal. Did you aim to get more brand awareness, or are you trying to get people on your website and buying your product? The most popular measures of success are number of total leads delivered, number of marketing qualified leads, and how many leads converted."

Marketing without metrics is like driving a car blind. The driver knows he's moving, but he doesn't know where. Likewise, marketers should track content syndication metrics to ensure they're driving the campaign in alignment with business goals and are making the most out of their investment.

Explore five key metrics ActualTech Media recommends that every marketer should track when evaluating content syndication strategies.

Key Takeaways:

• Content syndication goals give marketers a benchmark to aim for with their campaigns

• Three primary goals include building pipelines, databases, and brand awareness

• MQL, CPL, and CPO are the most valuable metrics to track

How Do You Measure Content Syndication Success?

Marketing metrics without a benchmark are just numbers. For example, a marketing manager might say a campaign generated 100 leads, but without a benchmark, that number doesn't hold much value.

That's why the experts at ActualTech Media strongly recommend establishing goals. Goals give marketing campaigns a direction. More importantly, goals establish benchmarks for evaluating a campaign's success and tell marketers what a campaign needs to achieve to be worth the investment.

Content syndication for lead generation is a valuable marketing campaign that allows B2B tech marketers to target and reach a specific audience with marketing assets like whitepapers, e-books, and videos. To collect leads through content syndication, marketers work with a publisher that gates the digital asset to collect contact information from readers.

What happens next depends on the marketing team's goal and what they want to achieve through the content syndication strategy.

Top Content Syndication Goals

Surprisingly, 15% of marketers don't know how much they spend on content marketing. However, 60% of vendors measure their success by sales. While sales give part of the picture, that metric isn't the only goal or valuable result from marketing. Sales conversions are just one step in a multi-step process from that first touchpoint until conversion.

There are three primary goals associated with B2B content syndication for lead generation, according to our content syndication experts:

• Database building: Collecting essential information about leads for personalized marketing efforts
• Pipeline building: Generating marketing qualified leads to fill the sales pipeline
• Awareness building: Building authority with potential leads

One goal that's notably absent from the list is sales, despite the popularity of this metric in marketing. That's because sales aren't a direct goal of content syndication. However, content syndication can be a step in the sales process. For businesses to create a sales-oriented campaign, marketers must establish other activities alongside syndication, like email nurturing and content marketing campaigns. These follow-up actions take the leads from content syndication and warm the leads up for the sales team to close.

5 Content Syndication Metrics You Should be Tracking

These five content syndication metrics recommended by the experts at ActualTech Media help marketers track and evaluate the success of content syndication.

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Tracking the number of MQLs tells marketers how many readers or viewers of the digital asset are likely customers based on the field form entries and past interactions with the brand. This metric works well for marketers with database-building goals.

For example, marketers might use webinars for lead generation in their content syndication campaigns to capture MQLs. ActualTech Media hosts several webinars allowing marketers to reach hundreds of tech professionals interested in tech solutions. When marketers syndicate the on-demand webinar, they can continue collecting leads and measure the success of the syndicated webinar by calculating how many leads are MQLs. An on-demand webinar is a recording of a live event where registrants can watch the recording on their own schedule from the cloud.

MQL data helps marketers qualify leads and know when that lead is ready for sales. For example, ActualTech Media uses filters such as title, industry, and geo to help marketers locate leads that match their company's primary buyer persona. In addition, that data will help marketers personalize future interactions, such as placing that contact in an email segmentation list.

To calculate how many of the MQLs that content syndication generated converted into a sales qualified lead (SQL), use the following formula:

Keep in mind that the conversion between MQL and SQL takes time. Marketers who calculate the conversion rate a month after receiving a list of MQLs from content syndication won't see as high a conversion rate as those that give the process more time to invest and nurture each lead effectively.

2. Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Cost per lead (CPL) helps marketers assess the content syndication campaign's return on investment (ROI). This metric considers how much a marketer spent to acquire each lead, which the marketing team can evaluate against those they qualify.

CPL works well as a database-building metric as marketers can calculate whether the expenditure for content syndication is worth the return. If the leads aren't resulting in many conversions, that will signal that the marketers might need to adjust what content they're syndicating or the target audience.

3. Cost Per Opportunity (CPO)

Cost per opportunity (CPO) is the bridge between marketing and sales. This metric is more all-encompassing than CPL because the metric considers all costs involved with generating a lead and bringing it to the point of qualification.

Marketing and sales look at CPO alongside the close rate as a low CPO with a high close rate indicates a very successful marketing campaign.

CPO is an essential metric for those using content syndication for lead generation to build the sales pipeline with valuable opportunities.

4. Asset Downloads

Sometimes marketers aren't concerned about nurturing or converting leads. Instead, the company is looking to build brand awareness through thought leadership content that establishes the company as an authority in the industry.

To calculate brand awareness, marketers can look at the number of downloads. Then, the marketing team evaluates whether they're happy with the number of people who saw the whitepaper, signed up for the webinar, or downloaded the e-book.

5. Inbound Web Traffic

The second metric for calculating brand awareness is inbound web traffic. Marketers can track whether website visitors increased after syndicated content, which shows that those readers and viewers are interested in learning more about the company.

However, this metric provides very little data on who downloaded the content and how that audience responded.

While all metrics offer different insights into the performance of a content syndication campaign, tracking MQL, CPL, and CPO are the most valuable metrics as those metrics directly tie the marketing campaign to the buyer's journey and, eventually, sales. Therefore, those metrics will provide the most comprehensive overview of the content syndication campaign's success.

Danielle Hammond says, "At ActualTech Media, our typical content syndication campaign is measured by number of qualified leads delivered. We strive to deliver leads who not only show interest in your branded content but also fit snugly into your target market and key demographic."

See the Results You Need

Content syndication for lead generation yields the results you need to grow your business through targeted and direct marketing strategies that bring your marketing content directly to your ideal audience.

Learn more about ActualTech Media's content syndication process and fill your pipeline with quality leads.