8+ content marketing metrics you should track
Content marketing plays a key role in many digital marketing strategies, but what metrics should you be following to ensure that what you're doing is working?
Content marketing is essentially described as the creation and publication of content in order to build an audience and generate sales leads. In other words, you're leveraging content that you're creating to create brand awareness and educate audiences.
About 91 percent of B2B marketers now use content marketing, yet only around 36 to 42 percent can accurately measure its ROI (return on investment). According to the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 B2B research, just 12 percent of B2B content teams exceeded their goals that year, and measurement blind spots were a primary reason why.
So, while many brands may be using content marketing, plenty are still figuring out how to measure success.
Of course, your metrics matter. Content production, strategy, distribution, promotion and any related software all cost time and resources. Are you getting your money's worth from your content?
If you're new to Google Analytics, check out our nine tips to get the most out of Google Analytics 4.
The following are eight-plus content marketing metrics you should track to ensure that the content you're sharing is working the way you want it to.
| Metric | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Website referral traffic | GA4: Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition |
| User behavior | GA4: Engagement reports, or a custom Exploration |
| Shares and backlinks | Third-party tools like BuzzSumo and Semrush |
| Google Search impressions and CTR | Google Search Console: Performance, then Search Results |
| Keyword rankings | Google Search Console, tracked monthly |
| Lead generation | GA4 Key Events tied to demo requests, forms, and more |
| Customer retention | GA4: New vs. returning users comparison |
| Email opt-in rates | Your email marketing platform |
Website referral traffic
A common content marketing metric is website traffic, but go beyond just the total numbers of visitors. Take a look at how these visitors are finding your content.
To see where your traffic is coming from in Google Analytics 4, go to Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. You'll be able to see how users are finding your content, whether that's organically or through social media, search engines, etc.
This will give you insight into whether your social media promotion is working, if your SEO needs a boost or if a popular email newsletter is linking to you.
In other words, website referral traffic can help inform your content marketing strategy overall.
User behavior
User behavior is actually a collection of metrics that can give you insight into reader engagement and content performance, especially when paired with other metrics, such as website traffic.
You can find the following user behavior metrics within GA4's engagement reports (or by building a custom Exploration for more detail):
- Average engagement time (GA4's equivalent of time on page)
- Engagement rate (GA4's equivalent of bounce rate, inverted)
- Views per session
- New vs. returning users
The power of user behavior metrics does come from the pairing up with other larger metrics, but they can help you better understand the performance of your content.
For example, you have a blog post that is receiving a lot of traffic from search engines, and visitors are spending significant time on the web page. From that you can infer that your post is matching the search intent of these users, which is a win.
Shares and backlinks
When it comes to any brand awareness goals, it's important to understand how far your content is reaching (beyond traffic on your website). You can get an understanding of this by tracking social media shares and backlinks (which are hyperlinks that point from one website to another).
These metrics show whether users are willing to share your content with their personal audiences and networks.
You can measure social media shares on such tools as BuzzSumo, and you can measure backlinks on such tools as SEMRush, BuzzSumo and more.
Check out our seven tips to grow quality backlinks and boost your SEO.
Google Search impressions and click-through rate
In Google Search Console, you can (and should) track impressions and click-through-rates of your content in organic searches.
These metrics can help you understand whether the keywords your content is ranking for actually lead to how many users saw your search result and how many clicks resulted from that. Keep in mind that CTR benchmarks have shifted: Google's AI Overviews now appear on a large share of searches and can reduce click-through on even a No. 1 organic result by more than half compared to a query without one. For more on adapting to that shift, see our four tips to boost your click-through rate in Google Search.
You can find these metrics in Google Search Console by filtering by a specific landing page and then looking through the queries linked to that page. Click on Performance, then Search Results and then Queries.
Keyword rankings
Speaking of keyword rankings, this is another content marketing metric you should be tracking. You'll want to monitor your core keywords and their rankings at least monthly.
Ranking improvements can reflect positively on your content marketing performance. You can use Google Search Console to find this metric.
If you're not sure what keywords should be on your priority list, start with keyword research. Check out these 11 free SEO keyword research tools you should consider.
Lead generation
Lead generation is all about your content bringing in new sales leads to your business. In other words, it is the process of getting people interested in your business and gradually nurturing them into becoming paying customers.
To measure lead generation in GA4, mark the relevant actions as Key Events (GA4's current term for what used to be called Goals or Conversions), such as demo requests, Contact Us submissions and more. This can then be used to help determine how many conversions come through a blog or other piece of content.
Premium content is not only a key part of any content marketing strategy, but it can directly increase lead generation. Learn more about what it is and how you can leverage premium content in your marketing. If lead generation is the ultimate goal, our 16 tips to increase your sales conversion rate covers what happens after that first conversion too.
Customer retention
New visitors are great, but don't forget about your loyal, returning visitors. These are the consumers whom you're building a relationship with that can lead to purchases in the future.
These are warm leads that you can't ignore. What content is appealing to them? In GA4, you can compare new versus returning users by adding a comparison to any report or by building a quick Exploration using the "New vs. returning" dimension.
Speaking of returning visitors, check out our six tips to create brand loyalty for your business.
Email opt-in rates
Email subscriptions might not be the first content marketing metric you'd think of, but it matters because your subscriber number reflects how many consumers found enough value in your content to want more of it delivered to them directly.
DailyStory is just one email marketing tool that can help you track your subscribers, their engagement with your emails and more.
In conclusion
Remember that the power of your content marketing metrics is only as strong as the goals you're setting around your content.
Don't have specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals? Check out our seven expert tips to set achievable marketing goals for your small business.
As you're getting serious about tracking your content marketing metrics, think about your digital marketing process. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automation, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.