Essential KPIs for E-Commerce Content Marketing

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E-commerce, at its core, is built on a few general principles, like knowing a set audience, adhering to solid web design, and finding a framework for your business. You want to have solid concrete data to make sure you are working towards these goals. This is why it’s important to have a real-time understanding of how your content is performing by determining KPIs (key performance indicators). We’ve reached out to some of the e-commerce experts to see the KPIs they favor and how they use the raw data provided.

Common KPIs

Your KPI selection is based on what you want to get out of your content. Adam Hempstall, founder and CEO of Better Proposals, says that the major KPI his company uses is “the conversion rate from blogs. Of course, content directly does not convert, but we have other offers that do. For example, popups where we collect emails, popups that offer discounts for customers, ads for products featured in the article and much more. We understand that tracking conversions from content is not easy so we are careful about calculating this metric.” A secondary option he uses is the number of organic links earned. Invest enough time in your posts, and you will be able to build up some backlinks without added effort.

It can be a key mistake in content marketing to overcentralize one particular KPI, because it may give you a skewed image of how you are performing. Some other KPIs we have seen are:

Page visits
Time on page
Inbound links
Social media shares
Relevant comments
Lead generation
Final conversions

However, all of these figures are raw data. The next step is working with this data to figure out key conclusions regarding said data, and a roadmap for where things are going to go next.

How Companies Are Adapting

So, where’s the starting point for your roadmap? Generally, the way you utilize the data is going to be contingent on what KPIs you’re examining. Gintaras Steponkus, senior marketing manager at Solid Guides, says that a key focus for his marketing team is the amount of web traffic per page. “Instead of putting all efforts in ranking the worst performers, we focus more on the best performers as the first one needs more time and effort. Contrarily, 20% effort on the second one gives us 80% results. Moreover, we analyze keywords against which our website is performing well. Afterward, we focus on keywords closely linked to these keywords for better results.”

KPIs can also help you create a foundation for future goals. “Now, our target is to appear in Google’s featured snippet,” Steponkus shares. “It requires different SEO strategies, but to rank, these best performers are easier than to put effort into worst performers. Appearing in a featured snippet against well-performing keywords can bring us a lot more traffic.” However, some companies may focus more on conversions than traffic. In these cases, it may be more important to see how your links, sales funnels, and calls to action are doing.

So, with this in mind, how exactly do KPIs get put into action with these plan changes? Raphael Monir, CEO of Grooming Hut, said that some of the changes he implemented after seeing KPIs included “changing the CTAs, including more videos, ensuring [his] audience has great user experience and analyzing behavioral actions using a heatmap to see which aspects of [the] site users are not as active on.” This was following a series of A/B tests after the KPIs originally revealed that the content was performing as well as initially hoped.

Don’t be afraid to adapt when it comes to finding different sources of data to work with and platforms to record your KPIs. In a world adapting as quickly as e-commerce, areas of focus are likely to change, and you don’t want to find yourself trying to meet an outdated standard.

Elijah Masek-Kelly
Elijah Masek-Kellly is the Managing Director of Powerful Outreach, which is a PR service that helps clients get exposure through innovative and strategic outreach. With a long history as a writer and content marketer, Elijah is focused on helping small businesses develop their brand, increase their influence, and generate leads by leveraging his skills and knowledge to tap into new audiences.

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