KPIs Every Content Marketer Should Be Tracking

31 July 2025

Let’s cut to the chase: content marketing isn't just about writing blogs, creating videos, or posting clever captions on social media. It’s about driving results. That means if you're a content marketer and you're not tracking the right metrics—aka KPIs—you might as well be tossing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Whether you're running a tight in-house team or managing content for clients, knowing your key performance indicators is non-negotiable. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. So, let’s dive into the essential KPIs every content marketer should be tracking to ensure your strategy is actually doing what it's supposed to do: grow your business.

What Are KPIs in Content Marketing?

Before we jump into the list, let’s clarify what KPIs actually are. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. These are specific, quantifiable metrics that help you understand how well your content is performing against your goals. Think of KPIs as your marketing GPS—they tell you if you're on the right road or if you’ve taken a wrong turn.

Different content marketers have different goals—brand awareness, lead generation, SEO rankings, user engagement, conversions, etc. Whatever your goals are, there’s a KPI (or several) to track your progress.

Why Tracking KPIs Matters

Imagine launching a big content campaign and having no idea how it performed. Did people like it? Did it bring traffic? Generate leads? Without KPIs, you'd be guessing. And in business, guessing is a risky game.

Tracking KPIs allows you to:

- Prove ROI to stakeholders
- Fine-tune your content strategy
- Understand your audience better
- Identify what’s working (and what’s not)
- Scale successful efforts

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the KPIs that actually matter.

1. Website Traffic

Let’s start with the classic: website traffic. This high-level KPI gives you a snapshot of how many people are landing on your blog or website. But don’t just stop at total sessions or pageviews—dig deeper.

What to Track:

- Pageviews: Total views on your content. Good for measuring reach.
- Unique Visitors: How many individual users visited your content.
- Traffic Sources: Where are your visitors coming from? (Organic search, social, referrals, direct)

If you’re using tools like Google Analytics, these numbers are right at your fingertips. The more consistently you publish high-quality content, the more your traffic should grow. If it's not, it’s a wake-up call.

2. Organic Search Rankings

SEO is the long game of content marketing. If you’re creating content without keeping search engines in mind, you're ignoring a goldmine. Organic search rankings tell you how well your content is showing up in search results.

What to Track:

- Keyword Rankings: Where do your pages rank for your target keywords?
- Impressions and Clicks: How often your content appears and gets clicked in Google's search results (check Google Search Console).
- Search Visibility: Your overall presence in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Ranking on page one? That’s prime digital real estate. But if your keyword rank is dropping like a stone? Time to optimize.

3. Bounce Rate

Here’s a tough pill to swallow: not everyone who lands on your content sticks around. That’s where bounce rate comes in. It's the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing just one page.

What to Track:

- High Bounce Pages: Identify pages with the highest bounce rates.
- Average Session Duration: How long are people actually staying on your site?

If your bounce rate is sky-high, it could be a sign your content isn't engaging, your load times are awful, or you're attracting the wrong audience. Ouch.

4. Time on Page

Let’s be honest—if people aren’t spending time with your content, it might not be that great. The time on page metric shows how long visitors are sticking around. It’s a clear signal of how engaging your content really is.

What to Track:

- Average Time on Page: Simple, but powerful.
- Scroll Depth: How far down the page are users scrolling?

If someone spends five minutes reading your 2000-word blog post, congrats—you've probably nailed it. If they bolt after 30 seconds? It might be time to reassess.

5. Engagement Metrics (Likes, Shares, Comments)

In the social media world, engagement is currency. It shows that your content resonates with people—it sparks reactions, starts conversations, and encourages sharing.

What to Track:

- Likes & Shares: Obvious but important.
- Comments: Are people joining the conversation?
- Mentions & Tags: Are others talking about your brand?

High engagement also increases your organic reach due to platform algorithms favoring interactive content. Think of engagement as your content’s “cred” on social platforms.

6. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who see it. It's a great indicator of how compelling your headlines, CTAs, and meta descriptions are.

What to Track:

- Blog Post CTRs: From search results or emails.
- CTA Button CTR: Are users clicking on in-content CTAs?
- Email CTR: Driving traffic from newsletters?

If your CTAs are ignored and your titles flop, your CTRs will tank. A/B testing can work wonders here.

7. Conversion Rate

This is the big one. Conversion rate tells you how many users took a desired action—signed up for a newsletter, downloaded an ebook, registered for a webinar, or completed a purchase.

What to Track:

- Lead Generation Forms: How many visitors become leads?
- Content-Specific Conversions: Which pieces of content drive the most conversions?
- Conversion Paths: What journey did the user take before converting?

Content marketing should always have a purpose. If it’s not helping you meet your business goals, it’s just fluff.

8. Backlinks

Backlinks are like high-fives from other websites. They’re crucial for SEO and credibility. If other sites link to your content, it signals to search engines that your content is valuable.

What to Track:

- Number of Backlinks: Total links pointing to your content.
- Quality of Links: Are you getting links from high-authority domains?
- Referring Domains: How many different domains are linking to you?

Useful, well-researched, and original content attracts backlinks naturally. If you're not earning them, it might be time to level up your content game.

9. Cost Per Lead / Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

If you're spending money on content (and who isn’t?), you want to know the return on that investment. Cost per lead and CAC tell you how efficient your content is at bringing in business.

What to Track:

- Cost Per Lead (CPL): How much do you spend to acquire a single lead from your content?
- Content CAC: How much does it cost to convert a lead into a paying customer through content?

These metrics are golden when justifying your content marketing budget to upper management.

10. Content ROI

At the end of the day, content is an investment. You’re putting in time, money, and effort—so what's the payoff?

What to Track:

- Revenue Attributed to Content: How much revenue can you directly link to content efforts?
- Lifetime Value (LTV) of Leads from Content: How valuable are content-converted customers over time?
- Content Efficiency: Time and cost vs. results.

Proving the ROI of content is tough, but not impossible. Use marketing attribution tools and close collaboration with your sales team to connect the dots.

Bonus: KPI Dashboards to Make Life Easier

Let’s be real. Tracking multiple KPIs across platforms is enough to make your head spin. Solution? Build a KPI dashboard. Tools like:

- Google Data Studio
- HubSpot
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Tableau

…can help you consolidate your data and visualize performance trends. When you've got all your KPIs in one place, it’s way easier to make smart, data-backed decisions.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Track Everything, Track What Matters

Here’s the real kicker—just because you can track everything doesn’t mean you should. Choose KPIs based on your specific goals. If you’re focused on brand awareness, traffic and engagement might be your top priorities. If the goal is lead generation, look hard at conversion rates and cost per lead.

And remember—KPIs are not just numbers. They tell the story of your content. They show you what your audience loves, what bores them to tears, and what turns them into raving fans.

Keep your finger on the pulse, optimize regularly, and let your KPIs be the compass guiding your content strategy.