Guides  ·  210 searches a month · KD 26

Content ROI

Your board wants the return on content and your analytics gives you last click, which credits the search someone did after already deciding. Everybody knows the number is wrong and it goes in the deck anyway.

Part 1

Last click is not measurement, it is bookkeeping

It records where somebody arrived from, not what changed their mind. Content mostly does its work weeks earlier, in a place with no tracking, and then somebody searches your brand name and search gets the credit.

Do this: Stop reporting content on last click. Report it on the measure the brief set, per piece.
Part 2

The honest test is a holdout

Stop publishing to one segment, region or audience for a quarter and compare. It is slow, it is uncomfortable, and it is the only method that tells you what your content is actually adding rather than what it is being credited with.

Do this: Pick one region and pause distribution there for a quarter. Write down what you expect first, then check.
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Part 3

Different pieces, different measures

A piece written to help sales close is measured by whether sales sends it. A piece written to rank is measured by impressions on new terms. Averaging them into one content ROI number destroys the information in both.

Do this: Report by intent, not in one line. Three honest numbers beat one confident one.
Part 4

What you can say without lying

You can say what a piece cost, what it was for, whether that thing happened, and what you would change. That is a real report. What you cannot honestly say is that content produced a precise revenue figure, and anyone who does is guessing with a decimal point.

Do this: This is our reading of standard practice, not advice for your business. Check anything you plan to put in a board deck with your own specialist.

This is teaching material and our own reading of standard editorial practice, not advice for your specific business. Check anything important with your own specialist before you act on it.

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