How can Content Marketing Attribution Models help you increase sales?

Certainly, drawing from my experience in the field, I'd like to emphasize the importance of fostering a culture of collaboration within your content marketing team. While articles often focus on strategies and tactics, the human element is often underestimated. Encouraging open communication, idea sharing, and constructive feedback among team members can lead to more creative and effective content. Teams that work together seamlessly tend to produce content that resonates better with the target audience. So, consider team dynamics as an integral part of your content marketing success, and don't hesitate to invest in team-building and skill development initiatives to foster a strong and collaborative work environment.

Content marketing attribution models are how to attribute your initial customer purchase to pieces of content they read/consume during the customer journey. Naturally, content marketing exists in the brand awareness / consideration phase. They learn about your brand through SEO / social media and then you sell them on your value through email marketing and further more personal content marketing. I highly suggest installing Google Analytics on your website and tracking which pieces of content are viewed the most and through which channels.

Content marketing attribution models are important because it shows a return on investment on the content you and your team are producing. More often than not, your content will exist as the first touch attribution for potential customers to learn about your brand. A data-driven attribution model will show how that customer's value is spread across content and organic traffic along with paid channels.

Rarely will content be a first touch or last touch. It’s important your attribution model also provides visibility into influence. For example, tools like HubSpot (or other marketing automation platforms) can show “X user read a blog post, attended a webinar, and two months became a qualified lead.” Because companies have different models for which team receives “credit,” measuring pipeline influence is critical. This enables you to capture content efficacy in instances where an SDR or AE prospect or close someone who is brought in due to marketing efforts.

Attribution in content marketing is extremely useful in determining what you're doing right, and what to focus your efforts and budget on. Especially in a startup space, you don't want to crowd your potential customers with content, you want to provide them with the best content that will help in their buying decision, and make sure that this all matches your overall company strategy. Attributing success of certain pieces of content allows you to do just that - but there is no easy way to do it. We empower our sales reps to gather this information, and figure out what content marketing touch points leads had, and customers had all along their buying cycle.

Some tools are foundational. Think: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, marketing automation platforms (e.g., HubSpot), and similar tech. But they miss a LOT of important data. Your audience consumes and shares your content on social media, Reddit, Slack, communities, WhatsApp groups, and more. This is what folks call 'dark social.' aka what traditional attribution models can't track. Hence it being ... dark. In addition to those foundational tools, you need self-reported attribution (SRA) to truly measure your content's efficacy. Otherwise, you'll be misguided into what's working, what's not, and where to invest. SRA is an open text field on high-intent forms where users tell you where you found you. Simple as that.

Tools are the only answer here. Connect GA to CRM so that you can link the user journey to closed/won revenue. Alternatively, you can use deanonymization software to track all visitor activity and connect them across your campaigns.

Content doesn't lend itself fully to attribution. The trick is to measure the channel and not individual content. This text talks about segmentation etc which is a waste of time. Instead, focus on the channel and measure engagement. The topics that lead to meaningful interactions are most likely contributing to revenue.