How to Measure Content Performance with Scalable KPIs

Growing brands often have difficulty finding the right KPIs to measure content performance. How do you know if the metrics you use today will scale with your evolving marketing goals?

Ensure your content performance KPIs are scalable by selecting metrics focused on engagement and retention. Spend less time worrying about raw traffic and visibility metrics — those will increase if early user engagement is strong.

Scaling brands should use these 5 key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure content performance:

1. Average time on page
2. Scroll depth
3. Bounce rate
4. Engaged sessions
5. Organic traffic rate

Let’s look at these 5 KPIs, and why their focus on engagement and retention offers strong early indicators of your content strategy’s scalability.

I’ll also discuss the best platforms to track traffic and engagement metrics, and give you pro tips on how to analyze these KPIs in Google Analytics 4.

Skip the article and set up a free chat with me about your content performance goals!

Why Content Performance KPIs Must Be Scalable

Scaling brands should evaluate content marketing performance like a marathon, not a sprint. A quick burst of website traffic is great — but will the strategy that drives 3 months of success burn out as you grow?

Short-term content success is great — celebrate those victories! But don’t marry yourself to the content strategy that drove those quick wins. They don’t necessarily guarantee (or create) sustainable engagement.

Example: You pay a local social media influencer to promote your service on Instagram. For 6 weeks, social media engagement is through the roof. Encouraged by this boost, you enter into a 24-month agreement with a content creation agency focused on local influencers.

18 months later, you’ve scaled your brand to 3 markets in 2 states. That local influencer agency still drives good social media numbers for one market — but their content means nothing in the other two. You’re stuck in a contract that you’ve outgrown.

Measure Content Performance With a Long-Term Lens

The above example shows why your content marketing metrics and goals must be scalable. Don’t let short-term wins cloud your judgment and affect your long-term marketing investment strategy. 

If you want scalable content marketing strategy, make sure you have scalable content KPIs. You’ll make sure your audience never outgrows your content, and your needs never outgrow your available budget.

Long-term metrics + evergreen content = long-term success.

Just Starting Out? Don’t Lose Sleep Over Click-Through Rate

It’s easy to stress over your click-through rate (CTR), but these aren’t always the best indicators of marketing success for growing companies.

It may take some time for your brand awareness to catch up with content production, so you need more insightful ways to judge your content ROI.

Nail your approach to engagement and retention metrics early, and your clicks will catch up to your impressions.

Average Time on Page = The Best Engagement Metric

I believe average time on page is the best engagement metric — especially for scaling brands.

Time on page is the amount of time an active visitor spends on your page before traveling to another site. This metric directly reflects how successful and engaging your content is. 

Example: Brand A’s website has 3,000 unique weekly visitors. Brand B’s website has 1,800 unique weekly visitors. If we just focus on website traffic as our core engagement metric, then Brand A wins by a landslide.

But what if I told you that Brand B’s average visitor spends 2 1/2 minutes on their website, while Brand A’s average on-page time is 38 seconds?

Brand B’s audience is 5x more engaged and spends 237% more overall time on its website. So does Brand B’s website really have “less traffic”?

Longer Time on Page = More Conversions

Average time on page isn’t just a great engagement metric — it’s a predictor of lead conversion and sales.

Ecommerce powerhouse SwiftERM notes a direct connection between dwell time and conversion rate. “Users who spend more time on a product or checkout page are often more engaged and more likely to make a purchase,” SwiftERM says.

It’s simple: the longer a visitor spends on your website, the more valuable they find your content. The more valuable they find your content, the more likely they are to engage with conversion text and calls to action.

That’s why on-page time is such a powerful KPI — it delivers engagement, conversion and retention metrics all at once.

Dwell Time: How Google Views “Time on Page”

Google has its own way of analyzing whether or not readers find your content valuable. Part of that equation involves a metric called dwell time.

When a search engine user clicks on your link from a SERP (search engine results page), the dwell time counter starts. It ends when they leave your website and go back to the results page.

A low dwell time indicates the reader didn’t find the information they hoped to receive. A high dwell time helps improve your page’s overall search ranking.

You can’t access Google’s dwell time data — but you can find time on page statistics in Google Analytics 4.

Scroll Depth Reveals Your Most Engaging Content

Scroll depth is the gold standard for measuring content consumption. How far into your webpage, blog article or pillar page is your average visitor reading? The further down the page they travel, the greater your engagement.

Utilize scroll depth analytics to build your on-page SEO content strategy. A call to action (CTA) or conversion text at the end of your blog article is no good if your average user only scrolls half the content. Place conversion and CTA opportunities above the average scroll depth of your content piece to ensure more viewers take notice.

Pro Tip! Analyze on page time and scroll depth together for the best overall view of content performance. Together, these two KPIs give you a 10,000 foot view of overall content marketing ROI — the perfect blend of engagement and retention metrics.

How to Analyze Scroll Depth in Google Analytics

Look for the “scroll” metric in Google Analytics. It tracks the first time a unique user reaches the bottom of each page (usually 90% of vertical depth).

Bounce Rate is a Better KPI Than Page Views

Don’t rely solely on page views to measure content performance. There are too many holes in the data — a page view count doesn’t tell you how many users are actively engaged, how many people have you open in a background tab, or who visited and immediately clicked away.

Bounce rate is a stronger KPI for measuring website traffic. It’s generally defined in 2 ways:

1. The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing a single page; or
2. The percentage of visitors who leave your website without taking an action (clicking a link, submitting a form, following a conversion opportunity, or viewing multiple pages).

Like scroll depth, bounce rate indicates your content’s ability to attract active users. Google Analytics defines active users as “the number of people who engaged with your site or app in the specified date range”. 

Pro Tip: Google Analytics 4 doesn’t directly measure bounce rate — think of it as the inverse of engaged sessions (which is our next great KPI!).

Measure Content Performance With Engaged Sessions

Track your number of engaged sessions in tandem with your overall bounce rate. Your brand should have specific KPIs for what defines an “engaged session” — here’s how Google currently defines one:

• A session that lasts longer than 10 seconds
• A session with at least one conversion event
• A session that follows at least one call to action
• A session with at least 2 page views (2 unique web pages)

You can develop your own brand-specific KPIs for session engagement, like following a call to action or completing a form.

How to Measure Engaged Sessions in Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4 makes tracking engaged sessions much simpler than the old Universal Analytics (UA) version. Look for “Engagement overview” in the Engagement reports section.

Set your own engaged session minimum! Set a custom user engagement metric in Google Analytics. Set the “engagement_time_msec” parameter to the minimum length of time you associate with an active user. 

Go Beyond Engaged Sessions With User Stickiness

Google Analytics 4 uses a great term called “user stickiness” to define session engagement even further. User stickiness compares the activity of each site visitor over short-term and long-term time periods.

Are your site visitors as active and engaged 60 seconds into their visit as they were in the first 10 seconds?

Organic Traffic Indicates Search Engine Visibility

Driving organic traffic is still the backbone of all content marketing efforts for scaling brands. What percentage of your site visitors found you organically through search engine queries, outbound links from external sites, and social media sharing?

Organic traffic is my favorite content marketing metric for a simple reason: no added costs. No paid ads, no pay-to-play search terms. Just strong keyword ranking strategy, smart content creation, and visible quality solutions for your readers.

Why Organic Traffic Is More Scalable Than Paid Traffic

Content Marketing Institute reports over 53% of all traffic comes from organic search engine results. That number is increasing — with all the hype around social media as a search engine and paid ads, organic content is still king.

Spend time curating and developing a quality organic content marketing strategy. When your competitors’ Google Ads budget runs out, you’ll still be on the first page while they tumble into obscurity.

4 Great Platforms to Measure Content Performance

Now that you know how to effectively measure content performance, where should you analyze your data? Scaling brands need analytics platforms that measure the metrics that reflect your growth process.

I think Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Sprout Social and HubSpot offer strong, scalable solutions for tracking branded content goals.

Google Analytics: Overall Website Analytics

If you’re going to monitor search engine performance of your scaling website, why wouldn’t you use the official analytics platform of the search engine with 90%+ of the global market share?

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) offers updated event-based data and behavioral modeling that allows brands to customize KPIs. Their built in machine learning detects and predicts user trends and customer data — you’ll get present data insights and forward-looking content strategy ideas.

Connect your website to GA4 and set up automatic alerts for data trends, traffic spikes and conversion opportunities.

Ahrefs: Search Engine and SEO Metrics

There are a few great platforms to track SEO content metrics — Semrush, Moz, etc. In terms of features that best align with scaling brand strategy, Ahrefs is our pick.

Updated Ahrefs features include enhanced competitor analysis. Use the Top Pages report for international competitor tracking and page ranking data. I also think Ahrefs Keyword Explorer is best in class.

Ahrefs’ free features are generous and allow founders and marketing directors the opportunity to “test drive” the platform before making a purchasing decision. 

Sprout Social: Social Media Performance Metrics

Scaling brands with a heavy focus on social media platforms should consider Sprout Social for social media analytics insights. Their transitions between single platform and cross-platform reporting are seamless, and their hashtag tracking tool is simple and effective.

Sprout Social’s best feature is the ability to separate paid and organic performance. While multiple platforms offer this feature, Sprout’s layout is particularly easy to understand (even for novice analytics users). 

HubSpot: Content Marketing Automation

There are great platforms which allow you to optimize content with AI assistance. There are others who automate your content development and workflow. HubSpot does them both extremely well.

Use HubSpot to automate social media management, email and newsletter campaigns, lead nurturing follow-ups, and sales outreach sequences.

The performance analytics features are also present in abundance. HubSpot allows you to build on those data points and insights to develop multichannel marketing campaigns. 

Let’s Refine Your Content Performance Metrics Together

The best content performance KPIs for scaling brands focus on engagement and retention. Dive past top-level metrics and look for insights on user activity — average time on page and scroll depth are a great starting point.

Back those up with a focus on bounce rate and engaged sessions to build brand loyalty. Emphasize organic traffic strategy to develop long-lasting, scalable content that costs less over time.

I’d love to have a conversation about developing your content performance KPIs. Together, we’ll develop a set of customized metrics that help define your content creation success moving forward.

Schedule a chat with me about how to measure content performance!