Best Practices for Measuring the Success of Your Content Automation Strategies

Manual creation, management, and distribution of digital content can be challenging, even for seasoned marketers. Keeping up with blog posts, social media updates, video content creation, emails, and more can take much time and effort. 

Fortunately, technology has allowed for the automation of content management processes. Various software, tools, and platforms can help streamline tasks, thus higher efficiency. Turning over the roles to automation significantly reduces workloads for the teams. Even non-creatives can customize content with speed and consistency.

But, like any other automation, getting to know ROI is essential. Learn best practices for measuring the success of the content automation strategy.

Start with Clear and Specific Goals for Content Automation

A wise investment in content automation software means starting with clear and specific goals to achieve within a specific time frame. Practical goals include:

• Increase website traffic
• Improve engagement rates
• Boost lead generation efforts
• Cut content creation costs
• Eliminate dependence on manual content creation processes that lead to time wastage.

Starting with clarity on goals helps achieve two critical functions. The first is to act as a roadmap towards achieving specific things. The second is the establishment of benchmarks upon which to measure the success of the strategies.

Take the example of increasing website traffic. That in itself does not capture the true essence of coming up with clear goals. A better one would be to increase website traffic by 50% within six months, focusing on blog posts.

Define Metrics to Measure the Content Automation Performance

Marketing 101 outlines how to come up with KPIs. The easiest way is to base them on the content automation goals. From the first point, the KPIs for increasing website traffic would be metrics like page views, stay rates, bounce rates, or unique visitors to the website.

But with content automation, there is a need to expand the metrics more for better insights.

Digital marketers can focus on the following:-

• Value metrics measure the content automation strategy based on the bottom line. How much went out in spend vs. what came in, basically translates to return on investment (ROI). In this case, an increase in website traffic would be significant. But if there are no conversions in terms of sales, then a strategy change may be necessary.
• Efficiency metrics look at quality. Are the right people/target audiences engaging with the content? Does the content automation help with getting qualified leads, etc?
• Response metrics determine whether audiences are positively receiving the content. Examples would be email open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribing audiences.
• Activity metrics are actual reports of the activities from the content automation software. If automating newsletter distribution, for instance, how many went out?

Incorporate Social Media Metrics

Social media has gained prominence as one of the most critical cogs in any digital marketing strategy. The platforms have achieved a 25% year-on-year growth to surpass paid search as advertising platforms.

Beyond that, social media is an excellent place to know how well audiences interact with content. Simple indicators are the number of likes, shares, and comments. 

Keep Up With A/B Testing

Astute digital marketers use A/B testing because it helps them know what works better. The process entails creating two versions of the same thing and randomly sampling it on users. The insights from the feedback will determine which is the better option.

Let's take an example of the use of templates when automating content. The best software will have several that users can use as is. Also, there is the option of customizable templates that allow for tweaking as per the users' desires.

It is possible to carry out an A/B testing of the best template. One version can remain plain, as per the software offering. The other should have extra additions like different subject lines or call-to-actions. The marketers can then test the two template samples and see which gets better feedback. They may notice better open rates with customized templates.

Implement Regular Content Automation Performance Reviews

Any best practice tips must end with a call for regular performance reviews. The most significant reason is to identify and correct parts of the content automation strategy that is not working.

Marketers know that they must treat strategies as living documents. That means flexibility to make adjustments as and when necessary. For instance, regular reviews may show that a specific goal timeline is not feasible due to the scope of activities or budget. Or, it may indicate that automating emails is not achieving as much results as the teams thought it would.

Data-driven insights from the ongoing performance reviews provide a sound basis for making any strategy changes. 

Content Automation Requires a Solid, Measurable Strategy

Content automation is a game changer for digital marketers. Automating time-consuming, tedious, and, oftentimes, repetitive work results in higher efficiency and better streamlining of workflows. Setting goals, determining metrics, A/B testing, and regular performance reviews are the best ways to know if content automation works.