Regarding measuring content marketing performance, Google Analytics is one of the best free tools to leverage insights about sessions, users, bounce rates, page views, and more. 

However, navigating it can be a bit tricky, especially if you’re a first-time user. So, here’s a quick guide that sheds some information on using Google Analytics to track your content marketing performance.

Before Using Google Analytics To Track Your Content Marketing Performance

As content marketers, the first step you’ll need to take is to connect Google Analytics to your website, set up Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters, and use trackable links. 

Ideally, we suggest setting up all the details before you start a campaign (e.g., a holiday or an influencer marketing campaign) or waiting at least 30 days to generate reports. 

This will help you better understand how your campaign is performing with comprehensive details. For example, Shopify does an excellent job teaching you how to set UTM parameters, use trackable links, and generate reports.  

7 Ways To Use Google Analytics For Tracking Marketing Performance

1. Use Google Analytics to check acquired visitors

You can check both your website traffic sources and your new visitors on Google Analytics by clicking on the Report icon (this will usually be on the left of your screen), going on “Life Cycle,” and selecting “User Acquisition” or “Traffic Acquisition” under “Acquisitions.”

The image below shows the kind of data you can expect to see from this report (one key factor you can expect to see is the marketing channels most of your first-time organic visitors come from):

For example, Cruise America uses Google Analytics to track acquired visitors on the RV Rentals in Phoenix page (a content pillar leading to other topics) to determine where their visitors are coming from. Then, they can invest in those acquisition methods that are working well and retire the ones that are driving lackluster results. 

2. Use Google Analytics to check bounce rates

Use this formula to track your site’s bounce rates:

Bounce rates: (Total Visitors Without Engagement/Total Visitors) x 100

Pro Tip: Experts suggest bounce rates should be below 40–50%. One simple way to reduce the bounce rate is to add internal links to other relevant content to boost engagement metrics and keep the potential customers on your site longer. 

3. Use Google Analytics to track engagement

To track engagement rates, go to Reports > Engagement. Once there, you can check event engagement, conversions, and page/screens. 

To get accurate results, click on Page/Screens and include dimensions (these dimensions can be whatever you want, but experts from Ahrefs suggest setting it to “First Medium User” and “Organic”). 

This is how you can view your website engagement:

Some companies even integrate Google Analytics with other platforms and applications their audience uses to track engagement effectively and improve content performance by keeping user preferences in mind. 

In fact, they use OAuth to keep visitors and their information protected. It’s a win-win. Why? You can track user behavior and preferences while protecting their personal information from security threats. 

4. Use Google Analytics to see conversion rates

Opt for the same route as before to find conversion rates, and click “Conversions” instead of “Page/Screens.”

Here, you can check conversion rates by ‌event or action (first visit, checkouts, and purchase). 

5. Use Google Analytics to visualize your funnel

If you wish to get a better visual understanding of what a typical journey of your website visitors looks like on the site, you can try visualizing your funnel.

To check your website funnels, go to “Explore” and click on “Funnel exploration.”

The funnel also signifies which pages most of your visitors come from and which ones they exited, which experts believe would be helpful in analyzing individual pages and improving their content performance. 

6. Use Google Analytics to find out where your users come from

With the help of Google Analytics, you can identify your audiences’ locations as well as their preferred devices. 

For example, you can visit Reports > User > User attributes > Demographic details to find user locations. This will show you which regions most of your users come from (and what their engagement and conversion rates look like in each region). 

Similarly, you can go to Reports > Audiences to determine which device categories your visitors use. 

7. Use Google Analytics to find content gaps 

To find out what content topics your visitors are most searching for (organic search), you can go to Reports and click “Search Console.” Under this, select “Queries” to find which keywords you should be on the lookout for. 

For example, courier services use Google Analytics to track how the competition invests in content surrounding logistical topics. 

Since they make the biggest share of their profit in this segment, they can identify gaps based on these insights to help them create a new content strategy to fill those holes. The idea? Find areas where the competition doesn’t have content for search intent and write blog posts to meet that need and fill the gap.

You can also use Google Trends to check the competition for the same keyword (for example, if your keyword is “SEO tools,” you can easily see which companies are dominating SERP results). 

Experts also recommend using Google Analytics to find web pages with a heavy bounce rate (more than 40%) and refreshing those pages to ensure your visitors stay and engage on your site.

You can compare these pages with those with low bounce rates (read: good user experience) to see what you’re doing right.

Here’s another helpful guide you can use to find out which actions you should take based on your current content marketing strategy and challenges:

Make The Most Out Of Your Content Marketing Efforts

And there you have it. Everything you need to know about tracking the performance of every piece of content with the help of Google Analytics 4. 

While we hope Google Analytics helps you improve content performance (read: average time-on-page and organic traffic), there’s just one caveat: You’ll need to pair up Google Analytics with experts who know how to leverage this tool (and other platforms) to harness its valuable insights. 

Only when you work with experts and AI together can ‌you truly enhance and improve your content marketing efforts. In that regard, Reverb is a true expert when it comes to content marketing — check out our portfolio and the areas of our expertise.

Author Bio

Juwaria is a freelance writer specializing in the fields of SaaS, marketing, and health/wellness. Backed with 3+ years of experience, she helps brands build content that adds value to their business. In her free time, you can catch her reading her favorite books or studying the latest trends online.