How HubSpot Measures Its Marketing Content

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How HubSpot Measures Its Marketing Content

Shannon Johnson

Content Strategist, HubSpot

Pamela Vaughan

Manager of Optimization & Growth, HubSpot Content

Fun fact: If you’re a HubSpot customer, you can spot me in the stock photos pre-loaded into your software. I may even be the face of one of your personas.

@pamelump

PAMELAVAUGHAN

Fun fact: I’ve never broken a bone.

@shannopop

SHANNONJOHNSON

1 How the HubSpot Content Machine Works

2 About the Blogging and Offers Teams & Our Goals

3 The KPIs We Track: What, Why & How

4 Final Thoughts About Content Reporting

AGENDA

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1 HOW THE HUBSPOT CONTENT MACHINE WORKS

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Ebooks, Whitepapers & Guides

Blog Posts

WebinarsContent

Creation Assets

ChecklistsTemplates

HUBSPOT’S

CONTENT MACHINE

• 11,000+ customers in over 70

countries

• 1.5M visits / mo.

• 250 articles / mo.

• 4-6 long form pieces of

content / mo.

• Thousands of downloads / mo.

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BLOG CONTENT:

• What: Short-form, ungated content

housed on HubSpot’s blog

• Purpose: Fill the top of the funnel and

convert traffic into new leads

• Measurement Focus: Quantity of traffic,

subscribers, and leads

OFFERS CONTENT:

• What: Long-form, gated content housed

on HubSpot’s landing pages

• Purpose: Qualify and nurture existing

leads

• Measurement Focus: Quality of Leads

and quality of content

BLOG CONTENT VS. OFFERS CONTENT

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WHERE CONTENT LIVES IN HUBSPOT MARKETING

CONTENT TEAM

(CONTENT) FUNNEL TEAM

(DISTRIBUTION

CHANNELS)

Offers

(Long-Form

Content)

Blog

(Short-Form

Content)

Paid Marketing

Landing Pages

SEO

EmailSocial Media

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BLOG = CONTENT + DISTRIBUTION

+

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OFFERS = CONTENT

Paid Marketing

(Funnel Team) Landing Pages

(Funnel Team)

(Relies on Other Teams for Distribution)

Blog

(Blogging Team)

SEO

(Funnel Team)

Social Media

(Funnel Team)

Email

(Funnel Team)

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Where do our content goals come from?

Marketing’s Service-Level Agreement (SLA) With Sales:

Quantity of Leads + Quality of Leads

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Why do we do reporting?

For two reasons …

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to track progress toward our goals

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to be prescriptive, actionable,

and optimization-driven

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1 ABOUT THE BLOGGING TEAM & OUR GOALS

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• 6 Full-Time Employees + Network of Contributors

• 3 Main Blogs: Marketing, Sales, The Agency Post

• 250 Blog Posts Per Month

• Primary Goals: Traffic, Subscribers & New Leads

(Measured by Quantity)

BLOGGING TEAM

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specific goals depend on each blog’s maturity

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INFANT BLOGS

Primary Goals =

Traffic + Subscribers

Why? To build up a critical mass of dedicated readers who will share and evangelize our content to new visitors

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~70%of the initial traffic to a new post on HubSpot’s Marketing Blog comes from email subscribers.

Internal HubSpot Data

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Over time, that initial surge of traffic leads to views & social sharing that translates into organic search traffic growth.

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In other words,

subscribers are critical

to a blog’s long-term

traffic growth.

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MATURE BLOGS

Primary Goals =

Traffic + Leads

Why? To convert visitors into leads while continuing to grow the top of the funnel

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3 BLOGGING TEAM KPIs: THE WHAT, WHY & HOW

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What are our monthly blog goals based on?

1) Total New Leads Goal From SLA

2) Historical Blog Lead Contributions

3) Blog Growth

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How often do we do blog reporting?

How often do we do blog reporting?

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three frequencies …

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monthly report on all key blog metrics

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daily/weekly progress check-ins for primary goals

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documentation of one-off analytical projects

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• Blog Topic Analysis: “I wonder which topics generate the most view/leads …”

• Blog Type Analysis: “I wonder if infographic posts generate more views/leads than

SlideShare posts …”

• Subscriber Email Analysis: “I wonder which email frequency option (instant, daily,

weekly) has the best clickthrough rate …”

• Blog Traffic Analysis: “I wonder how much traffic we get to new posts vs. old posts …”

• Blog Leads Analysis: “I wonder how many leads we get from new posts vs. old posts …”

EXAMPLES …

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Which metrics do we track?

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Progress- and goal-based metrics …

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METRIC:

TOTAL VISITS &

THEIR TRAFFIC

SOURCES

Why: To track blog traffic growth & analyze strengths/weaknesses in traffic sources month over month

How: HubSpot Sources Report

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METRIC:

EMAIL

SUBSCRIBERS

Why: To track

audience growth

and blog stickiness,

particularly for

infant blogs

How: HubSpot Blog

Dashboard

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METRIC:

NEW LEADS

Why: To track how the blog is contributing to the overall marketing SLA and growing leads month over month

How: HubSpot Contacts Report

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prescriptive/actionable metrics …

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METRIC:

TOP POSTS BY

VIEWS

Why: To analyze themes from high-performing posts and identify opportunities for conversion optimization

How: HubSpot Pages Report

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Old posts with high traffic become targets/opportunities for conversion optimization.

WHAT NEXT?

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I wonder how big that opportunity is …

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OVER 75%of our monthly blog post views are of old posts (i.e. posts published prior to that month).


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That’s seems like a pretty big opportunity, if you ask me.

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But I wonder how well all those old posts are converting …

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METRIC:

TOP POSTS BY LEADS

(VIA LAST INTERACTION)

Why: To identify top lead-generating

posts, spot themes that can inform

future content creation, and pinpoint

poorly converting posts

How: HubSpot’s New Attribution Report

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OVER 90%of the leads we generate in a given month are also from old posts (i.e. posts published prior to that month).


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I wonder where all that traffic

to old posts is coming from …

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The majority of traffic to old, high-trafficked posts on HubSpot’s blog comes from organic search.

How: HubSpot Pages Report

METRIC:

BLOG POST

SOURCES

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WHAT NEXT?

Expand that list of high-converting old posts by getting more posts to rank in search. Put more effort into SEO.

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4 ABOUT THE OFFERS TEAM

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We don’t have offers

measurement completely

figured out.

BELIEVE IT OR

NOT …

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LIKE EVERYONE

ELSE …

We are challenged with

determining the value of

what we create.

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• How much did people read?

• Did they like it?

• What didn’t they like?

• Did they share it?

• Was it helpful to the business?

• Should we have packaged it differently?

QUESTIONS WE SEEK ANSWERS TO

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• We have to wait a sales cycle to see how many customers our offers generated.

• The success of an individual offer relies heavily on the promotional effort around it.

• You could technically say our offers are the source of all HubSpot lead generation.

• Unlike blogging, email, or social media, long-form content doesn’t have a built-in

promotional channel.

• Company metrics and priorities shift regularly.

• Quality is harder to measure than quantity.

• Content benefits the company in ways that are nearly impossible to quantify.

CHALLENGES: MEASURING LONG-FORM CONTENT

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5 OFFERS TEAM KPIs: THE WHAT, WHY & HOW

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1. Percent of Leads Transferred to Sales Every Month

2. Offer Performance by Lead and Customer Generation

3. Net Promoter Score (NPS) by Offer Title, Author, and Type

THE 3 PRIMARY OFFERS TEAM KPIs

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% OF LEADS

TRANSFERRED TO

SALES

Measures the offers team’s contribution to our marketing team’s monthly leads-transferred-to-sales goal.

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% OF LEADS TRANSFERRED TO SALES

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TOP-PERFORMING

OFFERS

Measures which offers

excel at generating leads

and customers.

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The longer an offer exists,

the more leads and

customers it generates.

WE TRACK YTD

AND QUARTERLY

PERFORMANCE

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TOP-PERFORMING OFFERS: Q2 2014

Offer Publish Date Author Customers

Leads (Total

Submits)* Recognized MRR*

Quality

Score*

Lead Generation Workbook May-14 Erik 60 35,000 $300,000 71

Content Creation Ebook May-14 Erik 50 20,000 $200,000 70

Facebook 101 Guide Jun-14 Shannon 40 15,000 $100,000 63

Website Redesign Workbook Jun-14 Erik 30 10,000 $90,000 69

Email Marketing Template May-14 Funnel 20 8,000 $80,000 67

*Not Actual HubSpot Data

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NET PROMOTER

SCORE

Measures our

audience’s perception of

our content quality.

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NET PROMOTER SCORE (NPS)

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6 WHAT’S NEXT FOR OFFERS MEASUREMENT?

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To allow us to understand

if an offer is a hit without

having to wait 3-6

months.

BETTER PREDICT

AN OFFER’S

SUCCESS

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7 FINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT CONTENT REPORTING

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1 Don’t waste time on reporting just for the sake of reporting.

2 Prioritize metrics that enable you to be prescriptive.

3 It’s okay to change your metrics over time.

4 Keep asking questions – make time for one-off analytical

projects.

FINAL THOUGHTS

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QUESTIONS ?