16 Key Metrics To Measure Success in B2B SaaS Content Marketing (2024 Edition)

For B2B SaaS companies, content isn't just about filling up web pages or populating blogs. It's an essential tool for product education, lead generation, and establishing a successful brand in a highly competitive market. 

Those are fundamentally qualitative marketing tasks, but CFOs need to see and understand ROI of marketing efforts. You need that data too — at the very least to understand what’s working and what’s not. In this article, we will explore the 16 key metrics that stand as beacons guiding B2B SaaS companies to content marketing success in 2024.

Engagement metrics

Engagement metrics act as a compass for B2B SaaS companies, giving marketers direction as they reveal where an audience is headed. These metrics are crucial because they reveal not just who is visiting your site, but how they interact with your content. Are they intrigued and engaged, or are they leaving quickly? 

B2B thrives on long-term customer relationships and complex decision-making processes, making these insights invaluable. These metrics help tailor content strategies that nurture leads, foster trust, and establish a strong connection with potential customers.

1. Events

Events refer to specific interactions or behaviors of users on your website. Unlike conversions, which are significant actions leading towards a business goal, events can be any user interaction — from scrolling through a page, a session start, to clicking a link. 

Tracking events is crucial as it provides a deeper understanding of how users engage with different elements of your content. This insight allows for a more nuanced approach to optimizing the user experience and content effectiveness. Identify leading indicators of growth and track those events. Perhaps you want to know how many visitors to your features page end up on your pricing page, as those visitors are more likely to buy in the future.

2. Conversion rate

Conversion rate represents the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website, which could range from downloading a whitepaper to signing up for a free trial. In B2B SaaS, where the sales cycle is often longer and more complex, the conversion rate serves as a direct indicator of how effectively your content pushes potential customers further down the sales funnel. 

Conversions don’t have to represent a sale. Using analytics tools, you can identify other on-page actions besides a sale (like signing up for a webinar or subscribing to a newsletter) that count as conversions.

This metric is pivotal for assessing the ROI of your content marketing efforts and fine-tuning your strategy to maximize conversions. To measure the conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors and multiply by 100. Tools like Google Analytics or specialized marketing automation platforms can help track and analyze this metric in detail.

3. Time on page

Time on page measures the average duration visitors spend on a specific page. This metric sheds light on the effectiveness of your content in capturing and retaining the audience's attention. In B2B SaaS, where explaining complex products and processes is critical to the buying journey, this metric becomes especially significant. 

A longer time on page typically indicates that visitors are reading to the end and taking the time to digest the information presented. Tracking this metric, also easily done through analytics platforms, helps in understanding which content types are most effective in engaging your target audience, allowing for more targeted and impactful content creation.

4. Bounce rate

Bounce rate is a metric that measures the percentage of visitors who land on your website and leave without viewing other pages. 

In the context of B2B SaaS, a high bounce rate could indicate that the content is not aligning with the audience’s needs or expectations. A lower bounce rate generally suggests that your content is engaging and relevant, encouraging visitors to explore more of what your SaaS solution has to offer. This metric can be measured using tools like Google Analytics, which provides detailed insights into how users interact with your site.

Traffic metrics

Traffic metrics provide insights into the volume and sources of your website's visitors, offering a clear view of your content's performance in attracting an audience. For B2B SaaS companies, where targeted and qualified traffic is more valuable than mere numbers, understanding these metrics is vital.

5. Page views

Page views represent the total number of times a particular page on your website has been viewed. This is different than “visitors” because a single visitor can view a page more than once.

This metric is significant for B2B SaaS companies as it helps gauge the popularity and relevance of specific content pieces. High page views on a particular topic or resource indicate strong interest and engagement, suggesting areas where your audience finds value. Google Analytics is one of the best tools for tracking page views.

6. Channel sources

Channel sources identify the ways visitors arrive at your website. This metric is vital in understanding how different marketing channels contribute to your website traffic. 

Knowing whether visitors come from organic search, social media, email marketing, or direct visits can inform where to allocate resources and efforts for maximum impact. Google Analytics has default channel source views, but it’s also possible to customize this tracking.

7. Session sources

Session sources are similar to channel sources but focus more on the specific instances when a user initiates a session on your website. This metric provides insights into the initial interaction point of users with your content. 

Tracking session sources is important to understand the first touchpoints that attract visitors, which can be pivotal in nurturing leads and tell you which top-of-funnel acquisition strategies are working.

SEO metrics

SEO metrics give B2B SaaS companies the information they need to make organic search a successful acquisition channel. 

They provide insights into how well your content performs in terms of visibility, authority, and ranking on search engines. Understanding and tracking these metrics is key to optimizing your content for better search engine performance, which in turn drives more qualified traffic to your site.

8. Domain rating

Domain Rating (DR) is a metric that reflects the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to others in the Ahrefs database. It's an important measure for understanding the overall authority and trustworthiness of your website in the eyes of search engines. A higher DR indicates a stronger, more authoritative site, which can positively impact search rankings. 

You can measure your DR using SEO tools like Ahrefs, which calculates this score based on the quantity and quality of backlinks to your website.

9. Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to your site. They act as a vote of confidence from one site to another, signaling to search engines that others find your content valuable and authoritative. 

Tracking the number and quality of backlinks helps assess your site's reputation and influence on the web. Tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush offer comprehensive features to monitor backlinks, including the authority of linking domains and the context of those links.

10. Keyword rankings

Keyword rankings refer to the positions your website's pages hold on search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords. This metric shows how visible your content is to users conducting searches related to your content's topics. 

Tracking keyword rankings helps identify opportunities to optimize your content for higher traffic and determine the content topics you should target. SEO tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, and Ahrefs can provide detailed insights into where your pages rank for various keywords.

11. Health score

The health score of your website is a measure of its overall technical SEO performance. It encompasses various factors like site speed, crawl errors, and mobile usability. A high health score indicates a technically sound website, which is crucial for both user experience and search engine ranking. 

Tools like Semrush or ScreamingFrog SEO Spider can audit your website, identifying issues that need fixing and helping you maintain a healthy, search-engine-friendly site.

Performance and growth metrics

Performance and growth metrics provide a comprehensive view of how content influences audience growth, engagement, and brand visibility. They are essential for assessing the effectiveness of your content strategy and its ability to drive business growth. 

Google Search Console plays a pivotal role in accessing most of these metrics, offering detailed insights into how your content is performing in search engines.

12. Impressions

Impressions represent the number of times your content is displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs). Tracking impressions gives you insights into the visibility and reach of your content even among searchers who don’t click.

To measure impressions, Google Search Console is an invaluable resource. Once you log in, navigate to the 'Performance' section. Here, you will find data on impressions for your site, showing how often your content appears in search results. This information can be filtered by queries, pages, countries, and devices, offering a comprehensive view of your content's search visibility.

13. Clicks

Clicks measure the number of times users have clicked on your content from SERPs. This metric is crucial as it indicates the actual traffic driven to your website from search engines. Tracking clicks (and their relation to impressions) helps you understand how appealing your titles and meta descriptions are to your target audience, and if they align well with search queries.

Google Search Console provides detailed click data. In the 'Performance' section, you can view the number of clicks your site receives. This data can be analyzed to break down specific pages or queries, giving you a clear idea of what drives traffic. It also helps identify content decay, offering insight into what pages you need to optimize for better performance.

14. Average click-through rate (CTR)

Average click-through rate (CTR) is a vital metric that represents the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. It's a key indicator of how effective your titles and meta descriptions are in attracting attention in SERPs. A high CTR means that your content is enticing enough to encourage clicks.

In Google Search Console, you can track your CTR in the 'Performance' section. It displays the average CTR for your entire site and allows you to drill down into specific pages and queries. Monitoring this metric helps fine-tune your SERP snippets to improve their appeal and effectiveness in generating clicks.

15. Average position

Average position refers to the mean ranking of your content in search engine results across queries and keywords. A better average position usually correlates with higher visibility, potentially leading to more clicks and engagement.

To measure the average position, Google Search Console is a go-to tool. Within the 'Performance' tab, it provides detailed data on the average ranking position of your content across various search queries. If a piece of content is ranking well for a particular keyword but has a low average position, it could probably be improved and generate additional impressions, traffic, and conversions.

16. Followers or subscribers

Followers and subscribers represent the number of individuals who have opted to receive ongoing content updates from you. This metric is a direct indicator of your content's ability to attract and retain a dedicated audience. 

You can track this metric through various platforms depending on where you host your content, such as social media analytics for followers or email marketing tools for subscribers.

Learn more about scaling your content marketing efforts

The journey to scale your content marketing efforts is continuous and ever-evolving. By leveraging these metrics, you gain valuable insights that help refine your strategies, ensuring they resonate with your target audience and drive business growth.

For more insights and strategies for enhancing your content marketing efforts, explore Ten Speed’s blog. We have in-depth articles, tips, and best practices that can help you navigate the complex world of content marketing, empowering you to elevate your strategy and achieve greater results.