Content marketing works. But proving it requires tracking the right metrics. Too many teams measure content success by page views and social shares — vanity metrics that feel good but predict nothing about revenue. Here are the seven KPIs that actually connect your content efforts to business outcomes.

1. Content-Influenced Revenue

This is the big one. How much closed revenue touched a piece of content during the buyer journey? Set up content touchpoint tracking in your CRM to see which blog posts, guides, and resources appear in winning deal paths. Over time, patterns emerge that tell you exactly which content topics and formats drive revenue.

2. Organic Traffic Quality Score

Not all organic traffic is equal. A quality score combines bounce rate, time on page, pages per session, and conversion rate for organic visitors. High-quality organic traffic indicates your content is attracting the right audience with the right intent.

3. Lead Magnet Conversion Rate

Your gated content — ebooks, templates, reports — should convert at 20 to 40 percent of landing page visitors. Below 20 percent means your offer does not match what your audience actually wants. Above 40 percent means you might be giving away too much value for free.

4. Content Velocity

How quickly does your content start generating organic traffic after publication? Faster indexing and ranking indicates strong domain authority and content relevance. Track time-to-rank for target keywords and look for ways to accelerate it through internal linking and promotion.

5. Engagement Depth

Scroll depth, video completion rate, and interactive element engagement tell you whether people actually consume your content or just land on the page and leave. Deep engagement correlates with trust building, which correlates with conversion.

6. Backlink Acquisition Rate

Quality content earns links naturally. Track how many referring domains each piece of content acquires over time. Content that consistently earns backlinks is building compounding SEO value for your entire domain.

7. Sales Team Content Usage

When your sales team voluntarily shares marketing content with prospects, it means the content is genuinely useful in the buying process. Track which pieces sales uses most — these are your highest-value content assets and should inform your editorial calendar.

The best content marketing metrics tell a story about your audience journey from awareness to revenue. Track the full funnel, not just the top.