Content Matters

How content teams are driving growth,

measuring what works, and thinking about the future 2022 Report
INTRODUCTION

Because content matters. Table of contents

The content we create connects us with our customers. Content informs, builds relationships, Teams & Budgets 3
and drives business outcomes. Content matters.

In a recent Forrester study, 60% of customers said: “I’m unlikely to return to a website that does not Purpose 8
provide a satisfactory customer experience.” We believe that delivering this customer experience is
& Channels
thinking beyond one-time engagements and more toward lasting relationships. This isn’t as simple as
publishing more content.
Content types 13
The key to great experiences comes from creation, feedback, and iteration.

With all this in mind, we asked your thoughts in our inaugural Content Matters Survey. It forms the basis
of our exclusive report, meant to help us all better engage with our customers and drive the greatest
Content performance 16
business outcomes from our investments in content creation.

Here’s what we learned from 800+ content marketers:

Revenue 21
• In 52% of companies, more people are creating more content—no wonder, when everyone wants
to grow their customer base and improve their relationships with those customers.
Methodology 25
& demographics
• Content drives those top-of-funnel activities—meaning brands are thinking about the
all-important initial connection they make with customers, wherever they are.

• There’s a deep desire to do more with video—underscoring a desire for deeper human connection.

• Almost half of us don’t know how our content is performing—so we risk wasting customers’ time
(and our own) if we aren’t working with reliable feedback to guide our decision making.

• Tracking revenue back to content is hard—leaving the work of the content marketer too much
to chance and gut feel.

I invite you to dive into our report. Please let us know what you think.

Nick Gernert, CEO

WordPress VIP

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Teams
& Budgets
More people are creating
more content.

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TEAMS & BUDGETS

12% Fewer A common challenge

More people across organizations

is a lack of people to

are creating
produce content.

Content teams across

more content industries typically remain

small, with nearly eight in

(and spending 10 survey respondents

managing with a team

more money) of 10 or fewer. Notably,

this trend for small
content teams remained

e
am
s consistent, even in
e
Th large organizations.
%
31 However, these teams
are growing—more than
r e
Mo half of respondents noted
their content teams have

%
52
expanded over the past
year.
Keeping up with the increasing
desire for more content is
a challenge for many content
teams. According to our Number of people
research, organizations are creating content
creating more content than
ever before, but they still aren’t 1-10 79%
producing nearly as much as Change in number of content
they’d like. The good news? creators over the past year 11-50 14%
Help seems to be on the way. 4%
I don'
t
We see most organizations k
I don't know 3%
maintaining or increasing

no
w
their content budget over 51-200 2%
the coming years, reflecting
the increasing importance of 200+ 2%
content in the marketing mix.

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TEAMS & BUDGETS

So what’s driving
this growth in content
Change in amount
team size? Feeding of content created
the content beast.
over the past year
Nearly eight in 10
respondents doing
content marketing want
to create more content
than they are now—and
a third said “a lot more.”

66% More

21% The same

Desired amount
of content

A bit more
than today 48%
9% Less

Twice as much
as today, 32%
or more

4% I don't know
About
the same 15%
as today

Less content
than today 5%

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TEAMS & BUDGETS

Change in content budget Budgets are growing.

over the past year Along with team size,
budgets have grown over
the past year in about half
of the companies surveyed;
a similar number expect
50% Grew further growth in 2022. This
budget is largely being
spent on more content
creators, rather than
technology to make content
30% Stayed the same
creation more efficient.

14% I don't know

6% Shrunk

Where budgets are being spent Expected change in content budget over the next year

Contract content creators/agencies 58% Increase 42%

Content management tools 51% I don't know 35%

Analytics tools 36% Stay the same 20%

Other 22% Decrease 3%

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TEAMS & BUDGETS

The spending gap between people and

Survey response

technology is striking and speaks to the

“We're a growing
startup poised
relative maturity of content marketing in to invest more
resources
comparison to other marketing disciplines. in content
marketing–that
Clearly, to be effective, organizations must means team,

balance people, process, and technology.

technology, and
distribution.”

Only then can marketers create not just more

content but content that produces better
results, based on focusing efforts in the
highest performing areas. Opting to simply
hire more marketers is likely a strategy that
will lead to diminishing returns.

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Purpose
& Channels
Content primarily drives
top-of-funnel activities
on owned channels.

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PURPOSE & CHANNELS

All types of companies

Content primarily Purpose

of content
agree creating brand
awareness is a content

drives top-of-funnel
marketing priority.
marketing However, other priorities

activities on owned differ between B2B and

B2C companies. B2B is

channels
88% Create brand
awareness heavily focused on content
for lead generation, while
79% Educate audience B2C is focused on audience
education.

78% Build
credibility/ B2B
trust 91% Create brand awareness
85% Generate demand/leads
81% Build credibility/trust
For businesses, content marketing
76% Generate
79% Educate audience
demand leads
serves many purposes, addressing 68% Nurture leads
64% Generate sales/revenue
audiences at every stage of the buying 60% Generate sales/ 44% Build loyalty with
existing customers
journey—e.g., awareness, consideration, revenue
41% Support the launch
conversion—across a seemingly of a new product
39% Drive attendance
endless number of distribution channels.
58% Nurture leads to events
31% Build a subscriber
However, for the vast majority of 50% Build loyalty
audience

organizations we surveyed, content is with existing

<1% Other

still seen primarily as a top-of-funnel customers

B2C
exercise on owned channels.
40% Support the 84%
Create brand awareness
Content drives growth. Even as top-of- launch of 78% Educate audience
a new product
funnel content marketing purposes like
73% Build credibility/trust
60%
Generate demand/leads
brand awareness, education, and trust 35% Drive attendance
60% Build loyalty with
existing customers
building dominated survey respondents' to events 56% Generate sales/revenue

top answers, right behind these for more 42% Support the launch
of a new product
than six in 10 businesses were bottom- 34% Build a 38% Nurture leads
subscriber
of-funnel initiatives such as generating
38% Build a subscriber
audience audience

demand and business leads, and 13% Drive attendance

to events
generating sales and revenue. 3% Other 0% Other

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PURPOSE & CHANNELS

Owned channels
support the largest
Content marketing activities
volume of content
activities—with blog
posts, organic social Blog posts/short articles 91%
media, and email
newsletters making up
the top three.
Social media posts 88%
While both B2B and B2C
companies activate this
content across many
Email newsletters 78%
channels, there is a strong
preference for owned
channels for content
distribution. Videos 69%

Many are also using paid

social media and paid
search ads, though the Case studies 58%
choice of channels varies
depending on company
type. It’s no surprise most Infographics 55%
B2B respondents share
posts and run ads on
LinkedIn or that Facebook
Events/webinars 53%
is the top organic and paid
social channel for B2C.

What does stand out is

Ebooks/guides 52%
more than 60% of B2B
companies use Facebook
for both organic and paid
ads, and nearly half use White papers 48%
Instagram. Also of note:
more than three in four B2C
companies use LinkedIn for Reports 38%
organic traffic but only 30%
opt for paid advertising on
that channel.
Other 9%

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PURPOSE & CHANNELS

Data point Content Own website/blog 90%

As an adjunct to Content distribution
channels
Matters research, we Organic social media 83%
looked to Parse.ly network
Email to own database 77%
data to see how our survey
results stacked up against Paid social media ads 62%
the social channels driving
pageviews to websites on a Paid search ads 49%
larger scale.
Press releases 44%
Social media comprised
Events 42%
13-14% of pageviews to
websites throughout 2021. Paid third-party media 33%
Of the top five social media Podcasts 26%
platforms, Facebook
still drives the most Guest blog posts 16%
traffic, followed by Twitter,
Other 10%
Instagram, Pinterest, and
LinkedIn.

Facebook B2B and B2C Choice of social media platform for B2B: organic Choice of social media platform for B2C: paid

preferred
89% LinkedIn 80% LinkedIn 30%

social media
Facebook 64% Facebook 55%
Twitter 64% Twitter 18%
Twitter
7%
platforms YouTube 49% YouTube 27%
Instagram 46% Instagram 47%
TikTok 9% TikTok 12%

Instagram Other 5% Other 9%

2%
Choice of social media platform for B2B: paid Choice of social media platform for B2C: organic
LinkedIn 77% LinkedIn 76%
Pinterest Facebook 61% Facebook 87%
1% 25% Twitter 62%
Twitter
YouTube 23% YouTube 58%

Instagram 38% Instagram 80%

LinkedIn
<1% TikTok 5% TikTok 27%

Other 10% Other 8%

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PURPOSE & CHANNELS

To drive top-of-funnel conversions, content

Number of content
distribution channels

is the fuel that energizes a wide variety of

used

1 7.5%

channels—an average of four to seven in

2 6.4%
3 9.6%

play for most businesses we surveyed. While

4 15.1%
5 13.3%
6 15.4%

most decidedly favor leveraging channels

7 14.6%
8 8.2%

they own (e.g., website/blog), paid channels

9 5.6%
10 3.2%
11 1.1%

are still part of the mix for more than half of

our respondents. With so many avenues to
address and seed, it’s little wonder that the
demands for content and content budgets
continue to grow.

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Content
Types
Everyone wants to do
more video, if they only
had the resources.

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CONTENT TYPES

35% Videos
Longform is preferred As marketing teams grow, Meanwhile, the shine is

Video,
over social and blogging. they want to bulk up their off doing more blog and
content marketing resource social media content, even

infographics, libraries with infographics

and traditional in-depth
if the current output level
of these content types is

and longform content like white papers,

reports, ebooks, and guides.
consistently high across
industries.

content
top content
marketers’
“if we only had
27% Other

the resources” Top type of content

to create were more
wish lists
24% Infographics
24% Ebooks/guides resources available

22% Reports

19% White papers

18% Events/webinars
18% Case studies
Video isn’t just for young,
glam consumer brands today.
Businesses of all sizes, across
industries and segments want
to get in on the action—and no
wonder, considering the higher 11% Email newsletters
audience engagement levels 10% Social media posts
that come with video. 10% Blog posts/short articles

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CONTENT TYPES

Expect 2022 to be the year video takes

Survey response

a greater starring role in enterprise and

“Video!
Podcasts!

B2B content marketing circles. For one,

Webinars!
Content always...
as smartphones and handhelds continue No new team
members to help
to close gaps in video quality and editing accomplish the
growing lists of
capabilities, it wouldn’t surprise us to see things that need

content teams take a DIY, guerilla marketing

to be done.”

approach to video shoots and production to

promote assets, webinars, events, and more.
Like Dorothy, these teams may already have
the resources to get them home.

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Content
Performance
Despite having metrics,
almost half still don’t
know how their content
is performing.

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CONTENT PERFORMANCE

Content marketers today The No. 1 metric to track which may include time Survey response

Almost half
largely rely on metrics content performance is spent reading the content.
like clicks or views. "Our biggest
page views, trailed by Fewer still directly link their
challenge is

don’t know how

email metrics (e.g., opens, content to broader business
clicks), social media metrics metrics such as conversions, measuring the

their content is
(e.g., likes, comments), leads, or cost to acquire a impact of content
and website engagement, customer. to justify further

performing
investment."

Tracking metrics
for content performance

51 %
49 %
Marketing teams aren’t short
of measurement tools—more
than three in four survey
respondents use metrics
to measure their content
performance. But are they using
the right metrics and the right
tools? Page views and email
Track metrics and
understand how content is
Don't understand how
content is performing 32%
clicks, so-called “vanity metrics,” performing
Track metrics but

offer little hard analysis of how

don’t know how content
is performing
content is performing, and don’t
tell the full story of a customer's 9%
lifecycle journey. No surprise Not tracking
that nearly half our respondents metrics

are left wondering if they have

a clear picture of how their
8%
content is really performing.
Don’t know if
metrics tracked

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 CONTENT PERFORMANCE

Metrics tracked by 62% 58% 57% 57% 52% 43% 34% 33% 23% 20% 5%
content marketers
Page Email Social Website Con- Search Email Marketing Cost to Media Other
views engagement media engagement versions rankings subscribers qualified acquire coverage
engagement leads a lead

The tools used to measure performance Tools used to measure Google Analytics 63%
reflect this bias towards web, email, and content performance
social click metrics. Google Anlaytics is used Built-in social media platform analytics 46%

by three in five, followed by built-in social and Salesforce or other CRM 29%
CRM tools.
Other 16%
Given this reliance on click-type metrics
from generic, legacy analytics tools, it’s Adobe Analytics 5%
unsurprising that even though 83% of
Jetpack Stats 3%
respondents track metrics, almost 50%
don’t know if their efforts are working. Parse.ly 2%

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CONTENT PERFORMANCE

Content strategy Where content strategy

decisions are ad hoc.
decisions flow from .)
In the absence of clear, c
et
understandable content r t,
insights from their analytics ppo
su
solutions, how do content ,
les
marketers prioritize their a
(s
investments? Unfortunately, s
eam
the answer seems to t
r e
be “listen to whomever is the e nc
o i g
screaming loudest.” The om ll
fr t e
No. 1 driver of content s in
st nt t
marketing is requests from u e e res ce
Re
q nt e n
other teams, with anecdotal c o
i nt r ma
/
evidence and executive .7% cs of rfo
8 i pe
requests also featuring 6 lyt ce t
a n
prominently in decision an ide ten
n
making. nt ev co
e
t al s
Co
n t ou
do v i ts
% ec re e s s
u nd

.6
q

An
e

p
re r
53
t

on
%
.6
b

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we

ta

iv
51

da
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ut
l
ra

ec
e
s

yz

Ex
ey

e
v

ov
al
r

%
su

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e
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yz
50
%
e

al
sp

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An
o

51
pr

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.2

/
er
er

46

om

h
st

Ot
Cu

%
.3
%
.8

10
28
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CONTENT PERFORMANCE

Clearly, legacy analytics tools haven't caught

Survey response

up with the modern content marketing

“One of the
biggest pain

approaches companies now favor. Because

points for the
content team is
content is seen as a valuable tool for lack of resources
to be able to
revenue growth, brand awareness, customer understand the
reach of our
education, and building trust, those vanity content and how

metrics like page views and clicks simply

to do better.”

don't cut it in 2022. It’s time to move beyond

content strategy decisions arrived at by
holding a finger to the wind.

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Revenue
Tracking revenue back to
content is hard.

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REVENUE

Tracking Are your organizations'

revenue goals tied to
20% I don't know
Most organizations don’t
have specific revenue

revenue back
goals tied to content.
content? Not only are many content

to content marketing teams struggling

to measure the results of

is hard. their content, they aren’t

planning with results in

Really hard. mind either. While many

organizations haven’t tied
their content to revenue,
for those that do, the need
53% No to use content to drive
revenue is ever increasing.

We’re heartened to see so

much investment in content
27% Yes
marketing and some executives
starting to see a return. That
said, when content’s impact
If revenue goals are tied
is hard to track, it’s easy to content, is this need
to fall back on established increasing?
(and simple) advertising or
impressions metrics to prove Increasing 78%
its value. But those don’t tell the Not
whole story of how content is increasing 13%

contributing to the bottom line. I don't know 9%

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REVENUE

Advertising is still king.

So of those organizations How are Advertising placements 56%

that do have goals tied to organizations Sponsored content
using content to
48%
revenue, how do they use
content to achieve them?
Advertising, sponsored
drive revenue? Drive traffic to sales team 43%

content, driving traffic Retain and expand existing customers 43%

to sales, retention and
Drive traffic to products for sale 40%
expansion are the most
popular revenue-driving Selling content products 22%
content activities.
Affiliate sales 21%
Advertising is not only
the top choice for driving Content paywalls/subscriptions 18%
revenue with content, it’s
Donations 10%
also cited as the most
effective. Notably, however, Other 10%
one in six don’t know their
most effective driver of Don't know 7%
revenue.
What is the most Advertising placements 20%
effective revenue
Don't know
driver? 16%

Drive traffic to sales team 14%

Sponsored content 12%

Drive traffic to products for sale 11%

Retain and expand existing customers 9%

Selling content products 4%

Content paywalls/subscriptions 4%

If only proving the Donations 3%

business value of
every content channel
Other 3%
could be as reliable as
advertising placement
Affiliate sales 2%
reporting.

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REVENUE

Nineteenth Century retail magnate John

Survey response

Wanamaker famously noted, “Half the money

“Personally, I'm
struggling with

I spend on advertising is wasted the trouble

executive buy-
in to prioritize
is, I don't know which half.” Today, thanks content
marketing
to analytics, marketers operate with less strategies and
invest in the right
uncertainty. However, as a newer marketing people to drive

discipline, content marketing has not reached

them.”

the same maturity of more traditional forms,

relying on guesswork and gut feel. As content
marketing teams and their budgets grow
but technology investments are deferred,
Wanamaker’s gripe may still ring true for
those content marketers.

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Methodology
& Demographics

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M E T H O D O L O GY & D E M O G R A P H I C S

Because content Industry Company Size

Role
15.9% Director/VP of

does matter
Marketing (not content
marketing)
15.4% Manager of Marketing
(not content marketing)
12.3% Other
10.8% Manager of Content
Marketing
7.5% Other C-Level

Our goal with this survey and report was 7.3% Director/VP of Content
Marketing
to understand the role content and content 6.3% Individual Contributor

marketing plays in today’s organizations. 5.9%

Content Marketer
Developer

We wanted to learn how these businesses 4.4%

3.5%
Editor
Individual Contributor
are using content for growth, how much (not content marketing)

they’re spending on that content, what 3.5%

3.5%
CMO
Analyst
channels they want to pursue next, what 2.6% Product Owner

technology they’re integrating with, and 41.3% B2B 32.3% 51-100

1.1% Journalist

trends they see heading into 2022. Industry

23.0% Both B2B and B2C 29.3% 0-50
We sent out digital surveys, designed
34.3% Technology
13.6% Media, Publishing

and built on the Crowdsignal platform, in 13.6% Media 11.4% 401-1000 13.3% Agency, Research,
Consulting
November 2021. We asked a series of 10.1% B2C 10.2% 1,000+ 7.9% Education, Arts,

content marketing-focused questions

Humanities
5.9% Other
8.7% 201-400
related to marketing activities and budgets, 7.9% Nonprofit 5.6% Healthcare,
Pharmaceuticals,
marketing technologies, distribution 4.1% Other 4.1% I don't know Life Sciences

channels, metrics, and revenue.

5.0% Retail, Ecommerce
3.7% Financial Services
4.0% 10,000+
2.9% Hospitality, Food,
There were 832 unique respondents Travel

across various roles, industries, company

2.3% Consumer Packaged Goods
1.2% Consumer Electronics
types and geographic location. B2B 1.2% Transportation,
Logistics
technology companies (26.5%) were by 0.9% Energy, Utilities,

far the most well-represented, with seven

Telecommunications
0.8% Public Sector,
in 10 survey respondents indicating they 0.6%
Government
Sports
work in the US. 0.5% Agricultural,
Forestery, Mining
0.3% Religious Organization

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About Parse.ly
Parse.ly is the analytics platform built for content creators.
Parse.ly gives creators, marketers and developers the
tools to understand content performance, prove content
value, and deliver tailored content experiences that drive
meaningful results.
With Parse.ly, your writers and marketers don’t have
to turn to the analyst team for answers—they can be
data-driven themselves.
Learn more about Parse.ly

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