#5: Counting content. Was it worth it?
Measuring what investment content achieves and why it matters
Was it worth it? For investment content, that question should always be asked. There should be an expectation, a goal, a point to it all. For the business authoring the content, did it inform, persuade, or trigger a positive commercial outcome? For the client consuming it, was it a productive use of time, did it stick, did it help?
Measuring matters because creating investment content is not free. There is the direct cost of producing it, the opportunity cost of time not spent elsewhere, and the reputational cost if content does more harm than good. In business, return on investment matters, and that includes investment content.
There are tools we can use to assess whether it was worth it. Most involve counting. But while data-driven insights are useful, they have their limits.
For content published online, analytical tools can examine total and unique visits, bounce rate (where visitors leave after viewing a single page), and page views. Digging deeper, pages can be ranked by average time spent, scroll depth, and exit rates.
Traffic sources can also be tracked. Over time, patterns emerge. Which events or publications drive peaks or valleys in traffic, and what subject matter resonates most? These are all insights that can help refine both content and its distribution.
However, analytics has its limits. For an investment business, what ultimately matters is what happens next. Was there follow-up? Was there a positive action? Did the content reinforce trust, authority and brand perception?
Measuring content purely by clicks can risk optimising for attention rather than value. Investment content is not entertainment for its own sake but carries responsibility, shaping long-term thinking and behaviour. That underscores the importance of understanding not just what happens when content is engaged with, but why.
Analytics might highlight an outcome, but it will not explain it. To address that, content owners can use web-based surveys delivered through pop-ups and feedback widgets, and higher-touch direct conversations with known clients also have a role to play. Together they close the gap between what happened and why.
The key message, then, is that it is not enough for investment content to have clearly defined “so what?” goals. Measuring performance against those goals allows future content to be shaped more deliberately. And that means better use of time, clearer commercial alignment and more durable outcomes for everyone.
