For our latest Content Matters report, we surveyed almost 200 marketing and media leaders.

We wanted to know how AI, Google algorithm changes, the appetite for high-quality content, and other trends are affecting how they prioritize content strategies, resources, and budgets for the coming year.

Several clear themes emerged, including a persistent data gap across the org, the emphasis on website-centricity to drive retention, and AI hesitancy. Let’s explore these. 

A gap persists between “having data” and implementing a data-driven strategy 

Merely having data is pointless unless it can be organized and interpreted into actionable insights (by everyone) across the org.

Almost nine in 10 (87%) of C-level executives report having a clear or somewhat clear understanding of their content’s performance. This perception is consistent across various seniorty levels, indicating that most employees in content-creating roles are confident in their understanding of content metrics.

However, this understanding doesn’t always translate into a data-driven approach. Only four in 10 (43%) ‌content professionals admitted to having a data-driven strategy. Among C-level executives, the figure drops to 30%, with nearly half (49%) acknowledging their strategy isn’t driven by data at all.

This gap highlights a crucial issue: while there is a strong grasp of content performance, turning this knowledge into a strategy through data-driven planning remains a challenge.

Data is, in fact, everyone’s business

The perceived responsibility for reporting on content performance varies significantly among seniority levels. Over half of VPs, directors, managers, and individual contributors believe it primarily falls within marketing and editorial roles. Conversely, C-level executives more frequently see it as an executive responsibility. 

To close this gap, we need better solutions that make it easier to talk about content performance across all levels of seniority. The key? Robust, easy-to-use content analytics tools should be accessible to everyone, enabling each seniority level to leverage data effectively.

Website-centricity and high-quality content are the New Black

With the rise of low-quality, AI-generated content and a widespread loss of trust in third-party platforms, your company’s web presence must be self-reliant—engaging, secure, and modern. This means adopting a customer-first, website-centric approach to digital strategy and understanding what keeps customers coming back.

In our survey, 60% of C-executives agreed that retaining and growing customers is the most impactful content measure to drive revenue. Today, however, it’s harder to build and maintain a loyal audience via “fly-by traffic” from social media and search. Instead, the takeaway is to “leave the platforms behind” and encourage users to go directly to your website—where they’ll learn to know and trust your brand, and become loyal fans.

C-executives aren’t convinced that quantity is the answer

The majority of respondents at all seniority levels agreed that demand for their content had increased and will increase throughout 2024. But the share of respondents who felt this way rose as seniority level decreased. This highlights a gulf between content creators, of whom eight in 10 (87%) expect an increase in demand, and C-level executives, of whom just six in 10 (63%) feel the same. Result? A content strategy communication breakdown, with resources unnecessarily diverted to simply producing more and more content.

This may be one reason creating high-quality content (rather than higher quantity) is the top challenge identified by C-level respondents. Another, of course, is Google cracking down on low-quality, high-volume sites and answering search queries with AI-generated overviews.

And with Google constantly updating its algorithms and platform, the definition of quality content constantly changes. We believe this makes it impossible to understand what “quality content” will mean tomorrow unless you have “immediate feedback loops” from content analytics.

 C-executives still cautiously exploring AI

The “dream state” for all data-driven products, including AI, is to be able to intelligently tell humans what they should be doing to maximize performance. But when we asked C-executives if AI recommendations were important when deciding what content to create, only 14% considered them “very important.”

And what about AI helping fill in resource gaps among teams? Almost half (52%) think it can, but the other half (48%) just aren’t convinced yet. 

Three-quarters of C-levels said their teams would spend some money on AI tools in 2024. But big investments aren’t happening yet—only 11% anticipate spending $25k+. 

Content creation support

Based on Google’s recent Helpful Content Update, which de-ranks and de-indexes AI-generated content, we expect AI tool adoption to center less around pure content generation and more on operations and optimization.

AI-driven analytics are being used more and more to predict trends, improve content, and automate repetitive tasks. This is evidenced by advanced content management systems incorporating those tools into their platforms.

Find out what C-executives are focused on for the remainder of 2024—read the full report!

“Content quality may be King,” but the goalposts to get there are constantly shifting for senior leadership. 

That’s just one industry trend forcing businesses to adapt fast to stay competitive. Our exclusive intelligence and insights can help yours do just that. We encourage you to share our report with your team—let us know what you think.