Content Matters for C-Executives

Gaps persist between “having data” and applying a data-driven strategy

Understanding of content performance is high, but there is room for improvement

Almost nine in 10 (87%) C-levels say they have a very clear or somewhat clear picture of how their content is performing, leaving only 13% who feel otherwise. This closely aligns with the average of all respondents across all job roles. So, the vast majority of executives and employees at content-creating organizations feel confident that they are aware of how their content is performing. 

Despite this‌ high level of understanding, more often than not this knowledge is not being used in a data-driven strategy. In fact, just 43% of content professionals surveyed indicated that their content strategy was data-driven. This share was even lower among C-executives, where only 30% said their organization had a data-driven content strategy and half (49%) said it wasn’t data-driven at all. 

This demonstrates that although most feel that they have a good understanding of content performance, C-levels recognize that simply understanding how content is performing is only one element in developing a good strategy. Another crucial, yet more challenging element is turning this information into insight by connecting historical performance with future planning.

Analytics should be accessible at all levels, but there’s a responsibility disconnect

Concerning who reports on content performance, there’s also disagreement between roles. More than 50% of VPs, directors, managers, and individual contributors see content reporting as primarily the role of marketing and editorial positions. 

However, C-levels are far more likely to place this responsibility with executives like themselves. They see themselves in a critical role when understanding and disseminating information about analytics, but they still don’t believe their organization is as data-driven as other roles do. 

Data is, in fact, everyone’s business. Content data should be accessible to all seniority levels so everyone can use it in their own reporting. With a good analytics tool, this critical data can be made accessible to all, in a format that’s relevant to their position.

Retention is the goal and website-centricity is the means

Content measures that C-level finds most (and least) impactful 

Half of C-level respondents we surveyed had revenue goals tied to content. We asked this sample which content measures they believed were most impactful for their organizations’ revenue. Sixty percent agreed that retaining and expanding existing customers is the most impactful content measure to drive revenue—representing the No. 1 content-related revenue driver for this group. 

But these days, it’s harder than ever to build and maintain a loyal audience on fly-by traffic from social media and search. Instead, you need to encourage users to go directly to your website, where they’ll learn to know and trust your brand, and become loyal fans.

After retention, advertising placements and driving traffic to products were the next most important revenue generators for C-levels. But even less popular content measures like affiliate sales and paywalls/subscriptions were seen as high-impact measures by at least a third of the executive respondents. Although retention is a top priority, every content measure on the list was impactful to at least a quarter of those surveyed.

So, when allocating resources to content measures, it’s important not to put all your eggs in one basket. And with the recent updates to Google’s algorithm, their introduction of AI-generated answers, and growing distrust in social media platforms, being able to pivot quickly is more important than ever. 

So how can budget decision makers allocate funds effectively and drive a greater ROI? The answer is access to good first-party analytics that provide a clear picture of what content measures are and aren’t driving results. 

Not all businesses share the same operating model or interact with their community in the same way, so the effectiveness of content measures can change from organization to organization. A flexible analytics tool that can identify trends in your unique community is invaluable to anyone planning a budget.

Between C-level and lower seniority levels, it’s clear that there are competing priorities when driving revenue through content. Without supporting data, this can lead to points of disagreement about where to invest time and resources. 

The most divisive content measure uncovered by the survey was sponsored content, which was seen as impactful by 53% and 51% of managers and individual contributors, but less than 40% of C-levels, VPs, and directors felt the same. Another point of contention was selling content products, which was the number one revenue driver for VPs and directors but didn’t make the top three overall for C-level. 

C-level isn’t convinced that quantity is the answer

Creating high-quality content is the top challenge identified by content-creating organizations, but challenges like this can only be addressed if they are communicated across departments as part of an effective content strategy. 

Our survey data showed that although the majority of respondents at all seniority levels agreed that demand for their content had increased and will increase into 2024, the share of respondents who felt this way rose as seniority level decreased. This highlights a void between content creators, of whom 87% expect an increase in demand, and C-level executives, of whom just 63% felt the same.  

This difference suggests that content creators and their managers feel pressure to produce more, but that pressure isn’t necessarily driven, or even recognized, by many C-levels. This leads to a content strategy communication breakdown where resources are unnecessarily diverted to creating quantity when the expectation from higher up is on quality. 

This disconnect is one reason why creating high-quality content is the top challenge identified by C-levels and communication across departments is so important to implementing an effective content strategy. Another reason is, of course, that Google is cracking down on low-quality, high-volume sites and answering search queries with AI-generated overviews.

Quality is King, but the 
goalposts are constantly shifting

These days, quality content isn’t just about providing an engaging, secure, and modern digital experience to keep customers coming back. With Google constantly updating the platform underneath us, the definition of quality content changes every day. This makes it impossible to understand how trends are changing and what “quality content” will mean tomorrow unless you have immediate feedback loops. That only happens if analytics are easy, clear, and accessible across the team, in real time. 

This daily challenge is reflected in C-executives’ top three concerns regarding content in 2024: 1. creating high-quality content, 2. keeping up with trends, and 3. staying up-to-date with technology. These are the core principles of engaging a loyal community and maintaining relevance on platforms.

This is where good analytics shine. Use content analytics to identify exactly what your community is interested in to stay ahead of trends and platform shifts, and create high-quality content that brings the best experience to your customers.

Biggest challenges for C-executives regarding content in 2024	Ranking
Creating high-quality content	1
Keeping up with trends	2
Staying up-to-date with technology	3
Personalization / content that caters to the individual needs and preferences of the audience	4
Building and maintaining audience trust	5
Measuring content performance	6
Budget constraints	7
SEO changes	8
Adapting to new formats	9
Content saturation	10

AI has yet to solve IT and developer bottlenecks

C-level kicking the tires on AI

C-level executives are wading into the AI trend and recognize the technology’s potential, but they’re not making significant investments just yet. Three-quarters of C-level respondents said that their team would allocate budget to AI tools in 2024, and 40% said that AI tools were specified in their content budget. The most common amount spent on AI tools was between 5,001 and 10,000 USD as reported by 24% of C-level respondents; only 11% expected to spend more than 25,000 USD on AI. 

AI is still finding its place in content workflows, and most C-levels are not yet ready to allocate funds to AI over other budget priorities. Many are also split on whether AI can effectively supplement the work done by human staff. Fifty-two percent agree that AI can bridge resource gaps; however, 48% don’t, representing the lowest level of confidence across seniority levels. 

The dream state for all data-driven products—of which AI is one—is to be able to intelligently tell humans what they should be doing to maximize performance. The data shows that we aren’t quite there yet. When we asked if AI recommendations are important when deciding what content to create, only 14% of C-level execs considered them very important.

So although some investment in AI is there, we see a 50/50 rift between executives who embrace AI and those who don’t feel it’s important. Time and the advance of AI technologies are likely to move this even split further in the direction of the AI adopters. But concerning Google’s recent Helpful Content Update that 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.

Even if AI is not capable of replacing the content work done by skilled creators, it is and will continue to be used as a tool to support content creation. Analytics tools are using AI to predict trends, optimize content, and automate tedious tasks. This has been further recognized by some of the more advanced content management systems that are integrating AI tools to aid creators to produce content more efficiently with the aid of content analytics.

Mixed experiences regarding IT hurdles and finding CMS developers

More than a third (37%) of C-levels claim that IT challenges are blocking their publishing workflow, and 46% say it’s hard to find developers for their CMS. A considerable number of content-driven organizations still struggle to find or design a CMS that can seamlessly integrate with their needs and workflows. This is not just an issue of skills and staffing shortages of developers. 

There are a countless number of CMS products on the market, all with varying degrees of customizability and special tools and features. For most businesses, the real reason why IT gets in the way of publishing content or struggles to find skilled developers is that they haven’t found the right CMS and tools to suit their needs.

Conclusion

As decision makers for their organization, C-executives best reflect the challenges and goals facing their industry, giving us ‌insight into their approach to content. But when we compared their survey answers with those of their employees, we uncovered inconsistencies in how each seniority level in an organization understands and engages with content strategy. This shows that many organizations still have work to do when communicating their strategy at all levels and getting everyone to pull in the same direction.   

Key takeaways:

Methodology and participant profile

From Jan. 5 to Feb. 6, 2024, we surveyed 1,003 marketing and media leaders—203 respondents held a C-level position at their organization, 193 of whom are at organizations that write, edit, or produce content.  

Position held

	Respondents  whose organization writes, edits, or produces content	All respondents
C-Level	193	203
VP / Director	311	346
Manager	231	241
Individual  Contributor	159	170

C-Level main job focus

Marketer	32%
Analyst	5%
Editor	13%
Journalist	2%
Developer	6%
IT	4%
Product owner	29%
Other	9%

Organization type

B2C (Business-to-consumer)	53%
B2B (Business-to-business)	14%
Both B2B and B2C	28%
Nonprofit	5%