In this blog, Joe Allen, MD of Launched looks at unleashing the power of content syndication for first-party data growth and how businesses can overcome common struggles. In this Content Syndication 101, we look at everything you need to know.

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Content syndication is an effective way for businesses to rapidly grow their first-party data. By leveraging the power of third-party content, businesses can reach a larger audience and collect valuable data about their customers. However, many businesses struggle to unlock the full potential of content syndication which is surprising because in a study by the content marketing institute (https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2020_B2B_Research_FINAL.pdf.) 87% of B2B marketers have reported using Content Synidcation. Contradictory however, in a report by demandgetreport.com  74% of B2B buyers reported using a Content Syndication in their strategy.

To help businesses understand the power of content syndication, experts have created an Insider’s Guide to Content Syndication for Rapid First Party Data Growth. This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the benefits of content syndication and the steps businesses can take to maximize their data growth.

One of the key benefits of content syndication is its ability to reach a larger audience. Content syndication allows businesses to share their content with third-party websites, which can increase their visibility and reach a wider audience. Additionally, content syndication can help businesses build relationships with potential customers. By providing valuable content, businesses can create a connection with potential customers and establish trust.

Although, it is worth mentioning that just because you can reach a larger audience, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, that is a good thing. When planning a content syndication strategy we believe it is still imperative to strategically decide who that audience needs to consist of. For example, at Launched, when we run a content syndication campaign for ourselves we determine the location of where we are running the campaign and then conduct market research via surveys to understand ICP requirements for lead generation services. We then align that requirement with our content syndication strategy to ensure that the content we serve and distribute contains the right message driving better conversions on downloads and views. 

Typically, when we create a campaign targeting strategy we look at the following targeting criteria (this is an actual brief sheet that we use):

Content Syndication Brief:

• Campaign Name:
• Delivery Timeframe:

• Lead Type:
• Number of Leads:
• Lead Region Breakdown:
• Campaign dates: dd/mm/yy – dd/mm/yy
• Pacing: XX Bant leads per week / xx CS Leads Per week

Content Syndication Criteria:

• Geography: (The location of your ICP)
• Verticals: (Which industries your ICP sits in)
• Company Size: (This is relevant for every business, but if you’re a B2B for business telephony, or end-point security this can determine, or even allow you to project the minimum quote value you will be able to receive making ROAS forecasting easier)
• Job Titles: (Important as you can select decision-makers, influencers or a mix dependent on your campaign goal or ICP buying process.)

Attached Files:

• Data (TAL): (Great for companies who are looking to run ABM initiatives)
• Suppression List: (This is important as it ensures that you’re not overlapping with current prospects that are sat inside your prospect funnels or CRM)
• Report Template / Lead Template: (A trackable way of managing and reporting on Content Syndication campaigns)
• Script: (Also known as a call instrument sets guidance for SDR’s on how to progress a call and obtain the most amount of critically important data from prospects)
• Assets: (The chosen assets for your campaign)

Once you have defined your target audience and some of the specifics of your content syndication campaign, it is then time to do the following:

Define Your Content Syndication Goals:

• Start by asking yourself what you want to achieve through content syndication. Do you want to generate leads, increase brand awareness, or establish thought leadership?
• Consider the specific metrics that you’ll use to measure your success. This might include the number of leads generated, click-through rates, or engagement rates.
• Knowing your goals will help you focus your efforts and measure your success, so take the time to clearly define them.

Identify Your Content Syndication Target Audience:

• Identify who your target audience is and what types of content they are looking for. Consider factors such as age, gender, location, interests, and pain points.
• Determine the types of content that will appeal to your target audience, such as whitepapers, case studies, or blog posts.
• Understanding your target audience will help you choose the right syndication channels and content formats to use.

Research Content Syndication Channels:

• Identify the channels where your target audience is most likely to engage with your content. This may include industry-specific websites, social media platforms, or email newsletters.
• Research potential syndication partners and evaluate their reach, relevance, and reputation.
• Consider the cost and effort required to syndicate your content on each channel.

Develop a Content Syndication Content Plan:

• Create a plan for the types of content you will syndicate and how often you will syndicate them. Ensure that your content is high quality and relevant to your target audience.
• Determine the topics, themes, and formats that will resonate with your target audience.
• Use an editorial calendar to plan out your content strategy and ensure that you are syndicating content on a consistent basis.

Choose Your Content Syndication Partners:

• Research potential syndication partners and choose those that align with your goals and target audience. Look for partners with a strong reputation and a large, engaged audience.
• Reach out to these partners and negotiate the terms of the syndication agreement. This might include details such as the content format, the duration of the agreement, and any fees or commissions.

Track and Measure Your Content Syndication Results:

• Monitor the performance of your syndicated content and track metrics such as click-through rates, leads generated, and engagement rates.
• Use this data to refine your strategy and optimize your content for better results. Look for patterns and trends that can help you improve your content and your syndication approach.

Rinse and Repeat:

• Continuously refine and improve your content syndication strategy based on the data you collect and feedback you receive from your audience and partners.
• Use a test-and-learn approach to experiment with different channels, formats, and partners.
• Continuously track your progress against your goals and adjust your approach as needed to achieve the best possible results.

Ways to improve your Content Syndication strategy

We often see companies falling short in their content syndication strategies in several ways. For instance, they may fail to define clear goals, which makes it difficult to measure success and refine the approach over time. They may also overlook understanding their target audience and what types of content they are looking for, leading to ineffective syndication channels and content formats.

1. Define your goals: Determine what you want to achieve through content syndication. Do you want to generate leads, increase brand awareness, or establish thought leadership? Knowing your goals will help you focus your efforts and measure your success.

Example: Our goal is to generate more leads for our B2B SaaS product through content syndication. We aim to increase our web traffic and sign-ups by 20% within the next six months.

Improvement suggestion: When setting your goals, make sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This will help you to create a roadmap for achieving them and track progress more effectively.

2. Identify your target audience: Understand your target audience and what types of content they are looking for. This will help you choose the right syndication channels and content formats to use.

Example: Our target audience consists of C-suite executives in the finance industry. They are interested in topics such as financial management, risk mitigation, and regulatory compliance.

Improvement suggestion: Conduct market research and gather data on your target audience, such as their demographics, interests, and pain points. This will help you to create content that resonates with them and find the right syndication channels to reach them.

Moreover, producing low-quality or irrelevant content that does not generate engagement or leads is a common pitfall. Often, companies focus too much on generating a large volume of content, rather than creating high-quality content that is valuable to their target audience.

Another common shortcoming is the failure to establish strategic partnerships with the right syndication partners, which can impede reaching the target audience effectively. Finally, if companies don’t track the performance of their syndicated content, they won’t be able to measure success and refine their approach over time.

3. Research syndication channels: Identify the channels where your target audience is most likely to engage with your content. This may include industry-specific websites, social media platforms, or email newsletters.

Example: We found that our target audience engages with content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and industry-specific websites such as FinanceDigest.

Improvement suggestion: Test and track the performance of your content on different syndication channels. Use this data to optimize your approach and focus on the most effective channels.

By paying attention to these critical areas and refining the content syndication strategy accordingly, companies can improve its effectiveness, achieve better results, and meet their goals more effectively.

4. Develop a content plan: Create a plan for the types of content you will syndicate and how often you will syndicate them. Ensure that your content is high quality and relevant to your target audience.

Example: Our content plan includes one blog post per week, one whitepaper per month, and one webinar per quarter. We make sure that the content is educational and informative, and relevant to our target audience’s interests.

5. Choose your syndication partners: Research potential syndication partners and choose those that align with your goals and target audience. Reach out to these partners and negotiate the terms of the syndication agreement.

Example: We have established partnerships with industry-specific websites such as FinanceDigest, as well as LinkedIn and Twitter influencers who have a significant following in the finance industry.

Improvement suggestion: Don’t limit yourself to the most obvious syndication partners. Consider partnering with complementary brands, influencers, and thought leaders who can help you to expand your reach and engage a broader audience.

6. Track and measure results: Monitor the performance of your syndicated content and track metrics such as click-through rates, leads generated, and engagement rates. Use this data to refine your strategy and optimize your content for better results.

Example: We track the performance of our syndicated content using Google Analytics and our marketing automation platform. We use this data to identify which content formats and channels are generating the most engagement and leads.

Improvement suggestion: Use A/B testing and experiments to test different approaches and refine your strategy based on data-driven insights. This will help you to continuously improve your approach and achieve better results.

Improvement suggestion: Use a content calendar to plan and schedule your content in advance. This will help you to stay organized and consistent, and ensure that you have a variety of content formats to engage your target audience.

Content syndication also helps businesses collect valuable data about their customers. By tracking the performance of their content, businesses can gain insight into their customers’ interests and preferences. This data can be used to create more targeted content and marketing campaigns.

UTM tracking is crucial!

UTM tracking is also a crucial tool for measuring the success of your content syndication strategy and determining which syndication partners are driving the most traffic and leads to your website. UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tags added to the end of URLs that track the source, medium, and campaign associated with a particular link.

By using UTM tracking, you can gain valuable insights into how users are interacting with your content and which syndication channels are driving the most traffic and conversions. This information can help you optimize your content and your syndication strategy for better results.

To create a UTM, you can use a UTM generator tool, which is widely available online for free. Some popular UTM generator tools include Google’s Campaign URL Builder, which allows you to easily create and track UTM codes, as well as Bitly and HubSpot’s UTM Builder.

When creating a UTM, it’s important to include the following parameters:

• Source: The source of the traffic, such as the name of the syndication partner or the publication where the content was published.
• Medium: The medium through which the traffic was generated, such as email, social media, or display advertising.
• Campaign: The name of the specific campaign associated with the link, such as the title of the piece of content or the theme of the campaign.

By including these parameters in your UTM, you can easily track the performance of your content syndication efforts and make informed decisions about which syndication partners to work with in the future. Additionally, it’s important to consistently use UTM tracking across all of your content syndication efforts for accurate and consistent data tracking.

here’s an example of a UTM link:

https://www.example.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=spring_sale

Let’s break it down:

• https://www.example.com/ : This is the URL of the landing page that the user will be directed to when clicking on the link.
• ? : This is the beginning of the query string.
• utm_source=facebook : This parameter specifies the source of the traffic, which in this case is Facebook. This tells you which syndication partner or platform the user clicked the link from.
• & : This is a separator between parameters in the query string.
• utm_medium=social : This parameter specifies the medium through which the traffic was generated, which in this case is social media. This tells you the channel through which the user clicked the link.
• & : Another separator between parameters.
• utm_campaign=spring_sale : This parameter specifies the name of the specific campaign associated with the link, which in this case is the spring sale. This tells you the specific campaign or content asset that the user clicked on.

By analyzing the UTM parameters in your website analytics tool, you can see the performance of your content syndication efforts, and determine which syndication partners, mediums, and campaigns are driving the most traffic and conversions. This allows you to optimize your content syndication strategy for better results.

Here are some URLs for blogs that provide information and guidance on UTM tracking:

1. “What are UTM parameters? How to use them for better analytics”: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/utm-parameters“The Ultimate Guide to
2. UTM Tracking”: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/05/11/utm-tracking“UTM Tracking 101: How to Use UTM Parameters to Measure Your Marketing Efforts”: https://neilpatel.com/blog/utm-tracking/“What Are
3. UTM Codes and How to Use Them to Track Your Campaigns”: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/utm-codes/“How to Use UTM Codes for
4. Tracking Your Marketing Efforts”: https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/how-to-use-utm-codes-for-tracking-your-marketing-efforts

To help businesses get the most out of content syndication, the Insider’s Guide to Content Syndication for Rapid First Party Data Growth provides a step-by-step approach. The guide outlines the steps businesses should take to create a successful content syndication strategy, including:

1. Identifying the right content syndication partners.
   2. Developing a content syndication plan.
   3. Tracking the performance of content syndication campaigns.
   4. Leveraging data to create more targeted content and marketing campaigns.

The guide also includes case studies and examples of successful content syndication campaigns. These case studies provide valuable insight into how businesses can maximize their data growth through content syndication.

Content syndication is an effective way for businesses to rapidly grow their first-party data. By leveraging the power of third-party content, businesses can reach a larger audience and collect valuable data about their customers. With the Insider’s Guide to Content Syndication for Rapid First Party Data Growth, businesses can unlock the full potential of content syndication and maximize their data growth.