Content Matters 2024

Decreasing budgets, increasing demand

As is the case in many industries dealing with economic challenges, content creators are being expected to do more with less. Most respondents expect to see an increase in demand for their content in 2024; however, only 45% expect to see their budget increase in the coming year, representing a 13% drop from 58% in our Content Matters 2023 survey. 

Decreasing budgets and increasing demand require innovative and cost-effective solutions. Recent developments in AI technology and accessibility are an attractive answer to this problem. However, AI can be a double-edged sword in this situation. On the one hand, AI support can make it faster and cheaper to produce content, but it also increases expectations that content can be developed faster and cheaper. This may be so to a point, but it doesn’t negate the need for careful and competent human oversight of AI-produced content.  

An investment in good analytics is an investment in good content

Creating high-quality content and budget constraints are the most common challenges identified by respondents in 2024. These two challenges are intrinsically linked, yet with two-thirds of organizations spending just 30% or less of their annual budget on content, the importance of investing in high-quality content is being overshadowed by other budget priorities.

Often the link between revenue and content is not immediately obvious, and, in fact, 35% of organizations surveyed do not have revenue goals tied to content. However, good, data-driven content will boost brand recognition and increase engagement, which in turn attracts customers and raises revenue. Organizations need to have a strong understanding of how content is driving revenue and use this information to inform content strategy. Without these data-driven insights, organizations are essentially making blind decisions. 

How are content budgets being prioritized?

Two-thirds (64%) of organizations decreasing their content marketing budget in the next 12 months are doing so mainly or partly because of global economic factors. This is pressuring many content teams to do more with less and make the difficult decision of prioritizing certain budget elements over others. 

Most organizations are spending their non-salary content budgets on three main activities: advertising, CMSes, and analytics tools—typically prioritized in that order. But what is the right order? There is no cover-all answer, and budget priorities vary depending on company size and function. 

B2B companies are more likely to invest in CMS, analytics tools, and advertising/promotion than B2C companies. But both B2B and B2C companies have a higher tendency to include advertising/promotion in their budgets than analytics tools. Larger companies are also more likely to invest in their CMS over advertising and analytics tools, and have more room in their budget for AI tools and contracted creators than smaller businesses do. 

Leverage existing tools to maximize budget

Analytics tools do not necessarily need to compete with CMS for budget. Although some of the mounting output pressure is coming from the availability of AI and other tools, content creators must also take the initiative to explore and understand how to use the technology and tools available to them. 

For example, many CMSes have built-in tools that can replace or enhance existing processes, so it is worth shopping around for a CMS that effectively uses AI and has good integrated analytics tools. Although AI still has its flaws, 66% of managers and 60% of individual contributors are feeling more pressure to use content to drive revenue and work smarter to keep up. And 62% of organizations believe that AI can effectively bridge resource gaps. 

AI still can’t do what content and media professionals do

AI is becoming an ever more valuable tool, but it remains just that: a tool to support human content creation and analytics. Looking to the future, we are likely to see increasing use of a hybrid model where better data analytics can inform AI to produce more reliable results. 

Organizations remain AI-curious and are looking for ways to use it to create and analyze content. However, AI still cannot reliably tell us what to create and when, so content analytics remains the most trusted driver of content strategy.

Dipping our toes into AI

The AI and ChatGPT hype of late 2022 has settled down. Although AI has not yet lived up to the grand promises and predictions made at the time, it is certainly here to stay, with ChatGPT being the dominant AI tool being used. 

Over a third of organizations are dipping their toes into various tools to support a range of content-related tasks, be it SEO, design, or creating editorial content—the latter being the most common application among those who use AI tools on a regular basis. This could be to simply improve efficiency, as 62% of content-producing organizations believe AI can effectively bridge the resource gaps in their teams. 

AI is not breaking the bank

The reluctance to fully embrace AI and possibly the availability of free online tools can be observed in how organizations are choosing to budget for AI. For example, more than a third of teams are not spending any budget on AI at all, and only a fifth are willing to invest more than USD 10,000 in AI tools annually. 

How is AI being used for content?

As already established, ChatGPT is the leading AI tool, used by almost three in 10 content-producing organizations. However, those working in IT tend to use AI for a wider range of tasks and are more likely to embrace it in particular for personalization, design, coding, and translation and localization. 

It’s not just the type of team that has an effect on whether AI is used or not—company size and job role also seem to have an impact. Very small businesses with under 50 employees and larger organizations with more than 400 employees are more likely to use AI (ChatGPT specifically) than medium-sized businesses are. Furthermore, in terms of job role, managers are also more likely to be using AI than C-level and VP employees.  

Preparing for the end of third-party cookies

In July 2024, Google announced that they’ll begin allowing users to opt out of third-party cookie tracking. Without these identifiers to track web users, content, media, and advertising professionals will need to rely more heavily on their own hosted websites to interact with their audience and foster audience engagement and loyalty. In the near future, the primary audience interaction point will be an organization’s own website.

Despite Google’s announcement, a social media exodus is still on hold. Social media remains a top distribution channel in 2024, with 58% of organizations using it to distribute content, just as much as organizations use their own website. However, other third-party channels do not enjoy the same popularity, such as paid content placements, which are used by only 31% of organizations who produce content.   

Nevertheless, it’s only a matter of time until a majority of users opt out of third-party cookie tracking, and we will soon need to rely even more heavily on first-party platforms and tools to track audiences. 

Organizations track performance across multiple platforms

While social media may be used for content distribution by three in five organizations and ties website engagement as the most-tracked content performance measure, organizations typically track a much broader range of first-party metrics. On top of website engagement, pageviews are tracked by half of organizations and more than a third are tracking conversions. 

Looking deeper at how different industries prioritize tracked content, the media and publishing and  technology sectors were more engaged with tracking social media performance than any other industry. This is certainly a reflection on the higher involvement these industries tend to have on social platforms. Furthermore, the technology sector appears to be casting a wider net when it comes to tracking content—no less than 60% of technology organizations claim to be tracking content performance in any of the top five content performance measures.

Larger organizations want to own their distribution channels   

The bigger the organization, the more likely they are to be distributing and promoting content on their own website compared to third-party channels and social media. For organizations with 401 to 1,000 employees, as many as 83% are releasing content on their website, compared to only about half of companies with less than 400 employees. The reason behind this is logical: organizations want to have more control over the data they collect and the relationship they have with their audience. Most importantly, they want freedom from algorithm changes that influence how and when they share content. 

It is also clear that larger organizations can spread their resources and release content more consistently across multiple platforms. Especially when it comes to press releases and paid search ads, more than 50% of organizations with more than 400 employees invest in releasing content via these channels. By comparison, only about a third of companies with fewer employees spend their resources on distribution channels not related to social media, their website, and mailing lists.

Quality content is still the answer?

Upcoming changes to third-party cookies will change how organizations acquire new audiences, but retaining that audience is still down to the quality of the content being produced. Retention is what organizations worry about most when driving revenue through content. 

So it is not surprising to see that creating high-quality content is the leading challenge faced by organizations, trumping even SEO changes, to maintain audience trust and data privacy regulations. Furthermore, there is little to no difference between B2C and B2B businesses, proving that content is king, no matter if the audience is a customer or another business.

Surprisingly, data privacy regulations are of the least concern to most respondents. This suggests that privacy is not something that customers see as overtly important when engaging with content. After all, building trust is more likely to happen when the customer trusts the product. Therefore, while privacy is important, trust is not necessarily gained through compliance alone.

Twitter may be struggling but social media is alive and well 

Our data shows that even with the looming changes to third-party cookies, a social media exodus is not happening, with the exception of X (formerly Twitter). Twitter was the most preferred social media platform in the 2023 Content Matters survey but after being rebranded as X and suffering a string of controversies, X is now in fifth place behind LinkedIn and the other usual suspects in 2024. 

Despite this, social media is still just as popular a platform for publishing content as first-party websites. There is little indication that this will change with Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all well positioned to fill the void left by X.  

Organizations track performance across multiple platforms

While social media may be used for content distribution by three in five organizations and ties website engagement as the most-tracked content performance measure, organizations typically track a much broader range of first-party metrics. On top of website engagement, pageviews are tracked by half of organizations and more than a third are tracking conversions. 

Looking deeper at how different industries prioritize tracked content, the media and publishing and  technology sectors were more engaged with tracking social media performance than any other industry. This is certainly a reflection on the higher involvement these industries tend to have on social platforms. Furthermore, the technology sector appears to be casting a wider net when it comes to tracking content—no less than 60% of technology organizations claim to be tracking content performance in any of the top five content performance measures.

Larger organizations want to own their distribution channels   

The bigger the organization, the more likely they are to be distributing and promoting content on their own website compared to third-party channels and social media. For organizations with 401 to 1,000 employees, as many as 83% are releasing content on their website, compared to only about half of companies with less than 400 employees. The reason behind this is logical: organizations want to have more control over the data they collect and the relationship they have with their audience. Most importantly, they want freedom from algorithm changes that influence how and when they share content. 

It is also clear that larger organizations can spread their resources and release content more consistently across multiple platforms. Especially when it comes to press releases and paid search ads, more than 50% of organizations with more than 400 employees invest in releasing content via these channels. By comparison, only about a third of companies with fewer employees spend their resources on distribution channels not related to social media, their website, and mailing lists.

Quality content is still the answer?

Upcoming changes to third-party cookies will change how organizations acquire new audiences, but retaining that audience is still down to the quality of the content being produced. Retention is what organizations worry about most when driving revenue through content. 

So it is not surprising to see that creating high-quality content is the leading challenge faced by organizations, trumping even SEO changes, to maintain audience trust and data privacy regulations. Furthermore, there is little to no difference between B2C and B2B businesses, proving that content is king, no matter if the audience is a customer or another business.

Surprisingly, data privacy regulations are of the least concern to most respondents. This suggests that privacy is not something that customers see as overtly important when engaging with content. After all, building trust is more likely to happen when the customer trusts the product. Therefore, while privacy is important, trust is not necessarily gained through compliance alone.

Use social media to channel traffic to first-party websites 

Far from just surviving Google’s third-party cookie debacle, social media may stand to benefit through paid content distribution in particular. Of the channels identified in the survey, social media again stands as the most popular paid distribution method, with more than 40% of small to medium-sized organizations choosing to use paid promotion on social media (this ranges from 55% to 70% in larger organizations). 

Nevertheless, 51% of organizations create videos or blog posts and articles, and about a third produce webinars, reports, or infographics. While some of these content formats can also be used for social media, content creators have significantly more freedom on how they present content, engage with audiences, and gather good analytics on their own website. This is why it is useful to engage with social media to meet an audience where they are, while enticing them to a first-party website with better content and better analytics.

From Jan. 5 to Feb. 6, 2024, we surveyed 1,003 marketing and media leaders in the WordPress VIP community, 933 of which represented an organization that writes, edits, or produces content.

Industry
Media, publishing	22%
Educations, arts, humanities	13%
Technology	12%
Agency, research, consulting	9%
Retail, ecommerce	7%
Healthcare, pharmaceutical, life sciences	6%
Consumer packaged goods	5%
Financial services	5%
Energy, utilities, telecommunications	3%
Hospitality, food, travel	3%
Agriculture, forestry, mining	2%
Consumer electronics	2%
Sports	2%
Public sector, government	1%
Transportation, logistics	1%
Religious organization	0%
Other	8%

Role
Marketer	34%
Analyst	10%
Editor	13%
Journalist	5%
Developer	6%
IT	8%
Product owner	13%
Other	11%

Company type
B2C	33%
B2B	29%
Both	27%
Nonprofit	9%
Other	2%

Company size
1–50 employees	45%
51–200 employees	23%
201–400 employees	9%
401–1,000 employees	10%
1,001–10,000 employees	10%
10,001+ employees	3%