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Determinants of content marketing effectiveness: Conceptual framework and empirical findings from a managerial perspective

Clemens koob.

Department of Health and Nursing, Katholische Stiftungshochschule München, Munich, Germany

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Content marketing has gained momentum around the world and is steadily gaining importance in the marketing mix of organizations. Nevertheless, it has received comparatively little attention from the scientific community. In particular, there is very little knowledge about the effectiveness, optimal design and implementation of content marketing. In this study, the authors conceptualize content marketing as a set of activities that are embedded in and contingent on the specific organizational context. Based on this framework, the authors empirically investigate the context features determining content marketing effectiveness from a managerial perspective, using primary data collected from senior marketers in 263 organizations from various sectors and across different size categories, conducting multiple regression analysis. The empirical results indicate that clarity and commitment regarding content marketing strategy and a content production in line with the organization’s target groups’ content needs as well as normative journalistic quality criteria are context factors associated with higher content marketing effectiveness. The outcomes also reveal that regularly measuring content marketing performance and using the data obtained as guidance for improving content offerings positively influence content marketing effectiveness, as do structural specialization and specialization-enabling processes and systems. The insights provided in this study could offer important theoretical contributions for research on content marketing and its effectiveness and may help practitioners to optimize the design and implementation of content marketing initiatives.

Introduction

In times when consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical of traditional advertising, organizations need, more than ever, effective alternatives to traditional marketing communications. In these circumstances, content marketing (CM) has gained momentum around the world and is steadily gaining importance in the marketing mix of organizations, complementing traditional marketing instruments [e.g., 1 ]. CM investments have increased substantially. In the German-speaking area, for example, investments have risen from € 4.4b in 2010 to € 9.4b in 2019 and are forecast to grow further to € 12.5b by 2023 [ 2 ].

Content marketing refers to the creation and distribution of relevant, valuable brand-related content to current or prospective customers or other target groups (e.g. jobseekers, employees or investors) via digital platforms or print media to drive strategic business objectives [ 3 – 5 ]. Unlike traditional advertising, which typically denotes a form of communication designed to persuade or even push target groups to take some action, now or in the future [ 6 ], content marketing focuses on adding value to their lives, for instance by educating them, helping them solve problems, entertaining them or supporting them make well-informed decisions. Thus, content marketing is based on the social exchange theoretical principle that an organization’s delivery of valuable content to a target group will see it rewarding the organization in exchange with positive attitudes (e.g. brand trust) or behaviors (e.g. brand related interactions).

However, despite content marketing’s growing importance, it has received comparatively little attention from the scientific community [ 3 , 5 ]. So far, research has primarily focused on definitions and conceptualizations of content marketing [e.g. 3 , 5 , 7 , 8 ] and potential consumer- and firm-based consequences. Besides, there is a limited number of exploratory analyses and investigations about the effectiveness of content marketing that focus on specific sectors and types of media. Wang et al. [ 4 ], e.g., found CM effectiveness in the B2B domain to depend on the frequency of customers’ content consumption. Taiminen and Ranaweera [ 9 ] identified specific helpful brand actions, i.e. approaching content marketing with a problem-solving orientation, as increasing the effectiveness of B2B content marketing. With respect to consumers and branded social content, Ashley and Tuten [ 10 ] identified frequent updates, incentives for participation, as well as experiential, image and exclusivity messages to be associated with effectiveness. Chwialkowska’s study [ 11 ] revealed that customer-centric as opposed to brand-centric social content is more effective. Also, Liu and colleagues [ 12 ] provided evidence that short video clips can be effective to drive usage of other branded online content. However, apart from such rather focused studies, we have very little overall knowledge about the effectiveness of content marketing. In particular, and as Hollebeek and Macky [ 3 ] noted, still “little is known regarding its optimal design and implementation”. The question “what are the key factors for effectiveness” has long been an important theme in the marketing communications literature, but academic understanding regarding the determinants of content marketing effectiveness lags behind to date [ 3 ], generating an important knowledge gap that we address in this paper.

To investigate this gap, we conceptualize content marketing from an activity-based perspective. In line with the activity-based perspective of marketing [ 13 , 14 ], we propose to view content marketing as a set of specific activities, comprising content marketing strategizing, content production, content distribution, content promotion, performance measurement and content marketing organization. Referring to the concept of embeddedness [ 15 , 16 ], we further assume that these content marketing activities are rooted in and contingent on the specific organizational context, and that particular context features are potential determinants of content marketing effectiveness. Based on this framework, we will empirically investigate the features driving content marketing effectiveness.

Our contribution is as follows: As far as we know, the determinants of content marketing effectiveness have not yet been empirically investigated from a broader perspective. We therefore first provide a theoretical framework for analyzing content marketing effectiveness. Second, we offer empirical insights that could help marketers to potentially improve the design and implementation of their content marketing initiatives, which researchers have called for [ 3 , 5 ]. Third and in doing so, we might help to move the research on content marketing effectiveness beyond the prevailing anecdotal to an evidence-based level. Fourth, for scholars, this research could offer a platform for further studies into the drivers of content marketing effectiveness. Taken together, these advances could extend current academic and managerial discussions of how to achieve effective marketing communications.

Theoretical framework and derivation of hypotheses

Any empirical investigation of the determinants of content marketing effectiveness requires a proper conceptualization of CM effectiveness. Hence, the next section proposes such a conceptualization. After that, we propose that content marketing activities take place in an organizational context [ 15 , 16 ] affecting their effectiveness. Context refers to the specific intra-organizational circumstances, environments and constellations of forces shaping the character of the content marketing activities and their outcome [ 17 ]. We outline the potentially relevant context dimensions, being content marketing strategizing, content production, content distribution, content promotion, content marketing performance measurement, and content marketing organization, respectively.

Content marketing effectiveness

Based on a literature review ([ 3 – 5 , 8 , 18 – 23 ], see S1 Appendix for details), content marketing activities can be seen as effective if they trigger superior levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioral customer engagement at the appropriate points throughout the customer journey, strengthen customers’ brand trust and induce favorable brand attitudes, and increase customers’ perceived value of a brand, leading to more favorable responses to the brand and its communications, and thus helping the focal organization reach its strategic business objectives.

CM effectiveness and CM strategizing

Porter and McLaughlin [ 15 ] conclude that there is no universally agreed-upon set of components that comprise the relevant organizational context dimensions. However, they point to the strategizing context to be one of them, i.e. the constellations under which strategizing in the sense of ‘doing of strategy’ unfolds [ 15 ]. Strategy research supports the idea that strategic clarity is one aspect of the strategizing context that plays a key role regarding effectiveness since it gives direction and provides orientation [ 24 , 25 ]. This is also in line with goal setting theory which posits that specific and well-defined challenging goals lead to higher performance [ 26 ]. Strategy research also suggests strategy commitment, which can be defined as the extent to which managers and employees comprehend and support the goals and objectives of a strategy [ 27 , 28 ], as an essential aspect, as it is known to affect strategy supportive behavior. We assume these two factors to be pivotal for content marketing effectiveness, too. In the content marketing domain, strategizing comprises, e.g., the crafting of a content marketing mission and vision, the definition of objectives, the identification and prioritization of target groups, the specification of the unique value an organization is looking to provide through its content, the clarification of key stories to be communicated, or decisions regarding the platforms that will be used to disseminate content [e.g., 5 ]. A clearly defined content marketing strategy that is communicated and understood within the organization might positively influence CM effectiveness, because it allows to select those CM projects which promise a high strategy contribution. In case commitment to a content marketing strategy is high, all managers and employees might show vigor, get engaged and take personal responsibility for the successful realization of the content marketing initiative. Thus, we expect:

• Hypothesis 1 : Content marketing is more effective when organizations have a stronger CM strategizing context characterized by strategic clarity and commitment .

CM effectiveness and content production

Furthermore, we suggest a strong content production context will be positively related to CM effectiveness. By this, we refer to content production environments in which high quality content can be created [ 5 ]. The necessity to create and provide quality content is widely acknowledged in the CM literature [e.g. 5 ], as it is assumed that quality content is more likely to be interacted with. However, this raises the question of what constitutes quality content. Uses-and-gratifications-theory supports the idea that people seek out media that satisfy their needs and lead to gratification [ 29 , 30 ]. From this perspective, consumers may select content for functional (e.g. learning about brands, self-education), hedonic (e.g. entertainment, diversion, relaxation) or authenticity motives (e.g. identity construction, self-assurance) [ 3 , 30 ]. In addition to that, research proposes that ‘quality content’ not only has to meet consumers’ subjective standards, but also certain objective specifications or normative principles. The criteria mentioned in the literature typically include aspects like timeliness, objectivity, accuracy, or diversity of viewpoints [ 31 – 36 ]. Hence, we believe:

• Hypothesis 2 : A strong content production context , characterized by efforts to optimize customer-perceived content value and to adhere to normative quality criteria should be associated with higher content marketing effectiveness .

CM effectiveness and content distribution

We assume a specific content distribution context will also be positively related to CM effectiveness. The content distribution context refers to the conditions under which content is distributed and particularly includes the media platforms (e.g. customer magazines, digital magazines, blogs, podcasts, social media, chatbots etc.) used [ 3 , 5 , 8 ]. Research generally supports the idea that communications efforts using multiple media platforms are more effective than initiatives using only a single medium [e.g. 37 , 38 ]. According to Voorveld et al. [ 39 ], two psychological processes play a role in explaining these effects. First, forward encoding implies that the exposure to content in the first medium primes interest in the content in the second medium, which in turn stimulates deeper processing and easier encoding of the second content piece, resulting in multiple content retrieval cues and higher effectiveness. Second, multiple source perception refers to the effect that consumers perceive cross-media communications as more expensive, leading to the belief that the communicating brand has to be popular and successful, also resulting in more positive communications results. Furthermore, benefits from combining multiple media distribution platforms might arise from accompanying prospects and customers with the appropriate content platforms at the different points in their consideration and buying processes [ 40 ]. On the other hand, it could be argued that investment in too many media distribution properties might attenuate the power of communications, because it prevents an organization from focusing its resources on the most suitable platforms [ 38 ]. Reactance theory also suggests that communication across multiple media platforms could unfold negative consequences as customers might associate a brands omnipresence at various platforms with increasing pressure from the firm’s communications attempts which could be perceived as obtrusive [ 41 ]. Based on these considerations we believe:

• Hypothesis 3a : Content marketing is more effective , when the content distribution context is characterized by the usage of an intermediate number of media platforms .

Content marketers continue to watch out for new opportunities to reach customers and, over time, have shifted content distribution budgets away from print media such as customer magazines to digital media such as digital magazines, blogs, social media and the like [ 2 ]. The question is whether and to what extent this shift is beneficial for improving CM effectiveness. Communications theory implies that for effective communication, the sender should match the channel that the receiver prefers [ 42 ]. Based on this recommended practice of media matching, organizations ought to be cognizant of customers’ media platform preferences as well as actual media use and adjust their channel choices accordingly. With regard to media preferences, research has repeatedly revealed a high level of consumer conservatism, indicating that established media channels, especially print media, retain favored attributes such as trust, high perceived value, intimacy or visual power, whereas digital media are, e.g., more strongly associated with speed, convenience and efficiency [ 42 , 43 ]. Considering media use, two models predict different relationships between new and established media. The displacement model assumes increases in new media use will go along with declines in the use of established media (e.g. due to functional advantages of new media or limited time budgets [ 44 , 45 ]). The complementary model hypothesizes new media usage has no or even a positive effect on established media use within a content domain, as people “interested in procuring information in a particular content area expose themselves to a multitude of media outlets to optimize the information on that particular content area” [ 46 ]. Recent studies [ 45 , 47 ] have provided evidence that adoption of new platforms is reducing the consumption of established media, but that established media will not be fully displaced. Other theoretical accounts also suggest not to neglect print media for digital media. Psychological ownership theory implies that print media, being physical goods, might have a greater capacity to garner an association with the self than digital media, leading to greater value ascribed to them [ 48 ]. Regarding text-based content, educational research points to the fact that reading on paper leads to significantly better content comprehension than reading digitally [ 49 ], possibly due to better spatial mental representation of the content and more visual and tactile cues fostering immediate overview of the content. Consequently, we expect:

• Hypothesis 3b : Content marketing is more effective , when the content distribution context is characterized by a joint deployment of print and digital media platforms .

CM effectiveness and content promotion

Furthermore, we propose the content promotion context is key for CM effectiveness. Content promotion refers to any paid measures an organization takes to draw attention to its content or to stimulate interest in or usage of its content, typically with the help of or on third-party platforms, with the aim of optimizing content reach. Instruments include, amongst others, influencer marketing, social media and search engine advertising, or classic public relations [ 50 ]. Research has repeatedly suggested an attention economy [e.g., 51 ], denoting a world where people are awash in content, and where peoples’ available time and attention spans are limited, creating an environment in which content competes for customers’ time and attention as scarce resources. Under these circumstances, we expect that paid content promotion measures can help to accentuate content and draw attention to potentially relevant and valuable content pieces, so that these pieces can break though the “content clutter” [ 52 ].

Furthermore, the power law of practice and cognitive lock-in theory [ 43 , 53 ] state, that when people practice specific tasks, the repetition of these tasks increases efficiency, which induces familiarity, from which in turn people are inclined to get cognitively locked-in to the respective media environment. Cognitive lock-in thus denotes a condition wherein a consumer has learned how to use a specific media environment, thanks to multiple interactions with it, with the effect that more familiarity decreases his propensity to search for and switch to competing media alternatives. Research has demonstrated these effects for websites [ 53 , 54 ], as well as for print media [ 43 ]. We believe this thinking may be applicable for a broad range of media environments and applying it to the content marketing context leads us to believe that if customers are already accustomed to use specific content offerings, they see no need to switch to a new content offering. Under these conditions, paid content promotion measures might help to stimulate customers to try a focal organization’s content offer, potentially breaking up existing and initiating new cognitive lock-in processes, thereby supporting the organization’s attempt to transition customers to its own content offerings. Hence:

• Hypothesis 4 : Content marketing is more effective when organizations have a stronger content promotion context characterized by comprehensive paid content promotion measures .

CM effectiveness and CM performance measurement

We also propose that a strong content marketing performance measurement context within an organization will be positively related to CM effectiveness. Content marketing performance measurement (CMPM) can be defined as establishing metrics related to the organization’s content marketing objectives and measuring and evaluating performance relative to these objectives, for the purpose of providing evidence for effectiveness and efficiency of content marketing activities and optimizing these activities. Previous studies have shown positive performance implications of marketing performance measurement in contexts other than content marketing [e.g. 55 – 57 ]. We believe for four reasons, that this also applies to the content marketing domain. First, the attention-based view of the firm accentuates that one of the key characteristics of measurement systems is their property to focus and direct attention of organizational members to important issues [ 58 ]. By directing minds at what needs to be done, chances increase that it will get done. Thus, we expect, that content marketing performance measurement will get an organization to attend to essential content marketing objectives and activities. We believe that the presence of CMPM activates managers and employees and causes them to achieve coordinated action and to orient their efforts to succeeding on the measured content marketing aspects. Second, previous research [ 59 ] has shown that producing measurements is not enough to get the organization into acting, but that organizations are also sensitive to what issues are internally discussed. We argue that CMPM sparks discussions about important content marketing issues, which helps to summon attention and resources for acting, ultimately improving content marketing effectiveness. Third, performance measurement usually allows to monitor the performance of marketing activities, be it relative to prior objectives, similar activities in the past, or other benchmarks, lowering uncertainty about the performance of decisions and about whether the decisions were the right ones, which in turn helps to learn and plan marketing activities producing desired outcomes [ 56 ]. We thus expect that CMPM will nurture learning, which in turn will improve content marketing decisions, and thus content marketing effectiveness. Fourth, performance measurement usually includes performance feedback, and previous studies have consistently shown that performance feedback is positively associated with work engagement [ 60 ]. Higher work engagement in turn implies that managers and employees invest more energy into their work roles, leading to superior work outcomes [ 61 ]. Thus, we expect that CMPM energizes organizational actors to act in desired ways to meet the organization’s goals. Hence:

• Hypothesis 5 : Content marketing is more effective when organizations have a stronger content marketing performance measurement context .

CM effectiveness and content marketing organization

Finally, we expect a strong content marketing organization will be positively related to CM effectiveness. Porter and McLaughlin [ 15 ] indicate that organizational structures and processes are one of the major components contextualizing activities within an organization. Research on marketing organization also highlights the importance of organizational structures and processes for marketing performance [ 62 , 63 ]. It is widely acknowledged in the marketing literature, that organizations face dynamic and complex marketing communications environments, e.g. in terms of the development and transformation of technology and media or consumer behavior evolving at an increasingly rapid pace [ 6 ]. Under these conditions, specialization and autonomy seem to be favorable characteristics of organizational structure [ 64 ]. Specialization denotes the level to which activities in the organization are differentiated into unique elements, while autonomy refers to the level to which employees have control in executing those activities. Organizations high in specialization and autonomy have a high share of specialist employees who direct their efforts to a clearly defined set of activities, and as experts with specialized knowledge in their particular work areas, they enjoy substantial autonomy to determine the best approach to carry-out their tasks [ 65 ]. According to prior research, the combination of specialization and autonomy enables an organization to assign tasks to those employees who are best able to perform them, it enhances the organization’s knowledge base, and it promotes the development of innovative ideas and solutions [ 62 , 63 , 66 ]. However, research has also indicated that specialized organizational structures with high degrees of autonomy need the support of adequate processes and systems to function properly [ 62 ].

The application of this thinking to content marketing leads us to two considerations: First, we believe that, also in this domain, structural specialization coupled with autonomy could be beneficial. It could allow an organization to assign content marketing tasks to managers and employees that are best prepared to tackle them. Further, specialization could enhance an organization’s content marketing knowledge base, foster the development of innovative content marketing ideas and solutions and enable the organization to quickly respond to upcoming communication needs. An example for such a structure could be a dedicated content marketing unit with a high share of task- and skill-specialized content marketing experts that have control over how they organize their work and that have significant autonomy in making decisions. Second, we assume that an increase in content marketing specialization and autonomy within an organization also demands processes and information technology systems with a proper fit [ 67 ]. We believe that processes and systems are required that enable and support interaction and collaboration between content marketing specialists, between content marketing experts and further marketing functions, and also between content marketing experts and other relevant organizational entities. To sum up, we posit:

• Hypothesis 6 : Content marketing is more effective when organizations have a stronger content marketing organization .

Fig 1 provides a summary of the proposed theoretical framework.

Data collection and sample

We gathered data from organizations with over 250 employees in the German-speaking area, that is Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Regarding industry characteristics, organizations from all sectors in line with the business registers of the three countries, comprising a broad range of industrial, services, finance and trade sectors, were eligible to take part in the investigation. We targeted medium- and large-sized organizations because they are more likely to employ complex marketing practices such as content marketing. All data were collected using an online survey with the sample drawn from an online panel provider. There is profound evidence from prior research that online panel data is capable of delivering high-quality data outcomes [ 68 ]. Porter et al. [ 68 ] recommend using online panel data particularly for studies requiring access to specific populations. Referring to this guidance, online panel data and the online panel provider Norstat were deliberately chosen for this study, because it required access to the very specific population of senior marketing or communications directors, and people in equivalent positions, responsible for the respective firms’ content marketing activities, as key informants, with the online panel provider being capable of recruiting this hard-to-reach sample. The aforementioned group of managers was identified as key informants because they are organizational members who can provide reliable data on the organizations’ content marketing activities and effectiveness. Data collection was carried out in accordance with further recommendations compiled from the literature by Porter et al. [ 68 ] regarding participant recruitment, selection and information and data quality measures. We captured participants’ managerial positions and involvement in content marketing activities in a screener survey to verify key informant appropriateness and reduce potential key informant bias, used attention checks and applied lower and upper limits of survey completion time to ensure high-quality responses, and captured IP addresses to control for potential multiple responses from the same managers.

Before carrying out the study, the University Ethics Review Board regulations indicated that a research ethics review was not required. Reasons for this decision are that the investigation does not include any manipulations or vulnerable groups, and participants were guaranteed that their data is treated anonymously. Moreover, the data has been collected consistent with the ethical guidelines of the Academy of Marketing Science and in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. All participants provided informed consent by clicking on the link to start the study, participation was completely voluntary, and only data from participants were used who fully completed the study.

In total, data collection yielded 319 responses. The sample comprised 53 managers from organizations that do not apply content marketing practices and 3 executives that failed to pass the aforementioned data quality checks. We therefore eliminated those respondents from the sample. Hence, the final sample comprised the answers from 263 organizations.

The characteristics of respondents were in line with our expectations of key informants. We were successful in getting senior-level marketing and communications executives as respondents: 131 were board members such as CMOs, 56 were marketing vice presidents or directors, 38 were corporate communications vice presidents or directors, 36 were vice presidents or directors of a dedicated content marketing unit, and the remaining 2 were senior executives in other marketing communications functions. Of the 263 organizations in our sample, 125 were from the services sector, 67 from the industrial sector, 51 from the finance sector, and 20 from the trade sector. Regarding size, 69 organizations had between 250 and 499 employees, 58 had 500 to 999 employees, 72 had between 1,000 and 4,999 employees, and 64 employed a workforce of 5,000 or more people.

For collecting data, we relied on a structured questionnaire. Whenever possible, we used measures from previous research and modified them for our study. All questions were asked in German language. The measures of the main variables are displayed in the table in S1 Table .

Dependent variable

Content marketing effectiveness (CMEFFECT) . To capture the degree of achieved content marketing effectiveness, we asked senior marketing and communications executives for their evaluations. For assessing attained customer engagement as aspect of content marketing effectiveness, we adapted three items from the consumer brand engagement scale which was developed by Hollebeek et al. [ 69 ]. These questions capture the managerial assessment of the extent to which focal content marketing activities foster positive brand-related cognitive, affective and conative activity, i.e. consumers’ brand processing, affection, and activation. To assess content marketing’s effects on brand attitudes and perceived brand value as further aspects of content marketing effectiveness, we adapted four perceptual items drawn from Sirdeshmukh et al. [ 70 ] and Sengupta and Johar [ 71 ]. These questions capture the managerial assessment of the degree to which the respective organization’s content marketing activities trigger brand trust in terms of credibility (expectancy that a promise made by the brand can be relied upon) and benevolence (confidence in the brand motives) and contribute to favorable brand evaluations. Responses to all items of content marketing effectiveness were given on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). An exploratory factor analysis delivered a one-factor solution; thus, we averaged all items to calculate the overall index of content marketing effectiveness. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for content marketing effectiveness was .88, exceeding the recommended minimum of .70, indicating a very good reliability [ 72 ].

Independent variables

Content marketing strategizing context (CMSTRAT) . The content marketing strategizing context was assessed using a four-item scale that measured whether the organization had a defined, comprehensible, long-term content marketing strategy and to what extent managers and employees support the strategic direction. The items for strategic clarity and strategy commitment were adapted from related scales developed by Bates et al. [ 73 ] and Noble and Mokwa [ 74 ]. Responses were given on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree).

Content production context (CPROD) . We assessed the content production context using a three-item scale. The items rest on previous research by Hollebeek and Macky [ 3 ], Urban and Schweiger [ 35 ] and Chen and colleagues [ 75 ] and include an organization’s efforts to optimize customer-perceived content value, to adhere to normative content quality criteria, and to plan and create content systematically. Responses were given on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree).

Content distribution context / intermediate number of media platforms (CDIST1) . In line with previous research by Kabadayi and colleagues [ 76 ], we used a single item to measure the number of media platforms the organizations used for content distribution purposes. We presented our respondents with the following seven media platform alternatives and asked them to mark the ones used by their organizations: customer magazines or newspapers, corporate books, company reports, owned digital media (websites, apps, newsletters, blogs), organic social media, paid social media and emerging platforms (e.g. chatbots, voice assistants). We developed this list on the basis of a review of the academic and trade literature combined with prestudy interviews of content marketing executives. Although we intended the list to be comprehensive, we asked respondents with media platforms not included in the list to add those platforms in a space that was provided. The measure of platform number was simply the number of platforms that each organization used. The range on this item was 1 to 7 platforms. Based on this item, we calculated our measure so that the usage of the intermediate number of four media platforms was assigned the maximum value 4, while lower or higher number of platforms used were assigned values in the range between 1 and 3.

Content distribution context / joint deployment of print and digital media platforms (CDIST2) . To operationalize the joint deployment of print and digital media platforms in content distribution, we asked respondents–as done in prior research [ 77 ]–how much of their content distribution budgets their organizations were allocating to print or digital media platforms, respectively, with the percentages summing up to 100 percent. We used this information to construct the joint deployment score for each organization and assigned values between zero (print or digital only) and fifty (balanced budget shares) to reflect joint platform usage.

Content promotion context (CPROM) . To measure the weight organizations attached to content promotion, respondents were requested to state the share of overall content marketing investments that their organizations allocated to content promotion measures. We adapted this approach from Fam and Yang [ 77 ] because marketing executives are usually sensitive to budget information, hence they would feel more comfortable in providing the relative weight of content promotion budgets rather than an absolute figure, leading to more accurate data. The range on this item was 0 to 100 percent.

Content marketing performance measurement context (CMPERME) . We assessed the CM performance measurement context using a three-item scale. The items rest on previous research by O’Sullivan and colleagues [ 55 ] and Mintz and Currim [ 56 ]. They capture content marketing performance measurement frequency regarding deployed print and digital content platforms as well as actual performance measurement data use in terms of the employment of data as guidance for continuously improving content offerings. Responses were given on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree).

Content marketing organization (CMORG) . To capture structural specialization and autonomy in the content marketing domain and specialization-enabling processes and systems, we used four questions based on prior research by Olson et al. [ 63 ], Walker and Ruekert [ 66 ], Barclay [ 78 ] and Škrinjar and Trkman [ 79 ]. These questions capture the presence of dedicated content marketing units, task- and skill-specialized, autonomous content marketing experts, and processes and information technology systems that enable collaboration of specialized staff and units. Responses were given on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree).

Control variables

In addition to the above variables, we considered control variables in our analyses. We followed recommendations for control variable use in the literature that suggest a focused use of controls to not unnecessarily loose available degrees of freedom and statistical power [ 80 , 81 ]. We also opted for a focused approach to avoid increase in questionnaire length, because this commonly leads to higher response burden [ 82 ], which is associated with lower response rates and more response biases. First, we included organizational size (SIZE) as a control variable. Size is established to potentially confound marketing practices [ 83 ] and organizational performance measures [ 84 ]. For example, compared to larger organizations, smaller organizations were found to be more informal with regard to marketing planning and to use fewer ways to measure performance [ 83 ]. Thus, organizational size may relate to an organization’s content marketing activities and CM effectiveness. Organizational size was measured by asking the key informants for the number of full-time employees, referring to four size categories. Three dummy variables were used, concerning organizations with 500 to 999, 1,000 to 4,999, and 5,000+ employees, respectively. Organizations with 250–499 employees served as the comparative category. Second, we also controlled for an organization’s sector affiliation (SECTOR) . A dummy-coded variable (0 = industrial sector and 1 = services sectors) was assigned to the participating organizations. The rational for selecting sector affiliation as control was that it is well established that sector characteristics, in particular differences between industry and services, play an important role for organizational behavior and outcomes [ 85 ]. Examples for sector-specific features are legal restrictions, competitive specifics, ethical concerns, or customer specifics [ 86 ]. In content marketing it could, e.g., be that creating attractive, compelling content is harder for organizations in industrial sectors.

Measure validation and analytical approach

Measure validation.

As our data met sample size recommendations [ 87 ], we assessed the validity of our measures using confirmatory factor analysis. The analysis was performed using the lavaan package in R. We estimated a measurement model with the seven reflective constructs in our study (CMSTRAT, CPROD, CDIST1, CDIST2, CPROM, CMPERME and CMORG). Regarding the inclusion of the three single-indicator latent variables (CDIST1, CDIST2, CPROM) in the analysis, we followed the recommendations in the literature [ 88 , 89 ] to fix loadings at “.95 * variance” and to calculate error variance as “sample variance of the indicator * (1 - .85)”, thus separating the single indicators from the latent variables. We used the robust Satorra-Bentler MLM estimator, since the multivariate normality assumption was not met (Mardia Statistics: skew = 41.95, p < .01 and kurtosis = 374.90, p < .01). The results indicate adequate levels of fit (CFI = 0.97, SRMR = 0.04, RMSEA = 0.05, χ 2 /df = 145.5/101), in accordance with the guidelines provided by Hu and Bentler [ 90 ].

We assessed convergent validity of the measures by examining factor loadings. The analysis indicated that all factor loadings are high (ranging from 0.58 to 0.92), in line with the guidelines of Hair et al. [ 91 ], and significant. Cronbach’s alphas of all of the measures range from 0.71 to 0.86, surpassing the acceptable level of 0.70, and composite reliabilities also surpass the acceptable level of 0.60 suggested by Fornell and Larcker [ 92 ]. Average variance extracted (AVE), reflecting the amount of variance in the indicators that is accounted for by the latent construct, is a more conservative estimate of the validity of a measurement model [ 92 ], and was also calculated for each construct. With the exception of CPROD (0.45), the AVE for each construct is greater than the 0.50 level recommended by Fornell and Larcker [ 92 ]. In sum (see table in S2 Table ), these results indicate convergent validity of the measures.

To test for discriminant validity , we calculated the difference between one model, which allowed the correlations between the constructs (with multiple indicators) to be constrained to unity (i.e. perfectly correlated), and another model, which allowed the correlations between the constructs to be free [ 93 ]. This was done for one pair of constructs at a time. For example, in testing CPROD and CMPERME, the chi-square difference test between the two models (χ 2 d (1) = 362.69, p < .001) affirmed the discriminant validity of these constructs. Similar results were obtained for the other chi-square difference tests, indicating discriminant validity.

To assess content marketing effectiveness, we drew on subjective measures . A part of the literature on performance measurement tends to conclude that subjective measures, compared with objective measures, are less appropriate for performance assessments. It has been argued that managers may tend to overrate their organization’s performance [e.g., 94 ], and that using subjective measures can be problematic when explanatory variables of performance are measured using the same informant, as this can implicate common method bias [ 95 ]. However, as done in prior research [ 96 ], we deliberately decided to rely on managers’ subjective evaluations because of the lack of generally accepted and comparable objective content marketing effectiveness indicators. Moreover, Singh et al. [ 96 ] have demonstrated that carefully collected subjective performance measures can yield reliable and valid data. To alleviate common method concerns we first used procedural remedies in line with recommendations provided by Podsakoff et al. [ 95 ]. We divided the questionnaire into various subsections, so respondents were required to pause and carefully read instructions for each set of questions, contributing to the psychological separation of predictor and criterion measures. We relied on different scale types to reduce common scale properties. In addition, we kept items specific and labeled every point on the response scales to minimize item ambiguity. We also guaranteed anonymity to diminish the tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner, and we kept the questionnaire as short as possible to maintain motivation to respond accurately. In addition to these procedural remedies, we used the regression-based marker variable technique proposed by Siemsen et al. [ 97 ] to statistically control for potential method bias. According to this approach, common method bias can be effectively reduced when estimating a regression equation by adding a marker variable that is largely uncorrelated with the substantive variables of interest and suffers from some type of method bias. Hence, we deliberately included impression management , i.e. the conscious attempt to present oneself positively, as a potentially ideal marker variable into our study, based on the expectation that this measure is theoretically unrelated and similarly vulnerable to common method variance relative to other study variables. We measured the impression management form of social desirability via the three-item scale described by Winkler et al. [ 98 ]. Items were on 5-point agreement scales (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). Analysis of our data exhibited no to small bivariate correlations (< .15) of the impression management marker ( IMM ) with the substantive variables of interest, supporting the assumed unrelatedness. Thus, we added the marker variable to our regression analysis, described in more detail below, to control for potential common method bias.

The study variables were on different response scales. Hence, we followed the recommendation from Cohen et al. [ 99 ] to put research findings into common, easily understandable metrics, and used simple linear transformations of the original scale units to convert the scores of all variables into standardized units of 0 to 100 (0, 100 for dichotomous variables), representing the percent of maximum possible (POMP) scores for each scale. This approach simplifies interpretability for example by giving immediate meaning to summary statistics such as means and measures of variability or by facilitating comparisons of scores across constructs.

We used linear multiple regression analysis for hypotheses testing in which all variables entered the regression equation on the same step. With regard to Hypothesis 3a, which predicts that content marketing is more effective when an intermediate number of media platforms is used, we categorized, as described above in the measures section, the originally continuous predictor variable so that an intermediate number of media platforms used was assigned the maximum value. Though such categorization is accompanied by loss of information, this allowed us to investigate whether CM effectiveness at an intermediate number of platforms used was different from when more or less platforms were used without resorting to a quadratic function. We proceeded analogously with regard to the analysis of Hypothesis 3b. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics 24.0.0.1 software, reporting adheres to the SAMPL guidelines [ 100 ]. Prior to the main analysis, the assumptions of regression analysis were tested. To check linearity between the dependent and the independent variables, we employed partial residual plots of independent variables [ 101 ]. The plots exhibited only minor deviations from linear relations. Hence, we concluded that there was no major problem with the linearity assumption. Regarding multicollinearity, the highest value of variance-inflation factor was 2.81, and the highest value of the condition index equaled 24.90. Since these values are below the recommended threshold of respectively 10 and 30 [ 72 ], there is no indication for collinearity concerns. A Shapiro-Wilk test of the residuals (W(263) = 0.985, p < .01) found some evidence of nonnormality and a Koenker test (K = 29.97, p < .01) indicated presence of heteroscedasticity in the residuals. We therefore used the generalized information matrix (GIM) test described by King and Roberts [ 102 ] to detect potential model misspecification. Since the value (GIM = 1.375) is below the recommended threshold of 1.5, denoting that robust standard errors are not 1.5 times larger than classic standard errors, there is no indication for misspecification. Hence, we proceeded with our model, and to account for nonnormality and heteroscedasticity, we followed the recommendation of Dudgeon [ 103 ] to use HC3 as robust standard error estimator in our regression. Multiple regression with robust standard errors was carried out using the SPSS macro by Daryanto [ 104 ]. A p-value of < .05 was considered significant.

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 lists the means, standard deviations, correlations, and Cronbach’s alphas of the study variables. In line with expectations, CMEFFECT related positively to CMSTRAT (r = .66, p < .001), to CPROD (r = .68, p < .001), to CMPERME (r = .61, p < .001), and to CMORG (r = .62, p < .001). Notably, CMEFFECT was not correlated with CDIST1, CDIST2, and CPROM.

Notes: N = 263. POMP scores for all variables.

a Dummy coded. All |r| > .11 are significant at p < .05, all |r| > .19, p < .01. Cronbach’s alphas for multi-item measures are in italics on the diagonal in the correlation matrix.

Hypothesis testing

Results of the multiple regression analysis with CMEFFECT as dependent variable are presented in Table 2 . The study variables explained a substantial proportion of variance in content marketing effectiveness (R 2 = .61, F(12, 250) = 36.71, p < .001). In Hypothesis 1, we expected that there would be a positive association between a strong content marketing strategizing context, characterized by strategic clarity and strategy commitment, and content marketing effectiveness. The regression coefficient indicates that as we hypothesized, CMSTRAT is significantly and positively associated with CMEFFECT (β = .23, t(250) = 2.94, p < .01). Therefore, the data support Hypothesis 1.

Note: N = 263.

With regard to Hypothesis 2, we predicted that a strong content production context, characterized by efforts to optimize customer-perceived content value and to adhere to normative quality criteria, should be associated with higher content marketing effectiveness. Results showed that CPROD was positively related to CMEFFECT (β = .37, t(250) = 5.05, p < .001). Thus, Hypothesis 2 cannot be rejected. Hypotheses 3a and 3b predicted that two aspects of content distribution, the usage of an intermediate number of media platforms and a joint deployment of print and digital media platforms, each affect content marketing effectiveness. However, results showed that CDIST1 (β = .01, t(250) = .29, p = .77) and CDIST2 (β = -.02, t(250) = -.50, p = .62) were not significantly related to CMEFFECT. Therefore, Hypotheses 3a and 3b are not supported by our data. Related to Hypothesis 3a, we conducted two exploratory post-hoc analyses to examine whether there might be (a) a linear relationship between the number of content distribution platforms used and content marketing effectiveness, or (b) an inverted U‐shaped relationship between the number of content distribution platforms used and content marketing effectiveness. With regard to (b), we introduced the square of the number of media platforms used as a new variable in the regression model in addition to the number of platforms used. With respect to Hypothesis 3b, we also conducted (a) a post-hoc analysis to test an alternative model that included the potential effect of focusing on print or digital media platforms on content marketing effectiveness, and (b) an analysis testing for a U‐shaped relationship between the share of content distribution budget allocated to digital media platforms and content marketing effectiveness. With regard to (b), we introduced the square of the budget share as a new variable in the regression model in addition to the budget share. However, none of these post-hoc analyses yielded significant effects. In Hypothesis 4, we predicted that there would be a positive relation between a strong content promotion context in terms of paid content promotion budgets and content marketing effectiveness. With respect to this hypothesis, CPROM was not found to have a significant impact on CMEFFECT (β = .02, t(250) = .41, p = .69). Hence, we find no support for Hypothesis 4. To further evaluate the relationship between content promotion and content marketing effectiveness, we conducted an additional exploratory post-hoc analysis. We tested an alternative model that assessed whether the number of content promotion measures is positively related to content marketing effectiveness. The number of measures was also not linked to content marketing effectiveness. Hypothesis 5 stated that content marketing is more effective when organizations have a stronger content marketing performance measurement context. Regarding this Hypothesis, the regression coefficient indicates that CMPERME is significantly and positively associated with CMEFFECT (β = .18, t(250) = 2.69, p < .01). This is the hypothesized outcome, and therefore the data support Hypothesis 5. Furthermore, a specialized content marketing organization with supporting processes and information technology systems (CMORG) was found to have a positive effect on content marketing effectiveness (CMEFFECT) (β = .14, t(250) = 1.97, p < .05), as we hypothesized in Hypothesis 6. Consequently, Hypotheses 6 cannot be rejected.

Finally, we conducted a robustness check of our results by adding the respective organization’s annual content marketing budget to the model. Including this variable into our model did not change our findings, all the variables that were significant remained significant, while the overall annual budget was not significant (β = -.04, t(245) = -0.70, p = .48).

This study examined whether and how the organizational context in which content marketing activities are embedded in determines content marketing effectiveness. We conceptualized and empirically tested a model that proposed that strong content marketing strategizing, content production, content distribution, content promotion, content marketing performance measurement, and structural and processual contexts drive content marketing effectiveness.

Summary of findings and theoretical implications

Considered together, our analysis of the data reveals that context features have a substantial impact on the effectiveness of content marketing activities. Table 3 summarizes the findings.

Notes: + = a positive hypothesized relationship. Yes = the hypothesis was supported. No = the hypothesis was not supported.

Regarding the strategizing context, we found that a well-defined content marketing strategy that is clearly communicated, thoroughly understood by managers and employees, and widely supported within the organization positively influences content marketing effectiveness. The demonstration of this link between strategic clarity and strategy commitment on the one hand and content marketing effectiveness on the other hand adds to the theoretical and empirical elaboration of the determinants of content marketing effectiveness while incorporating insights from strategy research [ 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 ] into the content marketing domain.

In addition, we found that a strong content production context, characterized by the optimization of customer-perceived content value and adherence to normative content quality criteria, has a significant, positive impact on content marketing effectiveness. Our results support the line of reasoning in the uses-and-gratifications- as well as information quality literature [ 29 – 32 ], that providing content aligned with a target group’s subjective judgement of usefulness will increase the likelihood that content is interacted with, in turn positively influencing content marketing effectiveness. While prior content marketing research focused on this argument [e.g., 3 ], we also introduce the compliance with normative content quality criteria (such as diversity of viewpoints or impartiality) as a novel content production context factor that positively influences content marketing effectiveness. From this perspective, the integration of research on journalistic quality in theories about content marketing effectiveness is essential for the progress of knowledge about content marketing effectiveness.

With regard to the content distribution context, we did not find that the usage of an intermediate number of media platforms has a positive influence on content marketing effectiveness. This finding is noteworthy since research on integrated marketing communications generally assumes that using multiple media platforms will increase the effectiveness of communications efforts but that deploying too many media properties will attenuate effectiveness [ 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 ]. One reason for our result could be that the assumption of reactance theory underlying our hypothesis, that, from a certain point, the negative consequences of using an increasing number of media platforms outweigh the positive effects [ 41 ], does not hold. This explanation would be supported by a positive linear association between the number of content distribution platforms used and content marketing effectiveness. However, our post hoc analysis did not provide any evidence for this kind of relationship. Contrary to expectations, we also did not find a positive influence of a joint deployment of print and digital media platforms on content marketing effectiveness. In addition, post hoc analyses showed no significant effects of focusing on print or digital platforms only on CM effectiveness. These findings suggest that there is no general difference in effectiveness between these two kinds of media platforms, a result similar to the conclusion by Kwon and colleagues [ 105 ]. Heterogeneity of preferences theory suggests one interpretation for this [ 41 ], positing that media platform preference is idiosyncratic and that heterogeneity in individual platform preferences influences customer response to content marketing activities. Taking the aforementioned results together, the present study advances research on content marketing effectiveness by suggesting that effectiveness may be less a question of how many or whether print or digital content distribution vehicles are used, but more of utilizing precisely those media platforms that are best aligned with the respective organization’s target groups’ preferences. Following up on this, further research on the effects of using various content distribution platforms on content marketing effectiveness is warranted.

The present study did not find a positive relationship between paid content promotion budgets and content marketing effectiveness. This is not what we expected. However, empirical evidence from the field of advertising effectiveness research suggests an interpretation of the finding that more paid media investments are not always consistent with higher performance. According to respective descriptive knowledge [ 106 ], a metric that determines the level of performance is excess share of voice, defined as a brand’s share of voice minus share of market. Arguably, then, the amount invested in paid content promotion by a brand would have to be related to the total amount invested in paid content promotion in the brand’s category, and to the brand’s market position. Also, the contribution of paid content promotion to content marketing effectiveness could be shaped by the balance between paid promotion and owned content distribution platforms (e.g., [ 107 ]). This research therefore highlights that further work is needed to untangle the conditions under which paid content promotion measures might positively influence content marketing effectiveness.

Our theoretical elaboration and empirical investigation also provided evidence that core elements of the content marketing performance measurement context–regularly measuring the performance of print and digital content platforms and actually using the data obtained as guidance for continuously improving content offerings–positively influence content marketing effectiveness. Though previous research has shown positive performance implications of performance measurement in contexts other than content marketing [e.g., 55 – 57 ], this is the first study to successfully demonstrate this relationship for the content marketing domain. Our research thus expands previous research on CM effectiveness by incorporating performance measurement as a central element of a model of content marketing effectiveness. This finding might also have implications for future research, e.g. regarding the optimal configuration of content marketing performance measurement systems.

Finally, our work extends previous research on content marketing effectiveness by including structural specialization and specialization enabling processes and information technology systems as a new factor that positively influences content marketing effectiveness. The demonstration of the link between organizational structural and processual design elements on the one hand and content marketing effectiveness on the other hand lends support to researchers, such as Lee et al. [ 62 ], who have called for a new perspective of structural marketing, recognizing the importance of using organizational design elements to achieve marketing outcomes.

Overall, the aforementioned findings are important giving the centrality of empirical insights regarding the optimal design and implementation of content marketing initiatives to current academic interest [ 3 , 5 , 8 ].

Management implications

The present study has important implications for practice as well. It clearly identifies four context factors that positively influence content marketing effectiveness. However, it is noteworthy that the strength of relationship between each of these factors and content marketing effectiveness varies. This implies, that managers could, e.g. if necessary due to budget or attention restrictions, prioritize improvements in the content marketing context factors in line with their order of importance for effectiveness as it was found in this study, being (1) content production context, (2) content marketing strategizing context, (3) content marketing performance measurement context and (4) content marketing organization. Nevertheless, efforts to drive improvement in a single context domain are less beneficial than a comprehensive effort to establish strong content marketing context conditions across the entire range of content marketing activities.

In the following sections, we present individual management recommendations, based on the order in which the various context areas in this study were found to be important.

We first advise managers to constitute a strong content production environment. To do so, we encourage content marketing executives to systematically evaluate and optimize customer-perceived content value, which means putting the audience and its needs and wants first while at the same time keeping an eye on the organization’s communications objectives without becoming self-centered. Moreover, our findings provide a powerful argument that organizations should not compromise on the journalistic quality of their content, but instead strive for creating content pieces that stand out regarding journalistic aspects such as narrative perspective, originality, diversity of viewpoints, accuracy, comprehensibility, or compliance with ethical standards.

Our findings also suggest that a strong content marketing strategizing context is associated with higher content marketing effectiveness. In this respect, managers should work towards establishing strategic clarity. To do so, crafting a compelling content marketing purpose and vision, formulating clear content marketing goals and objectives, defining content creation principles and standards, clarifying key stories and main topics, developing customer personas, investing care about what the most appropriate content formats would be for the audiences being targeted, or planning content that is matched to customers’ buying processes would be beneficial for marketers. In addition, our findings suggest that practitioners should pursue strengthening commitment to the content marketing strategy within the organization. Possible measures to enhance comprehension and backing of the content marketing strategy include regularly communicating its core pillars, rigorously and openly addressing areas of concern, explaining strategic decisions, continuously training employees, or fostering strategic conversations (e.g., [ 108 ]).

Third, we highly recommend establishing a strong content marketing performance measurement context because that would quite certainly go along with a higher level of content marketing effectiveness. Establishment of a strong content marketing performance measurement context requires content marketers to shift part of their content marketing budgets from actual content marketing initiatives to measurement and analytic efforts. Doing so would be counterproductive if it did not enhance content marketing effectiveness. Our research supports exactly such a reallocation of resources, demonstrating that it can positively affect content marketing effectiveness.

Fourth, our investigation implies that shaping the structural and processual context of content marketing activities is a central task of managers since a specialized organizational context unfolds positive effects on content marketing effectiveness. One promising way to advance structural specialization is setting up organizational platforms offering shared and specialized working environments, often referred to as brand newsrooms or content factories. Such platforms could include various desks dedicated to specific topics, media, and target groups, teams devoted to strategy, project management, and further service areas such as graphics, video, or analytics, and an editorial board ensuring integration. To unleash agility, these structures should be supported by processes and underlying information technology solutions enabling interaction and collaboration between content marketing specialists as well as integration with further marketing functions and other relevant organizational entities.

Finally, our study questions the current high level of practitioner enthusiasm for focusing on digital content distribution platforms and multichannel communications. In the light of this study’s findings, it seems to be beneficial for organizations to utilize precisely those media platforms and systems that are best aligned with the respective organization’s target groups’ preferences. Caution is also advised regarding practitioner enthusiasm for paid content promotion measures. “Pay to play” measures such as influencer marketing, social media advertising or native ads in editorial environments have been presented as indispensable means to boost content marketing reach and thus improve content marketing effectiveness. However, we do not observe any simple and direct positive effect of content promotion budgets on content marketing effectiveness. As this is one of the first investigations to examine the impact of paid content promotion in the content marketing domain and given that the use and functionality of content promotion measures evolve continuously, our findings are preliminary. Scholars and practitioners need to further explore this emerging field.

Limitations and research directions

As all empirical research, the present investigation has limitations that call for attention in interpreting its findings. First, the data was cross-sectional which prohibits unambiguously interpreting the findings as indicating causality. Still, based on the theoretical argumentation provided above, the directions of causality implied in this study are likely. Future research might try to replicate these relationships via longitudinal or experimental study designs. A second limitation is that, though the study included organizations from various sectors and across different size categories, the sample is rather homogeneous with respect to cultural factors, as all participating organizations were located in Germany, Switzerland or Austria. Hence and given the global nature of content marketing research, scholars could investigate the suggested relationships in other contexts in order to further generalize the current findings. Third, the measurement of content marketing effectiveness is a potential limitation of this investigation, since we relied on subjective ratings rather than objective data. Thus, researchers might validate our findings with objective content marketing performance data. The study builds upon the views of a single key informant in every organization. While the key informant approach is common, relying on multiple informants from each organization might provide an even more balanced view. Besides, as earlier mentioned, the lack of any evidence of effects of the content distribution and content promotion contexts on content marketing effectiveness could be due to the way we framed them in this study. Therefore, other conceptualizations are worth investigating, including considering interactions of these context factors, as each factor’s contribution to content marketing effectiveness might be contingent upon the other. Also, only a limited number of potential confounders could be taken into account in this study. We adjusted for potential effects of firm size and industry, controlled for social desirability, and conducted an additional robustness check of our results that included the respective organization’s annual content marketing budget. In future, researchers could map out the nomological network of the research field in more detail using causal graph analysis [ 81 ], and subsequently conduct studies including further control variables to rule out alternative explanations for the observed relationships. Beyond addressing limitations, this study offers a number of additional directions for prospective research. For example, given that a strong content marketing performance measurement context offers demonstrable benefits, scholars might consider whether certain findings from the general marketing performance measurement field [e.g., 55 , 109 ] also apply to the content marketing domain. Research might, e.g., explicitly take into account whether content marketing performance measurement is comprehensive or selectively focused on particular dimensions, because larger organizations could benefit from more comprehensive and smaller organizations from more focused approaches. Furthermore, future studies may explore the influence of the organizational content marketing context on content marketing effectiveness via structural characteristics other than specialization. Other major structural characteristics, such as centralization, formalization, or modularity, might also exert influence on content marketing effectiveness. Importantly, future research might investigate mediating or moderating variables, such as external environmental effects. Market turbulence, for example, may moderate the value of content marketing context factors. Such investigations could further deepen the understanding of the determinants of content marketing effectiveness.

Supporting information

S1 appendix, acknowledgments.

We gratefully acknowledge the valuable comments of Vanessa Haselhoff in the development of earlier drafts of this article.

Funding Statement

The author received no specific funding for this work.

Data Availability

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
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Cause-related marketing: a systematic review of the literature

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 08 January 2022
• Volume 20 , pages 25–64, ( 2023 )

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• Hina Yaqub Bhatti   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2157-7418 1 , 2 ,
• M. Mercedes Galan-Ladero 1 &
• Clementina Galera-Casquet 1  

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Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) is one of the most versatile activities among the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Though CRM is extensively researched, however, only a few authors have performed systematic literature reviews on CRM. Therefore, more systematic reviews of CRM are still needed to complete and bring together the more contributions, advances, and different existing research lines. Thus, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature in CRM from the two keywords: “Cause-Related Marketing” and “Cause Marketing”, and the time period ranges from 1988 to 2020. In this study, rigorous protocol is used in synthesizing 344 English articles drawing upon e-journal database searches. These articles were categorized by time-wise development, country-wise development, methodological development, cross-cultural analysis, the role of journals. This study also carried out the Bibliometric Analyses. The review highlights that the concept of CRM has evolved from being considered a marketing mix tool (a promotion tool), to being considered as a CSR initiative, with a more strategic character. Our findings revealed that only a few journals published articles on CRM. Geographically, the CRM study was initiated in North America, followed by Europe and Oceania, and Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries. From the third decade, there was more collaboration in cross-cultural studies and the use of mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative studies) approach. Lastly, this study shows the most manifest research gaps in CRM that opens avenue for future research.

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1 Introduction

Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) is a versatile and growing activity in the marketing field. It provides opportunities to profit and non-profit organizations, and consumers, to participate in a social cause (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988 ). Since 1988, CRM initiatives have gradually increased for more than three decades. CRM allows to achieve the societal and financial corporate establishment’s goals, as well as provide the opportunity to consumers to participate in an altruistic act.

Formally, the first CRM campaign named in this way was carried out by American Express (AMEX) in 1983, in the United States. The purpose of this program was to increase the usage of the AMEX credit card, but also collect money to be donated for the renovation of the Statue of Liberty. This project was developed from September to December, and the donation was $1.7 million (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988 ). Since then, and according to the IEG Sponsorship Report, cause sponsorship spending in North America has grown continuously Footnote 1 from $120 million in 1990 until $2.23 billion in 2019, as shown in Fig.  1 . In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. sponsorship value was $10 Billion (annually), which approximately increased 38% (IEG, 2020 ).

IEG Sponsorship Report from 2002 to 2019. Note: We only include data since 2002, because previous data are not available on the IEG Sponsorship Report. Source: IEG (2020)

Consequently, the practice of CRM has also increased for the last three decades because more profit organizations have engaged in CRM activities (Adomaviciute et al., 2016 ), non-profit organizations have maintained environmental protection, health, and other worthy causes (Grolleau et al., 2016 ), and when consumers purchase the CRM products for support the cause, they have a prosocial behavior (Chang & Chu, 2020 ) and feel happy (Jeong & Kim, 2020 ; Vrontis et al., 2020 ).

During this time, CRM has become a topic of considerable debate in both managerial and academic circles worldwide. Although some systematic literature has been presented on this topic (see, for example, Guerreiro et al., 2016 ; Lafferty et al., 2016 ; Natarajan et al., 2016 ; or Thomas et al., 2020 ), an updated systematic literature review is required. Thus, we present a new systematic literature review: (1) To complete the review of the academic research articles in the area of CRM, from 1988 to 2020, with the perspective of profit organizations, non-profit organizations, and consumers over the last three decades; (2) To include cross- cultural studies; (3) To include studies carried out in developed and developing countries; (4) To include studies executed in different societies (e.g. Muslim societies, Western societies with Christian traditions, etc.); and (5) To conduct a bibliometric analysis using VOSViewer Software.

Thus, the main objective of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of the existing research in the field of Cause-Related Marketing. More specifically, our aim is to find influential papers that have shaped this field and provide the overview of historical development in the field of research, focusing first on previously analyzed criteria: Time-Wise Development of CRM Literature, Country-Wise Development of CRM Literature, Methodological development in CRM Literature, and Role of Journal in Development of CRM literature. But also, this study carries out a systematic review with a bibliometric analysis. On the one hand, the systematic review helps the researchers to improve the rigor of prior reviewing literature. On the other hand, bibliometric analysis helps to analyze divergent views and examine the development of the CRM field.

Hence, this paper has followed two steps in the systematic literature review on CRM: (1) to select the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and (2) to analyze the evolution of CRM in seven different categories.

First step : Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.

This research only included published papers in journals, from 1988 to 2020 (data sources such as working papers, reports, newspapers, textbooks, conference papers, or theses / dissertations, were not included).

Two keywords, “Cause-Related Marketing” and “Cause Marketing”, were used to search the databases (SAGE Publications, JSTOR, Emerald Full Text, Springer, John Wiley Publications, Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, and Google Scholar).

This research also used conceptual review and empirical studies of different countries.

This research only included papers written in English (i.e., non-English language research articles were excluded).

This study considered the date of publication of the journal as the date of the research articles.

Second step : Academic researchers have used qualitative and quantitative methods for literature review to organize and provide the above underlying findings on CRM. And according to Liu et al., ( 2015 ), Bibliometric Analysis is a tool to examine literature review. Thus, this study has also provided a static and systematic picture of the research (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017 ). This study relies on bibliometric techniques such as author-citation analysis, or co-words or co-occurrence analysis, and co-citation analysis of authors through VOSviewer software (version 1.6.5). Following Thomas et al. ( 2020 ), we selected Time-Wise Development of CRM Literature, Country-Wise Development of CRM Literature, and Methodological Development in CRM Literature. And we added other analysis such as Role of Journal in Development of CRM literature, author-citation analysis, and Co-words or Co-occurrence analysis, proposed by Poje & Groff ( 2021 ). We also considered adding a new category that had not been considered in previous studies: cross-cultural analysis.

Therefore, the structure of this paper is organized as follow: firstly, we show the CRM theoretical background (with a previous introduction to CSR, to link it with CRM, because CRM is generally considered under the umbrella of CSR – e.g., Kotler and Lee, 2005 ; Galan-Ladero, 2012 ); secondly, we offer the results of our literature analysis in the CRM field; later, we discuss these results; and finally, we offer the main conclusions, also considering the main limitations of this study and further research.

2 Background

Since the inauguration of the third millennium, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a globally hot issue by the rapid change of the environment. A large number of organizations, from developed and developing countries, have focused on CSR.

CSR, defined as “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis ” (European Commission, 2001), has a wide range of history: it started in Western countries, but later, it spread all over the world. Antecedents of CSR can be found at 18th and 19th Centuries, with the creation of welfare schemes adopted with a paternalistic approach, to protect companies and retain employees with improved life quality (Carroll 2008 ). But it is in the twentieth Century, and specifically after World War II, when scholars and practitioners discussed about the social responsibilities, and successful businesses also adopted such responsibilities (Heald, 1970 ).

Thus, CSR started to be established and, in the last seven decades, it has played different roles:

The 1950s was the first era that established the current CSR. Successful business leaders and board of directors moved towards the ethics of society. Bowen, the first who coined the term, introduced the concept, and provided the initial definition of CSR, described as “ the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable the objectives and values of our society ” (Bowen, 1953 , p. 6). In this area, Heald ( 1957 ), discussed that businesses do not only serve on economic performance work, but they also serve on humane and constructive social policies.

The 1960s : Many of the definitions of CSR are formalized. Walton ( 1967 ) was a prime thinker who addresses the different aspects of CSR: “ In short, the new concept of social responsibility recognizes the intimacy of the relationships between the corporation and society and realizes that such relationships must be kept in mind by top managers as the corporation and the related groups pursue their respective goals ( Walton, 1967 , p. 18)”.

The 1970s : Friedman described that the social responsibility of business is to enhance profits and maximize shareholder value. Therefore, Carroll ( 1979 ) came in this decade with the new concept of CSR, defined as “ the social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time ”.

The 1980s : the notions of stakeholder management and business ethics had become the main integral part of the business (Carroll, 2008 ). In 1980, Jones proposed that CSR is a process, not the outcome, and CSR, when engaged in as a process of decision making, should constitute CSR behavior by the corporation (Jones, 1980 ). Also, Aupperle et al., ( 1983 ) suggested that four aspects include CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and voluntary or philanthropic responsibilities.

The 1990s : Carroll ( 1991 ) revised the concept of CSR and introduced the “Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility”. He described four main responsibilities of the company: economic responsibility (“be profitable”), legal responsibility (“obey the laws and regulations”), ethical responsibility (“do what is just and fair”), and philanthropic responsibility (“be a corporate citizen”). During this decade, Elkington ( 2001 ) introduced another concept of CSR, the “Triple Bottom Line”, which focuses on three issues: social responsibility (“people”), environmental responsibility (“planet”), and economic responsibility (“profit”).

In the first decade of the twenty-first century (The 2000s), CSR extends to emerging markets. After the collapse of Enron, Footnote 2 many organizations and corporations focused on establishing CSR departments, hiring CSR consultants and CSR managers. On the other hand, in 2002, ISO Committee on Consumer Policy play an important role in ISO 26000, an international standard that present a guideline on Corporate Social Responsibility. Footnote 3

In the second decade of the twenty-first century (The 2010s), Kramer and Porter ( 2011 ) introduced the concept of “creating shared value”, which becomes the core objective of business strategies. 2015 is an important year because the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, with the “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), was launched. SDGs covered a wide range of global areas, such as fighting against climate change, removing poverty and hunger, as well as promoting sustainable consumption, among others.

Therefore, different theories have been created and adapted during all this time. The most important theories are Carroll’s CSR Pyramid Theory, Footnote 4 Triple Bottom Line Theory, Footnote 5 Stakeholder Theory, Footnote 6 and Corporate Citizenship Theory. Footnote 7

On the other hand, CSR initiatives, formed as a part of the core business activities, provide long-term financial security and growth for stakeholders but also increase the market position (Bhattacharyya et al., 2008 ). Under the big umbrella of CSR, different initiatives have appeared, and they have become growing popular among profit organizations worldwide. Kotler et al., ( 2012 ) explained six different types of CSR initiatives (see Table  1 ), which included cause promotion, cause-related marketing, corporate social marketing, corporate philanthropy, community volunteering, and socially responsible business practices.

According to Thomas et al., ( 2011 ), CSR has received significant attention in both academic and business societies. CRM, as one of these initiatives, has progressed in social responsibility and allows firms to link their philanthropic activities and strategic marketing goals. On the other hand, CRM activities also have been an increasing part of the corporate marketing plans (Gupta & Pirsch, 2006a ). Therefore, this study especially focuses on this CSR initiative: Cause-Related Marketing (CRM).

The first definition of Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) was introduced by Varadarajan and Menon ( 1988 , p. 60), as “ the process of formulating and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by an offer from the firm to contribute a specified amount to a designated cause when consumers engage in revenue-providing exchanges that satisfy organizational and individual objectives”. This definition provides two main streams: to support the charitable cause and to satisfy organizational and individual objectives.

On the other hand, the most essential and significant benefit of the CRM is shown as a win-win-win situation (for the profit organizations, non-profit organizations, and consumers - Adkins,  1999 ). CRM campaigns increase the number of sales for the organization, as well as enhance the number of donations to the non-profit organizations (Deb & Amawate, 2019 ). CRM campaigns also give the best chance to profit organizations to attract the customers towards organization and enhance customer loyalty (Galan-Ladero et al., 2013b ), as well as they create or enhance emotional engagement with target customers, build a strong relationship with them (Cone et al., 2003 ; Docherty & Hibbert, 2003 ), and also maintain the company’s goodwill (Chang & Chu, 2020 ). Consequently:

The for-profit organizations use CRM as a strategic tool to build a strong brand image in the customer’s mind (Ahluwalia & Bedi, 2015 ). And the internal benefit of the for-profit organization is to help increase the employee’s self-esteem, commitment, and loyalty (Cone et al., 2003 ; Polonsky & Wood, 2001 ).

The non-profit organizations try to increase awareness about the cause, educate the customers, and support the charitable cause (Nowak and Clarke, 2003 ). On the other hand, CRM in non-profit organizations increases the number of donors (Docherty & Hibbert, 2003 ; Polonsky & Wood, 2001 ).

For consumers , charitable causes, linked to their purchases, boost their feeling of happiness and inner satisfaction (Chaabane & Parguel, 2016 ), and they also feel good when helping others (Imas, 2014

3 Analysis and Main results

Due to an increasing number of CRM research papers that identify the most essential and main contributions in the field, and to objectify the outcomes, then bibliometric analysis is introduced. Zupic and Čater ( 2015 ) explained the five main bibliographic methods, which consists of citation analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-author analysis and co-word analysis. In this study, we apply Co-words or Co-occurrence analysis, Co-citation analysis, and cited journals analysis. These analyses were run on VOS-software.

3.1 Analysis of the different definitions of CRM

A wide variety of definitions of CRM have been contributed since 1988 (see Appendix 1, Table  7 ). In Table  2 , we summarize the main CRM definitions, from 1988 to 2020, according to the main keywords included in them: CRM as an activity (a marketing activity and/or a CSR activity), as a strategy, as a marketing mix tool, and as an alliance (between profit and nonprofit organizations). Thus, we can observe that there is not a general, unanimous agreement about its definition yet. However, the concept of CRM has evolved from being considered a short-term marketing mix tool (a promotion tool), to being considered a CSR initiative, with a more strategic character.

3.2 Time-wise development of CRM literature

However, in this study, we start from the time-wise development of Cause-Related Marketing. First, we identify the number of research articles into three time periods (decades): 1988–2000, 2001–2010, and 2011–2020 (previous systematic literature did not classify them into decades). With the growing body of Cause-Related Marketing, it is better to organize it in three decades because differences are appreciated, depending on the time.

Varadarajan and Menon introduced the CRM term in academia in 1988, and the following three decades witnessed gradual growth in CRM literature. Table  3 shows the annual evolution of this figure from 1988 to 2020.

Thus, we can classify the three decades based on CRM literature progression:

Introductory decade (1988–2000). The field of CRM was introduced in this period with a limited number of published articles (13). However, these articles were very innovative and aroused interest in this new solidarity initiative.

Emerging decade (2001–2010). The CRM field grabbed the attention of researchers in this second decade, with a notable increase in the published literature, especially in the last two years of this decade. The number of published articles reached 74. Consequently, CRM became an interesting and novel research topic, broadening its scope.

Most thriving decade (2011–2020). CRM literature witnessed a boom in the third decade, especially in the last two years of this decade. Thus, 257 articles related to the field of CRM were published in different journals only in this third decade.

In summary, we can indicate that CRM publications have grown significantly over the three decades analyzed, because more and more research papers have been published on this topic.

3.3 Author-based citation analysis

Author-based studies have long been one of the most important aspects of bibliometric analysis. This analysis includes the ranking of authors by the number of researches carried out, the citations of their research articles, their evolutions, or the analysis of co-authors’ collaborations. Table  4 shows the five most cited authors (and their specific works) from first decade (1988–2000), second decade (2001–2010), and third decade (2011–2020).

In this analysis, the most cited authors (and their corresponding works) for each decade have been the following:

From the first decade, the most cited authors are: Varadarajan ( 1988 ), with 734 citations; followed by Webb ( 1998 ), with 498; Smith ( 1991 ), with 121; File ( 1998 ), with 110; and Ross (1992), with 15 citations.

In the second decade, Barone (2007) is the most quoted, with 243 citations; followed by Gupta ( 2006a ), with 189; Lafferty ( 2005 ), with 187; Cui ( 2003 ), with 152; and Berglind ( 2005 ), with 103 citations.

During the third decade, Christofi (2020a) has been cited 176 times; Robinson (2012) has 150; Bae (2020), 149; Priporas (2020), 135; and Koschate-Fischer (2012), 129 citations.

In summary, we can highlight that Varadarajan ( 1988 ) is the most cited author of all time, with the first academic paper published on CRM, and serves as a reference for researchers around the world. And by far the next most cited authors are Webb ( 1998 ) and Barone (2007).

3.4 Co-words or co-occurrence analysis

A co-word analysis may be described as “ a content analysis technique that uses patterns of co-occurrence of pairs of items… in a corpus of texts to identify the relationships between ideas within the subject areas ” (He, 1999 , p. 134). Thus, co-words or co-occurrence analysis is a content analysis that connects words in the title of the research paper or abstract. The main idea of the co-word analysis is to connect any identified patterns into a map of contextual space. We also applied this analysis to each decade.

3.4.1 First phase (period 1988–2000)

For the 13 articles published from 1988 to 2000, the co-word analysis identifies four clusters consisting of the following words (with the minimum number of occurrences of keywords defined as 1; out of 26 keywords in this period, 26 met the threshold).

The first cluster includes consumer attitude, market segmentation, marketing strategy, profitability, and social responsibility (as shown in Fig.  2 , red color).

The second cluster deals with cause-related marketing, consumer perceptions, and philanthropy (as shown in Fig. 2 , green color).

The third cluster consists of charitable organizations and crm (as shown in Fig. 2 , blue color).

The last cluster relates to corporate philanthropy (as shown in Fig. 2 , yellow color).

Co-Word analysis for the period 1988 to 2000

In summary, the co-word analysis shows that, for the period from 1988 to 2000, the focused keyword is Cause-Related Marketing . Other important keywords are philanthropy and consumer perception .

3.4.2 Second phase (period 2001–2010)

Based on the selection of 74 articles for the period 2001–2010, the co-word analysis shows a more precise picture than it does in the introductory decade (to narrow down the result, the minimum number of the occurrence of keywords was defined as 2; out of 160 keywords, and 27 meet the reduction criteria).

A notable cluster derived by the co-word analysis (Fig.  3 , red color) consists of the words brand alliances, cause-related marketing, corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, donations, reputation, social responsibility, sponsorship, and work .

A second cluster (Fig. 3 , green color) comprises brand, company, consumer, framework, impact, information, price, responses, and skepticism.

The third cluster (Fig. 3 , blue color) is related to advertising, brand, cause marketing, consumer behavior, marketing, and purchase intention .

The fourth cluster (Fig. 3 , yellow color) consists of choice, corporate images, and purchase intention.

Co-word analysis for the period 2001 to 2010

In summary, the co-word analysis shows that, from 2001 to 2010, the Cause-Related Marketing keyword related to the other striking keywords, such as corporate social responsibility, reputation, corporate image , and purchase intention .

3.4.3 Third phase (period 2011–2020)

Based on the selection of 257 articles for the period 2011–2020, the co-word analysis shows a more precise picture than it does in the previous two decades. To narrow down the result, the minimum number of the occurrence of keywords was defined as 5 (out of 825 keywords, and 40 meet the reduction criteria). The most notable clusters derived from the co-word analysis are:

First cluster (Fig. 4 , red color): it consists of the words attitude, attitudes, brand, choice, consumer responses, credibility, fit, impact, knowledge, motivation, responses, social-responsibility, sponsorship, and sustainability.

Co-word analysis for the period 2011 to 2020

The second cluster (Fig. 4 , green color) comprises altruism, cause marketing, cause-related marketing, co-branding, consumer behavior, purchase intention, and skepticism.

The third cluster (Fig. 4 , blue color) comprises  altruism, behavior, charity, consumer choice, corporate social responsibility, mediating role, and s trategy .

The fourth cluster (Fig. 4 , yellow color) comprises consumption behavior, corporate strategy, ethics, marketing, millennials, and social media.

The fifth cluster (Fig. 4 , purple color) comprises brand-cause fit, corporate social responsibility, and perceptio n.

In summary, the co-word analysis shows that, also for the period from 2011 to 2020, the most focused keyword is Cause-Related Marketing . Other significant keywords are ethics , purchase intention , consumer behavior , and attitudes .

Consequently, the whole co-word analysis shows that all around the world, the researchers are focused on the one keyword that is “ Cause-Related Marketing ”, and the other most emphasis keywords are philanthropy and consumer perception , in the first decade; to evolve toward CSR, reputation, corporate image , and purchase intention , in the second decade; and finally focused on ethics, purchase intention, consumer behavior , and attitudes , in the third decade.

3.5 Co-citation analysis

A co-citation analysis is described as “ the scholarly contributions of authors who are frequently co-cited are likely to embody similar or related concepts ” (Nerur et al., 2008 , p. 321). Co-citation analysis can explain how referential frameworks of the Cause-Related Marketing field at different stages of its development affected evolutions in its general construction.

3.5.1 First phase for the period 1988–2000

Based on the co-citation analysis, for the period 1988-2000 (Fig. 5 ), it has been seen that there is predominately one cluster with a total 58 authors distributed in one cluster namely cluster – 1 with red color (minimum of the documents for an author should 1 and minimum citation of an author should be 1).

Co-citation analysis of authors for the period 1988–2000

There is a wide variety of authors cited in the papers on CRM in the first decade (but only once). Schurr is the only author who receives 2 citations in this decade.

3.5.2 Second phase for the period 2001–2010

According to co-citation analysis for the period 2001-2010 (Fig. 6 ), it has been noted that there are predominately two clusters with a total 1502 authors (minimum citation of an author should be 10 and the maximum citation of the author should be 24).

Co-citation analysis of authors for the period 2001–2010

In this analysis, we selected five top co-authors who have a high citation, such as Mohr (34 citations), Webb (32 citations), Menon (30 citations), Miyazaki (24 citations), and Varadarajan (21 citations).

3.5.3 Third phase for the period 2011–2020

According to co-citation analysis for the period 2011-2020 (Fig. 7 ), it has been noted that there are predominately four clusters, with a total of 10,108 authors and 193 thresholds (minimum of the documents for an author should be 20 and minimum citation of an author should be 5; the maximum citation of the author should be 200).

Co-citation analysis of authors for the period 2011–2020

In this analysis, we selected the five top co-authors who had the highest citation, such as Lafferty (200 citations), Mohr (176 citations), Webb (167 citations), Barone (136 citations), and Bhattacharya (136 citations).

In summary, the co-citation analysis shows that Lafferty is the most co-cited author in all time. And the next most co-cited authors are Mohr and Webb.

3.6 Cross-cultural analysis

Cultural norms and beliefs have a significant impact on shaping people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behavior (Steenkamp, 2001 ). Lavack and Kropp ( 2003 ) identified the research gap of cross-cultural studies in the field of CRM. Hence, they conducted the first cross-cultural research in the field of CRM by including four countries from different regions such as Australia (Oceania), Canada (North America), Korea (East Asia) and Norway (Europe), and investigated the consumers’ role values towards the CRM. Since the third decade, more researchers have been participating and collaborating in cross-cultural studies. Table  5 details transversal research that has studied CRM comparing different countries.

According to the cross-sectional analysis, the nation has a different background of consumer and corporate cultures that varies from country to country. Sekaran ( 1983 , p. 68) defined it as “ Culturally normed behavior and patterns of socialization could often stem from a mix of religious beliefs, economic and political exigencies and so on. Sorting these out in a clear-cut fashion would be extremely difficult, if not totally impossible ”. Therefore, the scholars are taking more consideration in cross-cultural CRM study from the second decade. In this study, Table 5 shows that researchers from USA (i.e., North America) and South Korea (i.e., East Asia) studied together two times on culture analysis, one times with India (i.e., South Asia), and one time with Poland (i.e., Europe), one times with Philippines (i.e., East Asia) as well as China (i.e., East Asia). In addition, Italian researchers (i.e., Europe) studied one time on culture analysis with Japan (i.e., East Asia) and one time with Brazil (i.e., South America). Furthermore, India (i.e., South Asia) collaborated with Philippines (i.e., East Asia). Cross-cultural analysis in Table 5 shows that the researchers worked on four different cultures analysis rather than two cultures (i.e., Lavack & Kropp, 2003 ; and Schyvinck & Willem, 2019 ).

3.7 Country-wise development of CRM literature

Figure  8 reports regional (i.e., country-wise) participation of different researchers in the development of CRM literature. As this concept was introduced in the USA (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988 ), the studies from the first and second decades usually belonged to this geographical region. Thus, most of the research in CRM literature was published by researchers from US Universities: 92% of the contributions in the first decade (i.e., 12 research articles), and 40% (i.e., 30 research articles) in the second decade. However, some British researchers also contributed to CRM literature in the second decade, with 11% (i.e., 8 research articles) share of total CRM publications. Nevertheless, in the third decade, most of the CRM literature was published by Asian researchers. Hence, Indian researchers, with 9% (i.e., 24 research articles), and Taiwanese scholars, with 5% (i.e., 12 research articles), jointly published almost 14% of the articles in that decade. Although the American contributions fell to 33% (but only in relative terms, since in absolute terms they reached 85 research articles), their overall contribution remains the highest of all countries. And participation of British scholars was 6% (i.e., 15 research articles) in the third decade. In this Fig.  8 , we observed that the USA research publications from every decade are very extensive, in comparison to other countries.

List of cited Country-Wise Development of CRM Literature. Source: Own Elaboration

3.8 Methodological development in CRM literature

Methodological development in CRM literature is graphically shown in Fig.  9 . It is observed that most research work is employed by experimental design. In the first decade (1988–2000), researchers focused on qualitative or quantitative research in the field of CRM; whereas a mixed-method approach has been used in the second (2001–2010) and third decade (2011–2020). In this analysis, we observe that, in general, quantitative studies significantly outnumber qualitative studies, especially in the third decade.

Methodological development in CRM Literature. Source: Own Elaboration

3.9 Role of journal in development of CRM literature

Although a total of 141 journals have published articles explaining the concept of CRM from different perspectives (see Appendix 2, Table  8 ), only six journals published more than ten CRM papers. These journals are International Marketing Review (26), International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing (20), Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing (17), International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing (15), Journal of Business Ethics (13), and Journal of Business Research (10). In the field of CRM, almost 100 journals have been published only a single article since its conceptualization in 1988 (they are also shown in Appendix 2, Table 8 ).

There are two indicators to measure the scientific influence of scholarly journals, such as Journal Citation Reports and Scimago Journal & Country Rank. This study only considers the Scimago Journal & Country Rank because there are more research articles in this rank, which divides the set of journals into four quartiles (i.e., Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4). According to Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), we observed that 51 journals publishing about CRM are Q1, 36 are Q2, 16 are Q3, and 5 are Q4. On the other hand, 8 journals are not included yet in any Quartil. and 25 journals are not in this index.

According to Persson et al. ( 2009 ), for the bibliographical data, we used BibExcel, which presents co-occurrence of references in the bibliographic of research articles. Therefore, in this study we find that five most cited journals by each decade, from the first decade (1988–2000), are: Journal of Marketing (1 document; cited in 734 articles), Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (1 document; cited in 498 articles), Journal of Consumer Marketing (1 document; cited in 121 articles), Journal of Business Ethics (1 document; cited in 110 articles), and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (2 document; cited in 51 articles). From the second decade (2001–2010): Journal of Consumer Marketing (3 documents; cited in 369 articles), Journal of Business Research (3 documents; cited in 280 articles), Journal of Retailing (1 document; cited in 243 articles), Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing (11 documents; cited in 215 articles), and Journal of Advertising (5 documents; cited in 172 articles). And from the third decade (2011–2020): Journal of Marketing Review (25 documents; cited in 842 articles), Journal of Business Ethics (11 documents; cited in 458 articles), International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing (9 documents; cited in 407 articles), International Journal of Advertising (8 documents; cited in 347 articles), and Journal of Marketing (2 documents; cited in 244 articles).

For this analysis, we observed that the percentage of the most cited paper, published in the Journal of Marketing , dropped due to the introduction of different journals, such as Journal of Marketing Review , International Journal of Advertising , or International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing . But, on the other hand, the Journal of Business Ethics has increased the citations.

4 Discussion

This research provides an inclusive review of the systematic literature with respect to three decades: the introductory decade (1988–2000), the emerging decade (2001–2010), and the thriving decade (2011–2020).

In this study, we observed that North American researchers are more involved in Cause-Related Marketing. This may be due to the importance that CRM has had in the USA since its inception, and the acceptance that CRM has had among American companies and consumers. Such as Cone ( 2010 ) showed, 88% of the American consumers supported the cause, 85% of the consumers had a good image of the company or product supporting a noble cause and cared about it, and 90% of the consumers demanded companies to find the right cause to support. More recently, another research also studied that 87% of American consumers would purchase a CRM product if the company supported the charitable cause (business2community, 2020 ).

The graphical presentation of the Time-Wise Development (see Fig. 1 ) shows 13 articles published until 2000 (first decade), 74 articles from 2001 to 2010 (second decade), and 257 articles from 2011 to 2020 (third decade). Natarajan et al. ( 2016 , p. 248) and Thomas et al. ( 2020 , p. 5) verified almost similar findings of the time-wise development from 1988 to 2016. But after that, the research on Cause-Related Marketing has abruptly increased in the last two years (2019–2020). We noticed that, in 2020, the researchers are more actively involved in the CRM field than the previous years to publish the research articles.

As observed in Fig. 8 , the academicians and researchers from 37 different countries have significantly contributed to CRM studies. A large portion of CRM studies are conducted in two regions (i.e., North America and Europe). Thomas et al. ( 2020 ) shows similar results. Asian (i.e., Indian and Taiwanese) researchers have taken more interest in CRM and they have been publishing more and more articles since the third decade. On the other hand, we also noticed that the CRM topic was first introduced in Western societies (with Christian tradition). But after the first decade and during the second decade, CRM studies were also introduced in Muslim countries, such as Pakistan (1 research article) and Oman (1 research article). From the third decade, the researchers also explored other Muslim countries, such as Malaysia (5 research articles), Iran (4 research articles), Egypt (4 research articles), Turkey (3 research articles), Pakistan (3 research articles), Jordan (1 research article), Indonesia (1 research article), and Bangladesh (1 research article). So, in summary, we can highlight that researchers have been exploring the Muslim world in the field of CRM after the second decade.

And about the methodological development in CRM literature (see Fig. 9 ), the researchers have used more quantitative studies, compared to qualitative studies. Thomas et al. ( 2020 , p. 7) also found a similar result. Thus, the trend seems to be for quantitative studies to continue to predominate over qualitative ones in the coming years, although mixed methods are experiencing slight growth. However, the combination of both types of studies, qualitative and quantitative, could offer more complete studies on CRM.

Lastly, Table 6 presents the journals involvement to publish CRM research articles. In our study, the key publications journals are International Marketing Review, and International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing. Our results have been slightly different from Thomas et al. ( 2020 )‘s and Natarajan et al. ( 2016 )‘s. These researchers found that the Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing was the one that had published more research articles on this topic. But probably this difference is because they only considered up to 2016.

Our research also discovered different results from previous studies with respect to databases, partly due to the number of databases considered and the greater number of years analyzed in our study.

5 Conclusion

Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) is considered as an initiative that involves a donation to a specific cause, at a specific period of time, usually with a limited donation amount, and which depends on product sales and consumer behavior.

Therefore, the main objective of this study was to provide a comprehensive systematic review of the literature on CRM, categorizing each article by time-wise development, country-wise development, methodological development, and role of journals. Cross-cultural analysis and bibliometric analysis were also included, as a new contribution of this research, in comparison to previous studies.

The main studies have been classified in three decades, which present significant differences. In the introductory decade (1990–2000), the field of CRM was introduced with limited published articles with the role of CRM in two different regions, such as North America, and Oceania.

First three Journals such as International Marketing Review, International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, or Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, play a starring role to publish CRM research papers. In the emerging decade (2001–2010), researchers explored more regions, such as East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. In this time frame, mix approach studies and cross-cultural studies were introduced for the first time in the field of CRM. And in the most thriving decade (2011–2020), scholars analyzed CRM in two more regions, such as North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. In this era, more scholars were interested in collaborating with other geographical regions such as North America and Europe. The number of published papers on CRM grew significantly.

However, this current study has some limitations. First, this research considered only two keywords: “Cause-Related Marketing” and “Cause Marketing”. Thus, other terms might be also considered, such as “Social Cause” or “Cause–brand alliance”. Secondly, the selection of the studies was limited only to the peer-reviewed journal research articles published in English. Maybe research articles in other languages could be also interesting. Thirdly, this current study just focuses on the full-text journal papers. Abstracts, theses, working papers, and conference proceedings were ignored. Fourthly, this study has used a limited number of databases to find the research articles: SAGE Journals, JSTOR, Emerald Insight, Springer, Wiley Online Library, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis Online, and Google Scholar. Other databases, such as EBSCO and ABI/INFORM, could have been also considered.

Anyway, we also found different gaps in CRM research, so further research could be developed in these aspects. First, most academic scholars have largely focused on the developed countries, such as the USA and the UK, and less in developing countries (especially in the first and second decades). Although studies about CRM in developing countries increased in the third decade, the gap still exists. More studies are needed about developing countries because the researchers may find different results. In addition, more studies are also required to compare developed and developing countries, because researchers could find different interesting outcomes about CRM campaigns.

Secondly, the growing popularity of the internet and social media could be more considered by the companies, which could focus on digital marketing. Therefore, consumers could be more involved in a digital CRM campaign (Handa & Gupta, 2020 ). Only few studies have been conducted in this area, so the gap still exists, both in developing and developed countries.

Thirdly, various studies are conducted on the cross-culture context. But more research is needed to investigate the cross-cultural context, comparing developing and developed countries, and also Western and Eastern countries. Causes and consumer preferences or attitudes could be different from one country to another country.

Fourthly, few studies have been conducted in the mix approach (including qualitative and quantitative studies). More research is required for a better understanding of the mixed methodological approach in CRM. The most common and well-known approaches to mixing methods are Triangulation Design, Embedded Design, the Explanatory Design, and the Exploratory Design. These methodologies could be discussed in CRM programs.

Fifthly, profit and non-profit organizations depend on each other in CRM campaigns. When both organizations develop CRM strategies, they can acquire risk. Few studies have been conducted on profit and non-profit organizations with CRM programs; therefore, this also needs to be discussed.

Finally, and according to Chéron et al. ( 2012 ), consumers positively view those CRM campaigns that take place for extended periods of time, and they might be disappointed with short duration campaigns. Thus, time frame of the CRM campaign can have a significant impact on the consumers’ perception. Consequently, the campaign’s time duration is another factor that is needed to be more discussed by researchers.

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Hina Yaqub Bhatti, M. Mercedes Galan-Ladero & Clementina Galera-Casquet

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Bhatti, H.Y., Galan-Ladero, M.M. & Galera-Casquet, C. Cause-related marketing: a systematic review of the literature. Int Rev Public Nonprofit Mark 20 , 25–64 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-021-00326-y

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Received : 30 March 2021

Accepted : 21 November 2021

Published : 08 January 2022

Issue Date : March 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-021-00326-y

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