What Is Gated Content and Should I Use It in 2022?

Most marketers are still stuck using gated content to drive leads.

The problem is that your potential buyers hate it.

What is gated content?

Gated content is a piece of content that requires the user to fill out a form or perform some other activity before they can access the content. The most common form of gated content is a text article that requires you to provide your email before you can read it.

In contrast, ungated content is content that can be consumed without any additional steps being performed by the user. This blog you are reading is a good example of ungated content. We chose to provide this content to you as a resource so that you can educate yourself, and do not require you to provide any additional information to read it.

Why shouldn’t you use gated content?

You shouldn’t use gated content because your users don’t want to provide their email address just to read an article, and when they do its often a spam inbox used just for this purpose. Where is the value in that?

What’s worse is that this gated piece of content is often one of the best pieces of content you have. You’ve probably spent far more time on this than you did your last blog post, yet its the blog post that is showing up in search while your best content languishes.

What should you do instead of using gated content?

Use ungated content. Put everything out there for your potential reader to consume without putting hurdles in the way.

By removing the gate in front of that piece of content, you make it far more likely that it will be read at all. People will be more likely to share it and even be more likely to convert or read other content on your site.

When does it make sense to gate content?

While you should usually avoid gating content, it can make sense to use a gate when you have a particularly compelling piece of content. Usually this is a piece of original research or something so intriguing that the user cannot help but to respond.

A great example of this is The DataOps Cookbook by DataKitchen. Not only is this piece of content closely targeted to the exact audience they are seeking, the content itself is astounding. Clocking in at 189 pages, this book-length guide to DataOps is required reading for any DataOps engineer worth their salt.

For DataKitchen, it makes sense to gate this content. They know you want it and they know you will fill out the form to get it, so capturing your contact details in the process is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have anything close to this resource. While an actual 189 page book may be worth the squeeze, your 5 page guide probably isn’t. That doesn’t mean its not valuable content in its own right, but without that essential essence that makes the DataOps Cookbook unique you are going to end up losing more traffic than you can afford.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to lose any traffic at all.