Metrics that Matter: What you Need to Focus on

As a business owner, content creator or entrepreneur with their prime brand online, it’s easy to get caught up in the metrics of how many likes or comments your posts or website is getting but not fully understanding how to ustilise to work in your favour.

While yes it always feels good to receive a like or some form of validation for the content you produce, you need to put that aside and ask yourself what is it that you are hoping to gain from this interaction.

If all you are after is a simple like or follow, then fine you have it, but if you are then hoping it will lead to more, there is a lot more effort on your part that you need to put in.

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For instance are you hoping to sell a product via your website? You are advertising it on your social media and maybe your followers like the post you created to showcase it, but why then haven’t you sold the product?

Why is that like or follow where the interaction ends?

The answer…

You are focusing on the wrong metrics, or you aren’t using them to your advantage.

Let me explain.

Metrics can be used for so much more then surface level engagement and vanity reasons like likes and follows. They can be used to determine conversion rates, gain deeper insights into your audience and maximising impact and ROI (return on investment).

By understanding what makes your audience take action you can increase your ROI drastically.

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Understanding the Metrics that Matter

There are different types of metrics that you can utilise to ensure you are getting the most out of analytics and metric data.

Conversion Rates:

This is perhaps the most important metric as a business owner. This tracks how many of your viewers actually took a desired action as a result, this may be signing up to a newsletter, making a purchase, filling out a contact form. Whatever action you want them to take through the use of a CTA (Call to Action).

By monitoring these analytics, you can see what inspired your audience to take action, or even where your efforts may have fallen short, so that you know what needs improvement. This is essential for marketing campaigns and adverts, so that you aren’t spending money on something that isn’t converting traffic.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):

CAC is vital to ensuring that your paid advertising is benefiting you and helping you to gain a profit and isn’t actually costing you more than it’s worth.

Understanding this metric is crucial for determining the efficiency and profitability of your marketing efforts.

If the cost of acquisition is higher than that of the product you are selling or the amount of ROI acquired, then adjustments are required.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):

CLV represents the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over the duration of their relationship. From first interaction to final purchase. By utilising CLV, you can determine where to focus your resources to maximise long-term profitability.

For example, if your goal is to sell a single product, then you should focus on simply making the initial sale, however if you are wanting repeat service then you not only need to utilise the initial sale but nurture the connection well past initial interaction. You need to find a way to maintain the connection after as well, to increase the likely hood of future engagement. A mailing list is one of the best ways to keep your business at the forefront of your customers mind and is a great resource for marketing new products and services to someone who has already shown interest.

Engagement & Vanity Metrics:

Vanity Metrics are the likes and follows you get on your social media posts and accounts and while these are ego boosting, more importantly are the engagement metrics like comments, shares and click through rates.

As these provide deeper insights into what your particular audience like to engage with. They show exactly what your audience like to interact with, what triggers a response, what they prefer and what they resonate with. Which in turn teaches you what type of content you should utilise to gain the maximum engagement from your audience.

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Leveraging Insights for Success

By focusing on these other core metrics, not just the vanity of likes and follows, you gain insight and deeper understanding of your audience, what drives their action, and what you need to focus on to increase business success and profitability.

The best way to utilise these metrics:

Set Clear Goals:

Start by defining clear, actionable goals for your marketing efforts. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or boost sales? Clarifying your objectives provides a roadmap for crafting targeted strategies that align with your business objectives. Whether it's increasing engagement or generating leads, having well-defined goals ensures that your efforts are purposeful and focused.

Implement Tracking Tools:

Make sure you are actually utilising metrics and analytical tools to understand your audiences’ motives and actions in real-time so that you can determine which action to take next.

From website analytics to social media metrics, these tools offer a wealth of data to inform your decision-making process. By monitoring key metrics like conversion rates, click-through rates, and customer acquisition cost, you can track the effectiveness of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Optimise Campaigns:

Reflect on past campaigns, what worked, and what didn’t? Identify the patterns, trends and any areas for improvement. What strategies yielded the best results? What resonated most with your audience, and what fell flat?

By identifying patterns, trends, and areas for improvement, you can adjust your approach and customise future campaigns to better meet the needs and preferences of your target audience. Regular analysis is key to driving better results and maximising the impact of your marketing efforts.

As a business owner, just remember it is more important to have 100 loyal followers who engage with your brand and buy your product, opposed to 100k+ followers who don’t.

Your online business success relies on more than just likes and follows, so by prioritising core metrics on top of vanity metrics, you can gain valuable insights to optimise your marketing strategy to achieve meaningful results.

It’s time to shift focus from vanity to value and unlock the true potential of digital marketing for your business.

Do you need help analysing your metrics to understand how to build a personalised marketing strategy that not only showcases your brand, but sells your product and service, looks great, targets your targeted audience and sets you up for success?

Then join The Digital Branding Journey, where you will not only learn the key branding & copywriting secrets for success, but I will deep dive into your business and tailor my services to your brand specifically to help you find your unique voice, establish your brand identity, generate leads, increase your traffic and build your presence online through engaging creative content.

Hi there! I’m Kaeleigh, a Digital Branding Consultant with a focus on Digital Marketing, Creative Copywriting & Content Creation, who helps business owners and entrepreneurs generate leads, increase traffic and build their brands through engaging creative content.