439. Are Your Metrics Making You Money... Or Wasting Your Time? with Amy Traugh
- Amy Traugh
- Oct 15
- 10 min read
🎧 The Metrics Maven: Data Driven Business Growth Strategy for Solopreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
Are Your Metrics Making You Money... Or Wasting Your Time?
It’s time to ditch the vanity metrics and focus on the numbers that actually grow your business.
The Problem with Vanity Metrics
Have you ever celebrated a big milestone in your business—like getting a flood of new followers or hundreds of likes on a post—only to realize it didn’t actually lead to any new clients? You’re not alone.
As solopreneurs, we’re constantly told that more likes, more followers, and more views mean more success. But here’s the truth: those numbers might look great on paper, yet they often have little to do with whether your business is actually growing.
Vanity metrics are the numbers that look impressive but don’t tell you anything meaningful about performance. Think: social media followers, post likes, podcast downloads, website traffic, or email open rates. They feed your ego with that quick dopamine hit—yay, my reach went up!—but they don’t tell you if your audience is actually taking action.
These surface-level numbers show how loud your business is, not how healthy it is.
Why We’re So Obsessed with Vanity Metrics
It’s not your fault. Social platforms push vanity metrics front and center because they know they’re addictive. Every time you log in, you can instantly see your likes, followers, and comments. It feels validating, and in a world where we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others, it’s easy to equate visibility with success.
But here’s the thing: visibility doesn’t automatically lead to profitability. You could have 10,000 followers and still be struggling to make consistent sales. I’ve seen business owners with just a few hundred followers who are hitting steady five-figure months because they understand their numbers.
When you know what your data means, you can focus your time on what truly matters—revenue-generating activities.
How Vanity Metrics Keep You Stuck
Vanity metrics can trick you into thinking you’re growing when you’re really just getting louder. For example, one of my clients had a reel that went viral with over six million views. She spent hours analyzing it—what audio she used, what time she posted, how she edited it—trying to replicate that success.
But here’s the kicker: she gained only two followers and not a single new client.
Meanwhile, another post reached just 200 people but resulted in three new inquiries. That’s the difference between chasing visibility and driving conversions.
How to Tell If You’re Tracking Vanity Metrics
The easiest way to spot vanity metrics? Ask yourself this one question:
“Does this number help me make a business decision?”
If the answer is no, it’s a vanity metric.
Likes don’t show buyer intent.Follower counts don’t tell you if your audience is converting.Page views don’t prove those visitors are becoming leads.
If you can’t take action based on what you’re tracking, it’s not worth your time.
What Metrics Actually Matter
Now that you know what not to track, let’s talk about what to track—the actionable metrics that drive real growth. These are the numbers that measure movement toward your goals and help you make decisions.
Here are a few to start with:
Leads generated – And more importantly, where they’re coming from.
Conversion rate – The number of calls booked vs. calls that converted to clients.
Client retention rate – Are clients buying again or referring others?
Average revenue per client – How much income is each client generating?
Email click-through rate – Not just opens, but clicks that show true engagement.
Sales by offer or channel – Which offers are driving the most revenue?
These are your actionable metrics. They tell you what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus your time to grow your business strategically.
Your North Star Metrics
If you’re just starting to track data, don’t overwhelm yourself by tracking everything. Start small.
Choose your Top 3 North Star metrics—the ones that truly measure growth, like:
Revenue
Leads
Conversions
Then, pick two supporting metrics to help explain what’s driving those results, such as email clicks or call show rates.
Simple is sustainable. You don’t need a fancy dashboard or 20 different spreadsheets—you just need the right numbers.
The Bottom Line
Vanity metrics look good but don’t guide smart business decisions. They’re easy to celebrate but won’t tell you what’s actually driving revenue.
So if a number doesn’t help you make a decision, stop tracking it. Instead, focus on actionable metrics that measure progress—leads, conversions, retention, and revenue.
When you track what actually matters, you’ll stop guessing and start growing your business with clarity, confidence, and ease.
If you're ready to finally ditch the data drama and create a simple, repeatable process for growth, this is exactly what we do inside Metrics Mastery.
Get started for free at amytraugh.com and let’s build a business that’s backed by strategy, not stress.
Until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
Episode Links
🎙️DID YOU LOVE THIS EPISODE? Hit that follow button & then check out these episodes packed with even more strategies to help you shatter your sales plateau!
💥 ARE YOU READY TO TURN YOUR METRICS INTO MONEY? Get started for FREE at amytraugh.com
🙋♀️ WANT FEATURED ON THE METRICS MAVEN PODCAST? Here’s your opportunity! Learn more here
🎧 WHAT TOPIC DO YOU WANT to hear on the podcast next week? Cast your vote in my weekly poll on LinkedIn here!
Transcript for Episode 439. Are Your Metrics Making You Money... Or Wasting Your Time?
- Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Have you ever celebrated a big milestone in your business, like getting a ton of new followers or hundreds of likes and engagement on a post, only to realize that it didn't actually lead to any new clients?
If so, you're not alone. Today, we are talking all about vanity metrics, what they are, why we are so obsessed with them as solopreneurs, and what metrics to focus on so that you can stop wasting your time by focusing on the metrics that matter.
What are vanity metrics? When I say the phrase vanity metrics, all I mean is the numbers that look really, really impressive, but don't actually tell you how your business is performing.
It's things like social media followers, posts, likes, and comments, podcasts. Pass downloads, website traffic, email open rates. These are the metrics that feed your ego by giving you that really quick hit of dopamine.
Like, yay, my reach went up. But they don't actually connect to your business growth. Vanity metrics don't show you whether your audience is actually taking meaningful action.
Doing things like booking a call, joining your list, or actually becoming clients. These are surface level data points that tell you how loud your business is, but not really how healthy it is.
So for example, you could have 10,000 Instagram followers, but that doesn't actually mean that you have 10,000 potential clients.
Most of them might not ever buy from you. Heck, most of them aren't even seeing the things that you're posting and don't even remember that they followed you.
I know it sounds like a hard truth, but it's the reality. of what is happening. These numbers are so tempting to track because they're so easy to see and easy to celebrate.
Most platforms actually push these numbers right in your face. Let's take Instagram, for example. You log in and you can immediately see anyone's likes, followers, views, comments.
It feels really validating. When your post blows up or your follower count goes up, it feels like progress. Like, yes, I'm finally getting noticed.
And it's also what people talk about a lot in the online space. You'll hear things like, I hit 10,000 followers or double your reach within the next 30 days or my reel hit a million views.
And it's so easy to equate that with success. And yes, while we want to celebrate the wins, the thing is you could have 50,000 followers and still be struggling to.
They can actually trick you into thinking that you're growing, when in reality, you're just getting louder, but not more profitable.
I've worked with countless business owners who have had just a few hundred followers, but they're actually bringing in consistent five-figure months because they know what their numbers mean.
They understand them, and because they understand them, this gives them the ability to focus on what actually matters. This is the difference right here between chasing visibility and actually seeing results.
So if you are tracking metrics that don't directly lead to sales, client inquiries, or deeper relationships, you're actually spending time analyzing data that will not help you make better decisions.
And what happens is that you end up chasing the wrong goals. I'm going to give you a quick example.
Recently had a client go viral. She had over 6 million views on her reel within a week and she celebrated, but then she got trapped in the hole of spending hours analyzing it, trying to figure out exactly what made it blow up.
What was the audio? What time did she post? How did she edit it? She was trying to figure out how she could repeat that success, but at the end of the day, she did not get any new clients from it.
She only gained two followers and all of this time that she spent optimizing and analyzing for vanity's sake was time that she was not spent improving her offer, onboarding, follow up, sales process, all of those revenue generating activities.
Meanwhile, she had another post that only reached 200 people. you. people. But what did it do? It resulted in three inquiries.
So it's so important that you don't overlook those numbers that at first glance might look insignificant. This is why you need to understand your metrics because they pull your attention towards what's strategic instead of shiny.
As I will tell you what, those shiny metrics, gosh, they are distracting. And when you are able to understand them, you can optimize for action.
So you're not having to spend your time cracking the algorithm by designing content for likes rather than conversions. This lets you understand what's actually working in your business.
So how do you know if you're tracking vanity metrics? You may have heard me say a few earlier and you're like, oh my gosh, like that's
It's so easy. With one question, you can know if you're tracking vanity metrics. Ask yourself, does this number actually help me make a business decision?
If not, it's a vanity metric. Here's what I mean. Likes, they don't tell you if someone's ready to buy.
Follower counts, don't show if people are actually engaging and moving through your funnel to become clients. And page views on your website don't mean that those visitors are actually converting into leads.
If you cannot take action based on the metric you're tracking, if it doesn't guide your next step, it is not worth your time to track.
So try doing a quick audit of your current data. If you're tracking data, which I hope you are, I want you to list out the metrics.
And ask yourself, what decision does this data help me make? And if you can't answer that question clearly, cross it off.
It's okay. You will be amazed at how much clarity you get when you stop tracking everything under the sun and you stop tracking those numbers that don't serve you.
So now that you know what not to track, let's talk about what does matter. I really want you to focus on actionable metrics.
These are the metrics that show movement towards your goals and help you make business decisions. These are the numbers that actually drive growth.
Are you ready? So, and I do not want you, caveat here, do not track all of these if you are just getting started and have not been tracking anything.
So the first one, I want you to track your leads generated. But more specifically, where are they coming from?
Because knowing where your qualified leads are coming from is gold. You can also track your conversion rates. What are the number of calls that you're booking, those discovery calls, versus calls that actually converted to clients?
Because that can give us a lot of really interesting information. Because we'll start to see patterns that come up on these calls with objections.
And we can really get in and refine our messaging when we understand that piece. Client retention rates. So from those clients that have bought from you, are they buying again?
Are they referring others? You can track your average revenue per client. You can track your email click-through rate, not just open rates.
And then again, your sales by offer or channel. These metrics... next. Help you figure out exactly what's working and what's not by telling you whether your marketing is actually turning attention into action.
So here's an example. If you had 20 consultation calls last month and four of them became clients, that's a 20% close rate.
If you want to grow, you can focus on improving that number. You could do it by refining your offer, adjusting your messaging, or even nurturing your leads better.
We can really get granular with the data and use it to figure out exactly where that gap is so that you can make strategic adjustments, not emotional guesses.
And if you're questioning right now, like, I don't even know where the gap is, make sure you grab my free checklist that will help you spot the gap in your funnel so that you can convert clients and cash.
There's a link in the show notes. Make sure you grab that. So if you want a simple way to stay consistent with the whole world of metrics, if you're just getting started, want you to pick your top three metrics from the list we talked about earlier, from the list above.
I call these your North Star metrics. These are the big ones that actually measure business growth. So, you know, for example, you can start out with revenue, leads, and conversions.
And then choose two supporting metrics like email clicks or call show rate. And this helps you understand what's exactly what's driving those results.
That's it. Remember, simple is sustainable. You do not need a fancy dashboard. You do not need to track 20 different numbers.
You just need the right numbers. So let's sum this all up. Vanity metrics. They look good. They feel good.
But they don't actually guide your decisions. They're easy to track because platforms push. them. We can all see them, but they're wasting your time.
If a number doesn't help you make a business decision, stop tracking it and instead focus on those actionable metrics that measure progress, leads, conversions, retention, revenue, and pick three metrics to keep your tracking simple and strategic.
Because when you are tracking what actually matters, you'll stop guessing and start growing with clarity, confidence, and ease. If this episode resonated with you, this is exactly what I love helping my clients with inside my signature program, Metrics Mastery, and in one-on-one coaching.
Get started for free at amytraugh.com. And until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
Comments