Are These “Vanity Metrics” Killing Your Business?

If you watch carefully online, you’ll see a lot of marketers throwing around some really impressive sounding income and marketing numbers.

But, when you pull back the curtain and go a bit deeper, many of the seemingly jaw-dropping numbers they boast about DON’T EVEN MATTER.

I know there’s a lot of confusion around these numbers…

So it begs the question:

“Which metrics should you be paying attention to? (And which should you NOT be paying attention to?)”

When it comes to Facebook, there are numbers that have a lot of meaning, and there are ones that just seem like they do, but can be counterproductive for your business.

I want to debunk what I call the “Vanity Metrics” — which are the numbers/statistics that sound super cool, but in reality mean nothing.

There are SEVERAL vanity metrics we want to protect you from, here’s a few of the top-offenders:

#1 — Cost Per Click

Your Cost Per Click (CPC) is what you are paying every time someone engages with your ad.

We get asked all the time:

“What Cost Per Click should I aim for?”

On the surface this sounds pretty critical, right?

And a LOT of companies out there watch this number like hawks…

In reality, there are 2 different CPCs:

• One that tracks ALL the activity for that ad — including likes, comments, clicks, etc…
• One that tracks the LINK clicks that go to your landing page.

The first one (CPC ALL) — gives you a false sense of what you’re actually “getting” for your advertising dollars…and will make it look like you’re getting clicks for cheaper than you actually are.

Of the two, the LINK click report will tell you what you’re TRULY spending to have someone click on your ad and go to the landing page that you want.

Even this report though is misleading…

It often shows lots of people clicking your mobile ads for very cheap (compared to the desktop ad)…and so they automatically assume mobile is performing better, and they’ll kill off the desktop ad.

What REALLY matters in the success of an ad is what you pay to get the conversion.

BOTTOM LINE for CPC:

Clicks ALONE don’t make you money.

You don’t want to choose a winning ad campaign based on the CPC. What determines whether an ad campaign is winning or not is based on the Cost per Conversion (a.k.a. — whether they click and actually DO what you want them to do.)

#2 — Video Views

People often ask us:

“Should I do video ads? Everybody is talking about video ads!”

The reason why everyone is doing video right now is because Facebook is trying to become the #1 video content provider.

In short, they are trying to be out YouTube.

They want to be masters of the universe in all areas, right?

Right now, they are rewarding people for doing video ads.

You’ll see people getting incredibly cheap video views.

The problem is, it’s the WRONG metric…

I hear all the time:

“This is amazing, I’m only paying $0.003 per video view!”

But you have to also question what that actually MEANS…

Did they watch it for only 3 seconds?

Did they stay for 8 seconds?

Did they watch the whole thing?

For the metric that most people are looking at, that is for a 3-second video view.

Tell me — -

How effectively can you get your message across in just 3 seconds?

You can’t.

At Clients On Demand, we’re always testing new ideas for advertising.

Last month we spend around $20,000 testing out video ads.

Here’s what we found:

While our campaign got us a TON of views, the video ads didn’t actually convert into registrations for our webinar nearly as well.

This ended up costing us 4X the amount in ad spend vs. static ads to get to get the same result.

BOTTOM LINE for Views:

It doesn’t matter how many people WATCH your videos.

It doesn’t matter how many people read a post that you put out.

And it CERTAINLY doesn’t matter that you’re getting views for $0.003 (or some crazy low price)…

What matters is — Are these people DOING what you want them to do? Are they converting?

#3 — List/Fan Size

If you’ve spent any amount of time in the internet marketing realm, you’ve probably heard marketers say:

“The money is in the LIST.”

But here’s the thing…

You can have a HUGE list, and have people who don’t buy from you.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions (or downright LIES) I’ve seen in the internet marketing world. There are marketers out there who mislead people to believe that if they have a big enough list, they’ll meet all of their income goals.

I see so many people spending their time and money to prioritize building their list.

And they put their energy into reaching this “magic number” that will be big enough for them to hit their income goals.

And it’s so disappointing for them to see that list size does not equal the size of your results.

BOTTOM LINE for list size:

If you DO have a big list, great.

If you know exactly how to tap into it, awesome.

But it’s NOT a requirement for growing your income.

When you have a truly effective sales process, you don’t even need it.

You could make a LOT of money from a small list.

You could also have an enormous list, and make ZERO sales.

#4 — Launch Revenue

What exactly do I mean by a “launch”?

Many marketers will come up with a product or offer, and it “launches” (or gets released) on a certain day.

They typically spend a ton of money in advertising…

They’ll coordinate with all of their affiliates and JV partners…

They exhaust their lists…

And they FLOOD their offer with a lot of traffic at once.

Most launches will last anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks… and then it’s over, and everything gets shut down.

Here’s what I’m seeing happening:

MANY of the big revenue numbers that I’m seeing marketers share is from a launch.

It’s an atypical big burst of income from an event that happens once every 6 months, or once per year…

During that week or two, you can get some incredible numbers.

But it’s not sustainable. It’s a 1-time burst of income.

“But Russ…isn’t $100K in the bank (or however much) a good deal, even if it is a 1-time opportunity?”

Maybe…but I would much rather use a strategy that is sustainable, and put that much into my business EVERY MONTH or EVERY WEEK.

BOTTOM LINE for launches:

Launches can generate BIG numbers in a short period of time.

They can be a very seductive idea.

But in reality — what you’ll get is a 1-time income spike during your launch week, followed by a LONG period of “famine”.

And…by the time you pay out all your expenses (ad spend, affiliate prizes, revenue payouts, etc…) the actual profit that ends up in your pocket is very minimal.

So here’s what DOES matter…

1 — Having a premium offer that creates deep impact for those you serve.

2 — Having a process to sell it consistently.

That’s what counts.

All of these other “vanity metrics” are just NOISE that can often do more harm than good for your business.

If you have just these 2 pieces, then you have the foundation of a real business that will bring consistent revenue in the door, while creating lasting change for your clients.

Here’s my goal:

I want to make things simple for you.

I want you to focus on only the metrics that really count:

To focus on creating deep impact for your clients…

To focus on adding income and hitting your goals…

To focus on making your business consistent, sustainable and scalable…

To focus on creating freedom for yourself, so you can go out there and live the life you want…

If you have an offer or idea that solves a major problem for your audience, and you’re serious about wanting to build a high-ticket business, I want to invite you to check out our FREE online training: www.clientsondemand.com/discover

This training will take you through the exact steps our clients are using to build and scale their high-ticket business, while taking their customers from “click” to “client” in less than 48 hours.

Go to www.clientsondemand.com/discover to register for this free online presentation today.