Internet Marketing Metrics That DON'T Drive Success

Metrics are essential to refining and improving an inbound marketing strategy. But not all metrics are valuable. From the Hubspot Blog, here are five metrics that aren't worth stressing over, and some alternatives.

Comments
Comments can gauge the level of discussion about a piece of content, but comments aren't indicative of success. The reason? Comments don't equate to leads, which should be your goal.
Alternative: Measure referrals and leads from social media to your website.

Open Rate
Many email readers don't accurately reflect whether an email gets opened. Even if open rate was accurately measured, it doesn't tell you anything about who took action from reading the email.
Alternative: Click-through rate, conversion rate, and email leads are easier to measure and more impactful on your goals.

Impressions
Impressions measure how often an ad is displayed (loaded) on a webpage, but not whether it gets clicked. As with the previously mentioned metrics, it doesn't measure any action.
Alternative: Click-through rate, conversion rate, and leads generated from ads are better metrics of paid marketing efforts.

Followers
The number of followers measures your marketing reach, but that doesn't always translate to leads or conversions to customers.
Alternative: Optimize your social media efforts for lead generations. Measure traffic, leads and customers from social media.

Sentiment
Strive to have a positive brand image, but realize that all companies and brands will have detractors. And because of social media, negative opinions are cheap and easy to throw out into the ether. Focus on handling criticism appropriately and with grace.
Alternative: Obviously, measuring sales is a better indicator of your goals. Sales mean that people like your offering.

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