🧠 Stop Focusing On Irrelevant Metrics

Happy Tuesday,

Welcome back to the 22nd edition of the Nord Media newsletter.

Before we get started – Is there anything specific you’re wanting to learn about? Let me know, as always I appreciate all of you that reply each week and share feedback with me.

This week, I wanted to talk about something that tends to irk me quite a bit.

Metrics.

It’s not the concept of metrics itself that I don’t like,

Metrics are vital, and you need them to scale your business successfully. 

It’s about all these “mini metrics” that “gurus” swear by.

“You need to measure x, y, z, and more if you wanna do 100k/mo” 

Here’s my hot take on that:

The mini-metrics don’t matter

I see so many brands fascinated by the concept of tracking vanity metrics.

CPM, new customer %, etc, but it has no impact on any of their revenue goals. 

Sure, certain times specific metrics can be valuable and insightful, 

but they shouldn’t be the driving factors behind major decisions.

Because focusing on the wrong metrics or not understanding what specific metrics mean for your business will give you misleading results and put you off course.

Your life will become A LOT easier when you understand the “core” metrics to focus on as a business owner trying to reach 8 figures+. 

Metrics don’t always have to look “good”. 

I’ve had highly profitable brands with $100+ CPM. It just depends on the target demo, niche, and goals. 

Don’t let someone tell you your metrics are wrong if they’re performing. 

Take a step back, look at the whole picture, and ensure that your review drives results and matters.

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Using Metrics That ACTUALLY Matter

Ok, now that we’ve established that not all metrics are worth your time,

Which ones are?

For Email:

• Opens - You need opens for people to get the message / be able to click.

• Clicks - Clicks are the most important as they are what will drive revenue through the website. 

You shouldn’t be selling in your emails. Use them to get clicks and let your website drive the conversion

For Ads:

Starting from the top…

• ROAS / CPA—These determine whether your brand is profitable. If they aren’t where they need to be, stop worrying about anything else until you solve this. 

Other factors influence these metrics, but ultimately, this is what drives incremental growth and profitability. 

If you’re not getting clicks, fix your ads.

• CTR / CPC—The same concept as email: people can’t buy if they don’t click. Make sure your ads resonate well enough with your audience to drive clicks. 

If people aren’t clicking, your creatives probably suck. Focus on creative testing to drive clicks that yield profitable conversions. 

Creative metrics:

• Thumbstop, Hold Ratio, and Unique CTR all provide insight into your creative performance. 

However, this only matters once you have ads that are converting well and showing results. 

You can then use these metrics to implement strategic testing and analyze what’s working, where it’s working, and where you need to improve. 

High thumb stop but low hold ratio? Your hook is solid, but your follow-up sucks. 

Low thumb stop? Your hook needs work

High thumb stop + high hold but low CTR? Your offer/value wasn’t compelling enough to drive a click.

Funnel Metrics:

• Add to cart / Cost per add to cart 

• Started checkout/cost per started checkout

Monitoring these metrics shows you where your audience is falling off. 

If you’re getting good clicks and the website flow is going well, but people aren’t adding to their cart, you likely have a PDP / Landing page issue. 

If people are adding to their cart but not heading to checkout, your cart isn’t strong enough to convince them. 

Each has different solutions, but ultimately, our goal is to provide enough social proof, foundation, and value to your customer that they go to the cart → checkout → purchase.

IRL Example

We recently audited an account where the brand owner and marketer were extremely focused on CPC and new customer acquisition.

AKA “mini metrics.”

Because they were centered on these, they failed to realize that their overall business growth over the last year had become stagnant, and their MER dropped 30% year over year. 

Even though they were capturing tons of traffic and generating net new customers, 

Trying to prioritize more traffic resulted in declining results and overall poor efficiency. 

Although they’re generating high six figures monthly, they still had a mindset planted by their previous agency, which focused on metrics already performing well. 

They lost sight of the big picture.

Final Thoughts

As a founder/business owner, you must understand which metrics are worth prioritizing. 

Obsessing over the small things may create the illusion of growth in the short term, 

But your focus needs to shift towards long-term sustainable growth.

I hope this guide acts as a starting point for figuring out which metrics will help you do so. 

🧠 My Personal Product Recommendations for You
Creative OS - Make better ads, faster. Creative OS is the perfect way to improve your creative workflow and test more ads / landing pages faster. I personally use Creative OS at my agency & brand. It’s allowed our design team to drastically improve their creative output so we can test more faster and improve CaC across the board.

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Have a specific question or something I can help with? Shoot me a message on twitter and I’ll typically answer within 24 hours 👉 Twitter 

Want to learn from me or connect on other platforms? 👇
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Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.
Sincerely,
Kody