Is your small business struggling to make sense of the truckloads of data offered by Facebook Insights or any of the other hundred-odd analytic tools meant to ‘help’ you succeed? In this article I’ll identify the six Facebook metrics your small business doesn’t have to obsess about. And I’ll give you the six that you do need to pay attention to.

1. 6 Facebook
Metrics Small
Businesses
Shouldn’t
Obsess Over

3. 6 Facebook Metrics to Ignore and 6 to Watch
Page Likes < Number of People Engaged
Ad Impressions < Landing Page Conversion Rates
CPC and CPM < CPA
Page Views < Post CTR
Post Reach < Post Engagement
People Reached < People Engaged
1
3
2
4
5
6

4. Ignore Page Likes
Watch Number of People Engaged
1

5. Ignore Page Likes
All Likes show is your potential audience. Unless you’re converting those Followers
to customers it’s just another random number.
It’s better to have 100 Page Likes by people who are converting weekly than 1000
who Liked your Page and haven’t returned.
Focus on achieving Page Likes as a means to an end rather than an end in and of
themselves.
1
2
3

6. Watch Number of People Engaged
This metric details how many people
engaged (clicked, Liked, Shared or
Commented on) with your Posts.
The metric provides you with the
best assessment of how your
marketing strategy has been panning
out in the time frame you’ve
outlined.
1
2

7. Ignore Ad Impressions
Watch Landing Page Conversion
Rates
2

8. Ignore Ad Impressions
Ad Impressions measure the number of times your advertisement is displayed.
People may see multiple impressions of the same advertisement.
Ad Impressions give you an inflated perception of your ad’s auccess
There’s no way of knowing if your Ad was seen by 1.1 million people, or 100,000
people ten times.
1
2
3

9. Watch Landing Page Conversion Rates
Tracking your conversion rate is essential as without it you can’t know if all the
energy you’re spending on Facebook is resulting in real income.
Conversion rates help you evaluate if there’s a need for a change on your landing
page, or if something you’ve recently implemented is beneficial or detrimental.
The best way to track a Facebook Ad’s success off-site is with a Conversion Pixel.
1
2
3
A landing page is a page on your website with a clear
value proposition and call-to-action. Your landing page
is the most important part of your website as it’s where
you convert a social media user into a customer.

10. Ignore CPC and CPM
Watch CPA
3

11. Ignore CPC and CPM
While CPM and CPC provide context, they don’t tell you how successful your
advertisement is or has been in terms of anything you need to know.1
CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) and CPC
(Cost Per Click) are exactly what they sound like,
the cost of an advertisement or promoted Post
divided by 1000 Impressions, and the cost of an
advertisement or promoted Post divided by # of
Clicks.

12. Watch CPA
Cost per Action is
your most important
Ad metric. Simply
choose which Action
you want your Ad to
elicit and Ads
Manager will watch it
for you.
1
Conversion Tracking Pixels are the only way to measure the off-site success of your
Facebook advertisement.
If you want more information about Facebook advertising for small businesses, I
highly recommend Jon Loomer’s article How to Measure Facebook Advertising
Success.and my article 4 Ways to Combat Facebook Ad Fatigue.
2

13. Ignore Page Views
Watch Post CTR
4

14. Ignore Page Views
Facebook users spend almost all of their time in their News Feed
Unless you’re running a Facebook contest on Facebook itself you are unlikely to be
driving people to your Page at all.
Instead of focusing on promoting your Facebook Page itself, use Facebook Posts
and ads to move users to your business’ landing page.
1
2
3

15. Watch Post CTR
CTR is the bottom of your Facebook content funnel as it measures action
Your bottom line is knowing how many people were interested in your Posts enough
to act on your Calls-to-Action.
1
2

16. Ignore Post Reach
Watch Post Engagement
55

17. Ignore Post Reach
Your Post’s Reach is largely unimportant compared to your Post’s Engagement.
As a small business you’re on Facebook to convert Fans to customers, not see how
many customers you’re talking to.
1
2

18. Watch Post Engagement
Having your Post viewed by a lot of people is largely meaningless if they don’t
interact with it. Engagement measures this interaction.
Dividing Engagement by Reach gives you a way to tell if good Engagement on a
specific post is due to the quality of your content, or if it was simply shown to
more people.
1
2

19. Ignore People Reached
Watch People Engaged
6

20. Ignore People Reached
The People Reached metric tells you less than the People Engaged metric.
You don’t particularly care about the demographics of who saw your posts - only
who clicked, Liked, Shared, commented, or otherwise interacted with them.
1
2

21. Watch People Engaged
The People Engaged metric is vital to ensure your content is reaching your target
audience
People Engaged shows changes in your demographic.
If you’ve been writing demographically-focused posts this metric will tell you if
you’re succeeding in targeting your audience
1
2
3

22. Thank you for viewing!
Check out blog.wishpond.com for more!
Wishpond makes it easy to run social media
marketing campaigns.
Learn more at Wishpond.com