Module 1: Decide what to measure
Analytics fails when you measure everything and understand nothing. This module narrows your world to the handful of numbers that drive decisions.
Start from the money, work backward
Forget pageviews. Write down how your business makes money: what does a customer do right before paying you? They call, they fill a quote form, they book a consultation, they buy online. Those actions are your conversions — the only website events that matter. Everything you set up in this course exists to answer one question: which marketing efforts produce conversions?
Most small businesses do this backward. They install analytics, stare at traffic graphs, and feel productive — while having no idea whether last month's marketing produced a single customer. Traffic is a means, not an end. A page with 10,000 visitors and zero quote requests is a failure; a page with 200 visitors and 12 calls is a goldmine. Until you define conversions, every report you read is just weather — interesting, but useless for decisions.
Build brief
How does your business make money, step by step — and what is the single action a visitor takes right before becoming a paying customer?
Saved
KPIs by business type
Different businesses need different dashboards. Lead generation (contractors, lawyers, clinics): track calls, form submissions, and cost per lead by channel. E-commerce: track revenue, conversion rate, and average order value by traffic source. Local walk-in businesses: track direction requests, calls, and "get quote" actions. Content/media: track email signups and the signup rate per article.
Write your index card now: business type, your 3–5 KPIs, and where each number comes from (you'll fill in the "where" as you work through the course). Pin it above your desk. Every future analytics decision gets judged against this card.
A quick test for each KPI: if it dropped 30% next month, would you do something different? If yes, it belongs on the card. If you'd shrug and move on, it's decoration. Most businesses discover that two or three numbers drive nearly every decision — usually one volume metric (how many), one efficiency metric (at what cost), and one quality metric (how good). Start there and resist the urge to add more until a real decision demands it.
Fit your business
KPIs by business type
| Business type | Track |
|---|---|
| Lead generation | Calls, form submissions, cost per lead by channel |
| E-commerce | Revenue, conversion rate, average order value by source |
| Local walk-in | Direction requests, calls, quote actions |
| Content / media | Email signups, signup rate per article |
Importing someone else's KPIs. A restaurant tracking e-commerce conversion rates, or a consultant obsessing over pageviews, is measuring someone else's business. Your 3–5 numbers must map to your revenue path — if you can't draw the line from metric to money, delete it.
Build brief
If you could only know three numbers about your marketing each month, which three would tell you whether you are winning or losing?
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The questions analytics must answer monthly
Before touching any tool, write the five questions you'll ask every month: (1) Where did our leads/customers come from? (2) Which channel is improving vs. declining? (3) What did we spend, and what did it return? (4) Where do visitors drop off before converting? (5) What will we do differently next month? If your setup can't answer these five, it's incomplete — and you'll know exactly what's missing.
Notice question 5: analytics without action is entertainment. Commit now to one monthly decision driven by the numbers: shift budget, fix a page, kill a channel, double down on a winner. The monthly report in Module 6 is built around forcing this decision.
Also decide who owns the numbers. In a small business, that's you, 30 minutes a month. Name the day (first Monday works well) and put a recurring calendar event on it now. Unscheduled analytics doesn't happen.
Five questions, one decision
The monthly contract
MY MONTHLY 5 QUESTIONS
1. Where did our leads/customers come from?
2. Which channel is improving vs. declining?
3. What did we spend, and what did it return?
4. Where do visitors drop off before converting?
5. What will we do differently next month?
Owner: [name] · Review day: first Monday monthly
Write your index card: business type, your 3–5 KPIs, and where each number comes from. Pin it where you'll see it. Everything in Modules 2–5 exists to fill in this card.
A plumbing company gets most jobs from phone calls. What's its #1 conversion to track?
Your turn: Write your index card — your business type, your 3–5 KPIs, and where each number comes from. If a metric would not change a decision, leave it off.
Saved.