How to pick the right metrics for your website?
You can track almost any activity you want on your site with modern web analytics tools. And the process has only gotten simpler during the last decade.
It’s now extremely affordable and easy to track anything and everything you want for your website. Plus, the need for making “data-driven decisions” has never been higher.
This has caused a “metric-overload.” The excitement to get to track everything takes away from the clarity and value of useful metrics. It’s even worse if the site owner is already confused about the site’s purpose.
Many sites track too many metrics. If some metrics seem to be performing bad, the next action is to add a few more metrics.
But extra metrics doesn’t always mean extra insights –– but in many cases, more confusion. In other words, this gives the illusion of doing something right in the online world but actually counts for more motion and less movement.
The question, though, is which metrics are actually useful for a website to track. This begs for the fundamental question to be resurfaced: what is the purpose of analytics? And how to decide which ones to track for your website.
- What is the purpose of analytics?
- What is the purpose of my website?
- Which metrics do we track at Plausible and why?
- Tips for choosing the right metrics
- Mission drives metrics
What is the purpose of analytics?
Analytics exists to show light in a dark and confusing room. It exists to show facts: the health of a website (and to an extent, the business or entity with the website) and bring objectivity to help create any strategies.
It is to turn complex and unorganized data into useful information, i.e., to simplify complex stuff and eventually create the most effective and actionable strategy. Strategy to reach an end-goal, which is usually earning money, but websites can still (and usually do) have different purposes as we will see below.
What are metrics?
Metrics are the things you see on your dashboard. Anything that can be measured on your site is a metric. For eg. pageviews, bounce rate, exit rate, conversions, conversion rate, screen size, etc.
For a fuller overview, you can see the list of metrics our subscribers track with Plausible.
What is the purpose of my website?
In a typical website, there are far too many things that can be tracked: which buttons were clicked, how much time was spent on which page, which conversions occurred, which forms were filled, if the light or dark mode was enabled, which browser was the traffic from Germany using, if the traffic from Reddit signed up for the newsletter, and endless more.
It’s not about tracking everything. It’s about tracking the right things that align with your website’s purpose. If you end up tracking a lot, it defeats the purpose of analytics and causes more confusion than clarity.
So take time to think about what your website is meant to do and match that purpose with that of analytics.
For eg., The purpose of the website of an educational institution is to provide learning materials, communicate with students, and offer online courses. So their performance metrics can be:
- Enrollment rate: Percentage of site visitors who enroll in courses.
- Course completion rate: Percentage of students completing online courses. (if relevant)
- Bounce rate: Visitors who leave after visiting only one page (important for course pages).
- User engagement: Time spent on learning resources or tutorials.
- Return visitors: Students returning for more content or courses.
This is quite contrasting to an e-commerce website. Its purpose is to help consumers browse, research, and purchase products or services. So it makes sense for them to track the following:
- Conversion rate: Percentage of visitors who make a purchase.
- Cart abandonment rate: Percentage of visitors who add items to their cart but don’t complete the purchase.
- Average Order Value (AOV): The average value of each order placed.
- Traffic sources: Identifying where visitors are coming from (paid ads, organic search, etc.).
- Customer lifetime value (CLV): How much revenue a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime.
Even the most complex businesses can be reduced to a high-level simple definition. It may help to start there.
Even better: if you know what your mission as an entity is (for eg. it’s Plausible’s mission to spread privacy-friendly and simple analytics).
Here are a few more examples to get you thinking:
- A service-based business might focus on tracking contact form submissions, appointment bookings, or phone calls to measure interest in their offerings.
- A nonprofit organization could prioritize tracking donations, volunteer sign-ups, or petition submissions to measure support for their cause.
- An educational website might track course enrollments, student progress, or the completion rate of online modules.
- A portfolio website for creatives may want to measure the number of views on specific projects, inquiries for services, or downloads of resumes or portfolios.
- A news or media website might track page views, ad revenue, and social media shares to gauge the popularity of articles and overall site traffic.
- A membership site could focus on tracking membership sign-ups, retention rates, or content engagement from members.
- A community-based website may prioritize metrics like forum activity, member interactions, or event participation to gauge user involvement and community growth.
Every other metric is simply noise, unless there’s a good purpose to track it. For eg., it’s okay to track how many mobile users an e-commerce site has if you plan to make a mobile application for it.
Purposeful metrics will bring clarity, and others can distract you from the main goal. Let’s take Plausible’s case.
Which metrics do we track at Plausible and why?
We are an analytics tool ourselves and it is the easiest for us to track whatever we want but we keep it limited to only a handful of metrics, as is visible in our live dashboard.
Our marketing philosophy and bias towards simplicity play as anchors in deciding what to track. Our marketing philosophy is to create content that:
- Educates new people about privacy-friendly analytics and that a solution like Plausible exists, and
- Keeps our existing stakeholders informed.
We don’t exactly do any lead nurturing, promos or retention programs for example. That’s because we believe once the person has been aptly informed about Plausible and privacy-friendly analytics, our job is more or less done.
No more tactics are needed to nurture the people and “feed the metrics” for a short-term illusion of success. Meanwhile, we try to take care of things like retention with the highest quality of product and support.
This helps us decide on which metrics to track, and more importantly what not to track.
For instance: in order to follow our mission and marketing philosophy, we have some core pages on our site: the Plausible vs Google Analytics page, simple analytics, in-built compliance with privacy laws, our privacy-first nature, high accuracy of analytics, etc. Basically it’s everything in our site’s navbar and footer.
So we see if the unique views on these pages are increasing over time, and if the time on page remains adequately high. If it’s not the case, we can analyze the reasons with the dashboard’s help and take corrective actions as necessary.
We also need to understand how many sign ups we get, as that too is tied to our mission of spreading privacy-first analytics and helps measure the progress as a business. So we track it as a goal in Plausible.
But we have never tracked our pricing section for example. Similarly, we don’t track which of the “Get started” buttons on the homepage brings the most registrations.
We could and it would be a nice to know information but that doesn’t help us because it’s comparatively trivial to the other main metrics that help us keep simplicity and clarity. And that is exactly the kind of noise site owners should cut out.
It may be helpful to start looking at the following tips.
Tips for choosing the right metrics
Don’t track everything
If you track too many things, especially without purpose, it can lead to “analysis paralysis.” It’s the feeling of being overwhelmed with data (rather, being trapped in an endless maze of data) and not knowing what to do with it.
Doing it might show you a lot of activity, but what’s it all telling you? Tracking too many metrics can distract you from your main goal.
Instead, focus on a few key metrics that truly reflect your website’s performance and health. For example, if you are a Health and Wellness website, its purpose can be to share fitness plans, nutrition advice, and wellness tips. So, only track the following:
- Page views: Number of visits to specific health or wellness articles.
- Conversion rate: Sign-ups for fitness plans, consultations, or online sessions.
- Social media referrals: Frequency of the site’s content being shared on social media and how much traffic it brings.
Align metrics with individual team’s goals
Each part of your business will have different priorities. For example:
- Marketing might want to track traffic sources and campaign performance, like how many visitors come from ads or social media.
- Sales teams might care about conversion rates—how many visitors turn into paying customers.
- Customer service might want to know how many people contact you for help or leave reviews.
It’s okay to track it all from a single dashboard as long as internal clarity is present and they all connect back to overall business goals. This also keeps everyone aligned and focused on what matters most.
A good rule of thumb is: if your web analytics tool only allowed for the three most important metrics to be tracked, what would you pick?
Track metrics over time
One of the most important things to remember is that metrics should be tracked over time, not just on a single day or week. Trends are often more valuable than isolated data points.
For example, tracking how page views on your site increase over several months tells you if your content is becoming more popular. A sudden drop in traffic might tell you there’s a problem, but understanding these patterns over time helps you spot opportunities or risks early.
Keep it simple
In the end, simplicity is key. Choose a small set of important metrics that will give you the clearest picture of your website’s performance. Simple metrics will attract simple clarity and actionable strategies.
You can always adjust or add more metrics as you grow, but start simple and build from there.
Mission drives metrics
Do you have a web analytics tool on your website? Why? What according to you is important to track on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis? If your answer is just revenue, think again. Think about the website’s purpose from your customers’ perspective.
Do you track some metrics because everyone does or do they serve a purpose? Is it form submission rates? Time on page? Or exit rates? Why? What can be cut from this?
All the best! :)
