5 Metrics Every Business Should Track

Measuring your business’s financial performance can sometimes seem as complex as measuring the rate at which a black hole rotates (unless you're an astrophysicist, in which case we apologize). Such measurement, however, is necessary given that the need to prove the value of marketing and social media has never been greater.

Our advice? Keep things as simple and easy to interpret as possible. To get you started, here are five metrics we often recommend businesses of all sizes to track.

1. Revenue

Probably the most obvious metric but also the easiest to lose track of, revenue is vital for every business to thrive. Being able to see your revenue not only as a static number at the end of the day, but in real-time allows you to take action immediately. SumAll visualizes your revenue as it comes in so you can spot problems faster and optimize earlier to minimize any revenue losses.

2. Costs

It can be hard to tell sometimes if your costs are exceeding your profits. It could be that all those discounts and Facebook giveaways are eating away at your bottom line. Knowing what your fixed costs are vs. variable is important (for small businesses especially) so you always have a pulse on your business expenditures.

3. New vs Returning Customers

Based on our thorough analysis of customer buying habits, satisfying the immediate needs of returning customers is critical because they spend more money than new customers. It’d be wise to treat your returning customers as preferred patrons; a segment that you should focus marketing efforts on because of their reliability and the safety they provide your business during lean economic times. Another benefit to profiling your return customers: you don’t need to keep spending to acquire their business.

4. Traffic

Learn where your customers are coming from and what they are worth to identify which channel is working for you. Doing paid advertising through multiple channels? Tools like Google Analytics lets you see which of your channels is acquiring more customers allowing you to identify the ROI on each channel. By seeing not only how much traffic you’re receiving but also where it’s coming from, you can choose to spend your money in smarter ways that will maximize your returns.

5. Trends

Analyzing patterns and trends is another early indicator of the overall well being of your business. Understand what a normal business day is like for you by paying attention to daily, weekly, monthly and even seasonal spikes. That way if something suddenly goes amiss, it’ll be easier to course correct before it’s too late. Not seeing that usual bump in your sales Wednesday afternoon? Maybe you forgot to tweet out your weekly Tuesday discount special. The same goes for site visits – maybe that blog post never got published causing you to see a drop in visits.

It should go without saying, but you’ll need to reevaluate and adjust your metrics as your business priorities change. Every week, month, and quarter is a new opportunity to test and refine your ability to set and track metrics that will drive growth, so why not get started today?