Marketing Metrics for Coaches: Vanity Metrics vs. Meaningful Metrics and What Coaching CEOs Should Track Instead

Most coaching businesses are tracking the wrong numbers.

If your focus is on likes, reach, or follower counts—but you’re not seeing steady client growth—it’s time to rethink what you’re measuring.

Marketing metrics for coaches should go beyond surface-level engagement. To grow sustainably, you need to track conversions, lead quality, client movement through your funnel, and long-term retention.

In this post, you’ll learn how to distinguish vanity metrics from meaningful metrics, shift your focus to data that supports decision-making, and start building a measurement system that aligns with your business goals.

Why More Engagement Doesn’t Always Mean More Clients

If you’ve been measuring likes, comments, and reach but still aren’t seeing steady client growth, it’s time to rethink what you track.

Social media engagement does not always equal business growth.

A viral post might make you feel like your marketing is working, but if it’s not bringing in leads, sales, or long-term clients, it’s not bringing you the right eyeballs for your account. Building an audience is very different than building an engaged ecosystem of your best-fit clients.

The key to sustainable growth isn’t in how many people react to your content, it’s in measuring the right actions that move clients through your ecosystem. Let’s break down the difference between vanity metrics that look good but don’t mean much and meaningful marketing measurement that actually gets you closer to your business goals.

The Problem with Vanity Metrics

It’s easy to get distracted by the numbers that look good but don’t actually mean much. Social platforms reward reach, impressions, likes, and follower counts, so it’s no surprise those metrics have become the default indicators of success.

But here’s the truth most coaching CEOs eventually run into:

• Likes aren’t leads – Someone can double-tap your post without ever reading your caption to know you have an offer, let alone consider it.
• Followers aren’t clients – A growing audience doesn’t guarantee more sales, especially if they’re not the right people or your offers aren’t matching up with who your content is attracting.
• Virality isn’t sustainability – A viral post might bring an influx of attention, but if it doesn’t generate action in your ecosystem beyond that, it’s just an ego boost. (Additionally there isn’t a reliable way to create viral post predictably, therefore not something easily recreated.)

Chasing these metrics can feel productive. They offer quick hits of validation, dopamine, and give you a false sense of momentum. But if they’re not tied to real movement through your ecosystem – DM conversations, lead captures, sales—they’re just digital confetti. Instead of focusing on what looks good, focus on what drives actual business results.

Vanity metrics might look impressive, but they rarely tell you what’s actually driving growth.

If you want your marketing to generate results that matter, stop focusing on what’s visible at a glance and start focusing on what’s moving people deeper into relationship with your work.

What Coaching CEOs Should Measure Instead

If you want predictable, sustainable growth, you need more than content that performs—you need metrics that reflect client movement through your marketing ecosystem.

It’s not about surface-level signals. It’s about tracking the actions that indicate alignment, readiness, and trust.

Instead of counting likes and shares, measure what truly moves the needle:

• Lead Conversion Rate – What percentage of your site visitors are taking action by opting into your resources or booking a call? This tells you how effective your content and offers are at generating real interest.
• Call Bookings & Discovery Sessions – How many people are signaling a deeper level of interest by requesting time with you? This is one of the clearest indicators of buyer intent in a coaching business.
• Email Engagement – Are your subscribers opening, clicking, replying, and moving closer to action? A healthy email list is still one of the strongest ecosystems for nurturing future clients.
• Client Retention & Upsells – Are clients returning for your next-level offers? Are they referring others? These are signs that your delivery and messaging are aligned and your ecosystem is working beyond the first sale.

Action step: Choose one meaningful metric to track this week.

Compare it to where your attention has been. Are you prioritizing what actually contributes to growth or just what’s easiest to see?

Example of What This Looks Like in Practice: 

Let’s say you’ve been focusing on “growing your Instagram”. Your posts are getting likes, comments, and even a few shares and saves. But when you check your calendar, it’s still empty. No discovery calls booked, no new clients.

So you decide to try something different.

You add a free resource to your website, a helpful guide or checklist your ideal clients would want in exchange for their email address. Then you check your Google Analytics to see which places people are coming from when they visit your site and sign up.

After a couple of weeks, you notice something surprising; most people who sign up for your free resource aren’t coming from Instagram. They’re coming from a podcast interview you did or a helpful blog post you wrote that ranks on Google.

Even though Instagram had more activity you could see on your end, it wasn’t the main channel leading your best clients to take action on their journey with you. Now that you know what’s actually working, you can spend less time chasing likes and more time focusing on the places that bring in people ready to work with you. (And getting booked on more podcasts.)

From there, you reallocate your time – less energy on chasing social content and audiences and more focus on building authority through SEO and interviews. You’re not creating more content for the sake of being consistent on social (and seeing little return for that effort), you’re just measuring what actually leads to clients and adjusting where your time and energy go accordingly.

How to Track Meaningful Metrics in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

If you’ve only ever looked at page views or traffic spikes inside Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you’re not alone. Most coaching CEOs either haven’t customized GA4 at all, or they’ve turned it on and hoped for the best, because let’s be real, it’s not exactly user-friendly out of the box if you want it to actually tell you meaningful things about your marketing ecosystem and how it’s performing.

But GA4 has powerful potential if you align it with your strategy.

It’s also not about tracking everything you can. It’s about tracking the right things so you can make better business decisions. That starts with a simple shift:

Moving from “What data can I track?” to asking “What do I need to know to grow smarter or better focus my efforts, investments, and energy?”

Once you answer that, you can start creating a measurement plan that supports your goals. Here are a few of the most valuable metrics coaching CEOs should track:

• Lead Form & Opt-In Submissions – Are your free resources and lead magnets converting?
• Call Bookings & Sales Conversions – Are visitors taking the next step to work with you?
• Engagement with Key Content – Are people staying on your site, reading important pages, and moving forward?
• Client Journey Stages – Where are people dropping off? Where are they saying yes?

You don’t need a full dashboard or a complex setup to get started. Even tracking just one or two key actions (like opt-ins or booked calls) can help you see what’s working, establish your benchmarks, and know where to optimize.

Action Step: Create a simple measurement plan.

Start by listing the top 2–3 client actions you want to track (e.g. booking a call, downloading a resource), and use that list to guide what you track in GA4. Don’t worry about tracking everything – focus on what helps you make smarter decisions.

I also have an entire on-demand workshop I did you can learn more about here. 

Example of What This Looks Like in Practice

Let’s say you’ve activated Google Analytics 4, but every time you open it, all you see are graphs about traffic, engagement rates, and average session duration. None of it tells you whether your freebie is pulling its weight or if anyone is actually booking calls or buying your products.

So instead of continuing to guess, you decide to keep it simple. You write down the two most important actions you want people to take on your site:

1. Downloading your lead magnet/opting-in to your email list.
2. Booking a discovery call.

With that focused list in hand, you (or your tech support person) go into GA4 and set up some basic and custom event tracking to measure when someone completes either action. Now, when you check your analytics, you’re not just looking at traffic, you’re looking at what percentage of your visitors are taking real steps toward working with you (bonus points for also looking at which marketing channels are bringing you those people.)

A few weeks later, you notice that one of your podcast guest appearances is consistently leading to call bookings, while traffic from Instagram isn’t bringing you people that turn into leads or clients. That insight helps you double down on what’s working, without having to post daily just to stay visible on a platform that’s bringing you little return.

Bonus tip – knowing which articles or guest podcasts you’ve been on can inform the content formats and topics that resonate with your best-fit clients the most. Repurpose that content and leverage that information as you build new content or adjust old content to align with what’s working.

This is what it looks like to use data with purpose. You’re not tracking everything so you’re not overwhelmed, only the key things that help you grow.

I also have a full guide on how to get started with Google Analytics 4 you can get for free here.

Measure Engagement That Leads to Action

Not all engagement is created equal.

While it’s easy to focus on likes and comments, those surface-level metrics don’t always signal real interest or buying intent. If you want to know whether your content is actually working, look for engagement that shows the behaviors of people moving closer to action.

Here are a few higher-quality signals to pay attention to:

• Saves & Shares – If someone saves your post or shares it with a friend, that’s a signal they saw value in it. These actions suggest deeper interest than a quick scroll-and-like.
• DMs & Replies – A message or thoughtful response is often the first step in a relationship that can lead to a sale, especially in high-trust service businesses like coaching.
• Website Clicks from Social – Are people clicking over to your site to learn more, join your list, or explore your services? That’s engagement with real intent.

Action Step: Look at your last 90 days of content across all platforms you’re on.

Which posts sparked meaningful action (like replies, shares, or traffic to your site)? Make note of what content and topics are actually moving people forward, not just making them react.

Example of What This Looks Like in Practice

Let’s say you’ve been posting regularly on Instagram, and one post in particular gets fewer likes than usual. You’re tempted to think it flopped.

But then you notice:

• Four people saved it.
• Two people DMed you to say it really resonated.
• And you got a handful of clicks to your “Work With Me” page that same day.

Even though the post didn’t perform by “typical” engagement standards, it started conversations and moved people deeper into your ecosystem. That’s real traction.

So next time, instead of judging your post by how many hearts it got, you review the private signals it generated and realize this kind of content is exactly what your best-fit clients care about. That’s what you create more of.

This is the shift from performing for algorithms to creating with purpose.

Why Meaningful Metrics Matter More Than Virality

At first glance, a post that reaches 100,000 people might feel like a win. But if it doesn’t spark conversations, generate leads, or result in sales what did it actually do for your business?

Now ask yourself this:

Would you rather…

• Have a post go viral with zero conversions, or
• Reach a smaller, more aligned audience that results in 10 new leads and paying clients?

Visibility is only valuable when it leads to trust, action, and transformation.

Virality might grow your follower count, but meaningful metrics grow your business. Your most effective content doesn’t always explode with engagement—it quietly builds relationships, nurtures decision-making, and moves people deeper into your ecosystem.

The true measure of marketing success isn’t how many people saw it. It’s how many people took a step toward working with you.

What this looks like in practice:

You publish two posts in the same week.

1. One is a trendy take on a popular topic. It takes off! There are hundreds of likes, tons of views, even a few saves and shares. But after the initial buzz, nothing happens. No replies or DMs. No influx of new names for your email list or booked-out calendar. No actual movement in your business.
2. The other post shares a personal insight tied to your unique process. It gets fewer likes, and the reach is a fraction of the first one, BUT two people reply with questions about your coaching, and one of them books a discovery call and turns into a client.

Which post actually moved your business forward?

It wasn’t the viral one. It was the one that resonated with the right people.

This is why coaching CEOs need to stop chasing reach for reach’s sake. When your marketing focuses on depth over volume, you build trust, spark action, and create sustainable growth.

Shift from Vanity Metrics to Business Growth

By now, you can see the pattern: metrics that look impressive aren’t always the ones that drive real results. If you want your marketing to be more than just noise, you have to track what actually matters to your business.

It’s time to shift from surface-level engagement to data that supports aligned growth—the kind that leads to real clients, not just random attention.

Start tracking:

• Lead generation and conversions – Where are your best-fit clients coming from? What content or platforms lead to real action?
• Client movement through your funnel and journeys – What are the actual steps people take before they say “yes” to working with you?
• Retention and repeat business – Are clients coming back, moving into your next-level offers, or referring others?

When you measure what matters, you don’t just feel productive; you become more strategic, intentional, and sustainable in how you grow.

Let’s Make It Practical

Coaching CEOs:

What’s one metric you’re tracking right now that actually contributes to business growth? Drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear what you’re focusing on.

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