Analytics 101: The Only 4 Numbers That Matter Weekly
Most small business owners track too many metrics or none at all. Here are the four numbers you actually need to review every week.
Most small business owners either track nothing or track everything. The first group flies blind. The second group drowns in dashboards they never use.
You need four numbers. Check them every Monday morning. Write them down. Compare them to last week and last month. That's it.
Traffic: how many people saw you this week
This is total website visitors or total social media impressions, depending on where your business lives online. For most local businesses in Vancouver, this means Google Analytics sessions or Instagram profile visits.
Pick one channel. If you run a Kitsilano yoga studio and 80% of your new clients find you on Instagram, track Instagram impressions. If you're a Burnaby law firm and everyone comes through Google, track website sessions.
Don't track both and add them together. You'll double-count people and confuse yourself.
Good weekly traffic for a local business ranges from 200 to 2,000 depending on your market. A neighbourhood coffee shop might see 300 Instagram impressions per week. A regional law firm might get 1,500 website sessions. What matters is the trend, not the absolute number.
Write down this week's number. Compare it to the last four weeks. If it's dropping for three consecutive weeks, you have a visibility problem.
Engagement: how many people actually cared
Traffic means nothing if nobody sticks around. Engagement tells you whether your content or offering resonates.
For websites, track average session duration or pages per session. For social media, track saves plus shares (not likes — likes are worthless).
A good benchmark for local service websites is 90 seconds average session duration. For e-commerce, it's 2+ pages per session. For Instagram, if you're getting saves or shares on more than 3% of your posts, you're doing well.
Most small businesses see engagement drop because they're talking about themselves instead of solving problems. A Vancouver realtor posting sold listings gets low engagement. The same realtor posting "3 red flags in a strata document" gets saves.
If your traffic is steady but engagement is falling, your content has gone stale.
Conversions: how many people took the next step
A conversion is whatever action moves someone closer to becoming a customer. It's not always a sale.
For service businesses, conversions are usually:
- Contact form submissions
- Phone calls (track with a Google forwarding number)
- Appointment bookings
- Email newsletter signups
For retail or e-commerce, it's transactions.
You should be converting 2–5% of your weekly traffic into one of these actions. A Gastown restaurant with 800 website visits per week should see 16–40 reservation requests. A Yaletown fitness studio with 500 Instagram impressions should get 10–25 DM enquiries or link clicks.
If you're converting below 2%, you have a messaging problem or a friction problem. Your offer isn't clear, your call-to-action is buried, or your contact form is broken.
At Zazen Media Group, we see this constantly with small business websites built five years ago and never updated. The business has changed. The website still talks about the old thing. Conversion rates tank.
Revenue per channel: which source actually pays
This is where most people quit tracking, but it's the only number that matters long-term.
You need to know which marketing channel generates revenue, not just traffic. Google Analytics can track this if you set up goals properly. If you don't have that set up, use a simple spreadsheet.
Every time someone becomes a customer, ask them: "How did you find us?" Write it down. Tally it weekly.
After four weeks, you'll see patterns. Maybe 60% of your revenue comes from Google, 30% from Instagram, and 10% from referrals. Now you know where to focus.
A common mistake in Vancouver's competitive small business market is spending equally across all channels. A Mount Pleasant coffee roaster might post daily on Instagram, run Google Ads, maintain a blog, send a newsletter, and stay active on Facebook. They're exhausted and broke.
When they track revenue per channel, they discover 70% of sales come from the email newsletter and 20% from Google. Instagram generates zero revenue. Facebook generates zero revenue. They cut both, double down on email and search, and revenue climbs.
Revenue per channel tells you what to stop doing. That's more valuable than knowing what to start.
How to actually track these four numbers
Don't build a complicated system. Open a Google Sheet. Create four columns:
- Traffic (website sessions or social impressions)
- Engagement (session duration or saves/shares)
- Conversions (forms, calls, bookings)
- Revenue by source (ask every customer)
Every Monday, spend 10 minutes filling in last week's row. That's it.
After four weeks, you'll spot trends. After 12 weeks, you'll know exactly which parts of your marketing work and which parts waste time.
Most small businesses don't have an analytics problem. They have a clarity problem. These four numbers give you clarity.
If you'd like help setting up proper tracking or interpreting what these numbers mean for your specific business, we can walk you through it. But start with the spreadsheet first. You'll be surprised what you learn.