Almost everyone does it in their accountant marketing, and it should be avoided as much as possible.
Vanity metrics is a term used to refer to data which, on its own, carries little value to your brand, marketing or revenue. Yet accountants and marketers alike often obsess over them, because they appear “flashy” or gratifying to look at.
In this post, we’re going to look at some of the classic vanity metrics which distract accountants from their crucial marketing goals. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to sift through the low-hanging through and ask the really important questions, such as:
“What does this table or graph actually mean?”
“Should we keep on doing that, and in this fashion?”
“Will spending more money on this marketing channel bring tangible, measurable results?”
Let’s dive in.
Vanity Metric #1: Twitter Followers
Twitter is an interesting platform when it comes to financial services. It can be an appropriate marketing channel for you to consider, especially if you are a larger accounting firm with multiple offices and a sizable client base spread throughout the country.
For smaller accounting firms looking to improve their digital engagement, SEO and social strategy, you are probably better off focusing on other channels. That said, even for accounting firms where Twitter is a valid marketing tool, it is easy to get distracted by vanity metrics.
The big one is “Followers.” It can be tempting to obsess over how many you have, relentlessly monitoring whether they are increasing or decreasing over time. The fact is, most people tend to “Follow” Twitter accounts due to reasons that are unrelated to their actual interest in you.
For instance, many people follow a Twitter account simply to get that account to follow them back. If you do not, then they will often “Un-Follow” you soon afterwards.
So what is a worthwhile metric, when it comes to Twitter followers? Competitor followers.
Who is following your closest competitors? If these people appear to be relevant, potential clients for your business, and they are not following you, they you are losing out on business.
You can use a tool like FollowerWonk to analyse your own Twitter followers next to your competitors’. Find out what kind of content these followers like to digest, and see which conversations you can contribute to in order to drive traffic and engagement to your website.
Vanity Metric #2: Page Views on blog Posts
Don’t get us wrong, Page Views on your blog can be a positive sign. It shows, for instance, that people are finding your content, and suggests that you are establishing a degree of thought leadership for your brand. All good things for accountant SEO.
However, what Page Views cannot tell you is how your readers arrived at your content. In themselves, they do not show whether your posts are actually answering your audiences’ questions and needs in a meaningful way. Moreover, they don’t tell you how long people spent reading your content, or what actions they took as a result of reading it (e.g. picking up the phone to make an enquiry/appointment).
So what metrics are meaningful is this respect for your accountant marketing?
The answer isn’t necessarily straight forward. For instance, we read one blog recently on a marketing website which claimed “Bounce Rate” is the more important metric (i.e. the percentage of people who click through to more than one page on your website).
A low bounce rate, therefore, is the sign of high engagement – since people are looking through your content for more value. However, what if your accoutant website comprises simply one page – i.e. a bespoke, scrolling home page? There aren’t any other pages for the user to scroll through!
Even if you have a multi-page website, a low bounce rate in itself doesn’t necessarily show high engagement. For example, people might have arrived at your website looking for an answer to a specific question about their finances, but can’t find it. So they quickly flick through several pages to look for it, before soon giving up and leaving the site in exasperation.
Another possible answer to the above question is “Session Duration” – i.e. how long people spend, on average, on each page of your website. A longer session duration, therefore, indicates a higher level of engagement with your accountant marketing, because it suggests people are taking the time to stop and read your content.
In our view, this metric – session duration – is the more important one to consider in the context of accountant marketing. In general, people with financial questions tend to recognise that the answers they need are complicated, and will take time to sift through and explain.
For instance, the answer to the question: “How Do I Fill Out My First Tax Return?” Is probably going to take many thousands of words to answer in a blog post, podcast or short video on an accountants’ website. The audience tends to know this, so if they find the content they are looking for they tend to actually focus on reading it.
Of course, the other big metric to look out for is “Conversions” – i.e. how many people take a meaningful action on your website. This could be an eBook download, a contact form submission, or calling a Google forwarding number on your website.
Vanity Metric #3: Website Rankings
This one will probably sound strange. “You are an accountant marketing agency working in the digital sphere”, we hear you say. “Aren’t you shooting yourself in the foot by saying that?”
Not really, and here’s why. Increased website rankings, by themselves, do not add much value to your accountant marketing. Rather, what matters is the kind of search terms you are ranking for, and the engagement metrics which result from your organic traffic.
An example should illustrate what we mean. Suppose you look in your analytic reporting, and find your accountant website is ranking highly for “financial advice, Lincoln”. That might make you feel good, but consider the following questions:
- What kind of search volume does that keyword have? It could be 100 monthly searches, or 10.
- Do you even have an office presence in Lincoln, or are you looking to grow your client base there?
- Do you offer regulated, independent financial advice? Can you actually even offer what the prospect is looking for? (Some accountants do, and others don’t).
Suppose, however, that your answers to the above questions are positive. I.e. there are high volumes of people making the search every month, you are targeting the geographic area and you can meet the users’ needs with your value proposition. How are they engaging with your content once they click through onto your website?
Do your visitors find the right web page, for instance? It could be that people searching “financial advice, Lincoln” actually arrive on your landing page detailing your accounting services. This isn’t really relevant to what the user is looking for.
On the other hand, it could be that your accountant marketing has in fact directed the user to the right page. However, how long is the user staying there to digest your content. Do they bounce off straight away, or do they stay for a few minutes and read? Do they ignore your call to actions, or do they phone your business number or download your white paper in exchange for their email address?
In light of this, you should indeed track your website rankings, but don’t get distracted by big, pretty tracking systems which obscure the finer details. Consider each keyword in turn that your website is ranking for – or failing to rank for. What is the search potential, and is the user search even relevant or meaningful to your business if you were to rank highly for it?
