I disagree with Sal's answer that you shouldn't be pitching at conferences. I built a good chunk of my early network doing exactly that. To be clear though, Sal is right that most investors hate being "pitched" at a conference and that's because the vast majority of founders do it completely wrong. The right way is to selectively identify people that are attending that conference by screening them for relevancy and interest.

It's your job to know who is in the room and to find the people most likely to be excited about what you're doing. The right way to do this is to use a combination of LinkedIn, Twitter, AngelList and Google to map attendees to relevancy of your company. You're looking for prior operational interest or successful investments that have similarities but not competitive overlap to your own business. Approaching them with a relevant and respectful opening line that makes it clear you know what they're about is a great way to start. And then either they will ask you what you're doing or you can find the opportunity to explain what you're doing. If they take interest, say that you'd love to reach-out and talk more in a few weeks time.

The most important thing is not to press hard on closed doors and don't waste their time or yours trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.

The founders job is to be always raising awareness and building an army of people that are excited about and potentially helpful to the company at all times. As to the metrics that matter, Sal is correct that without knowing what kind of company you have, it's impossible to provide a useful answer to that specific part of the question.

Happy to talk in more detail anytime.