As a marketer, it can be easy to get caught up in the allure of vanity metrics. After all, they’re often flashy and impressive, showing off huge numbers of views, clicks, and likes. But as the saying goes, "you can’t manage
what you don’t measure." And if you’re measuring the wrong things, you’re not going to be able to manage your marketing campaigns effectively.
Vanity metrics create an illusion of good results, but they don’t provide valuable information that can be acted upon, and can sit outside an organization’s control. The largest advertisers, who have gigantic digital ad budgets, are often the most at
risk of ad fraud. They incentivize ad fraud by purchasing so many ads that there isn’t enough real human activity to absorb all that budget.
One factor contributing to the problem is the pressure on marketers and designers to show immediate results, despite the iterative nature of marketing and design work. Additionally, default configurations of most software designed to track metrics do
not provide strategic insights without knowledgeable users. The popular metrics for touchpoints like social media "likes," app downloads, and website visits are intrinsically vain and can sit outside of an organization's control.
These advertisers are also the most willing to delude themselves with data. They see what they want to see, and the legacy fraud verification companies they pay for
often don't tell them anything useful. This can lead to misguided strategic decisions, poor reporting, and an expectation of unrealistic outcomes.
The impact of vanity metrics is far-reaching and can be slow to take effect. They can sway a business off-course and obscure business goals. However, there are ways to operationalize vanity metrics to turn them into useful information that can be
acted upon.
Vanity metrics can also lead to poor decision-making, such as chasing bigger numbers and focusing on the wrong channels and creatives. This approach can be built on a weak or untrue assumption and can be swayed by influences outside of an organization's control. Without context, reports on vanity metrics offer no relevant data that can inform the next steps for
businesses.
One way to provide context to a metric is to measure it within a time frame. This allows changes in a metric to be correlated with changes to the marketing campaign or product design. Another way is to use ratios to provide context. This allows the correlation between two metrics to be used to obtain more nuanced information.
Per-user and per-visit tracking can also be useful for pinpointing useful or problematic webpages. Additionally, segmenting users into cohorts can provide further insight as to how many users are converting.
But the problem with vanity metrics goes deeper than just how they’re measured. The very channels that these metrics are tracked on
offer the metrics themselves, creating an illusion of success. It’s difficult to get strategic insight without the touch of a knowledgeable user, which is why many marketers and designers turn to vanity metrics in their reporting.
Marketers and designers are often under pressure from their executives to show immediate results. In response to this pressure, they turn to vanity metrics in
their reporting because they’re easy to obtain and allude to some semblance of success. However, this is in opposition to the nature of marketing and design work, which are iterative and generally improve over time.
The default configuration of most software designed to track and analyze metrics does little in terms of providing strategic insight. This is because the very channels these
software track readily offer the aforementioned metrics of “likes,” “visits,” and “clicks.” Understandably, most people like the platform that tells them they’re successful.
But the problem with vanity metrics is that they don’t provide any useful information that can be acted upon. They create an illusion of success, but they’re often far from the truth. They also lead to misguided
strategic decisions that can be detrimental to a business.
So what can you do to avoid vanity metrics? First and foremost, it’s important to measure what matters. Don’t get caught up in flashy metrics that don’t actually drive business outcomes. Instead, focus on metrics that are tied to revenue and other business outcomes.
It’s also important to look beyond the surface-level metrics and dig deeper into the data. Use ratios and segment users into cohorts to gain a more nuanced understanding of how your campaigns are performing.
Recent developments in digital marketing and social media show that marketers at top companies are becoming increasingly confident in quantifying
the ROI of digital marketing on social media platforms. Social media is also being used more for social listening, which can provide immediate feedback and augment consumer insights.
Digital products that factor in mindshare, or consumer awareness and perception of a brand in relation to its broader digital environment, are starting to emerge. This development could provide a better measure
of the health of a small company because it demonstrates that consumers have a good impression of the brand.
These algorithms are capable of capturing a wide range of data related to how customers perceive a brand in the digital environment. One of the metrics that has emerged from this development is mindshare, which refers to consumer awareness and perception of a brand in relation
to its broader digital environment.
Unlike metrics like market share, which are more straightforward to calculate, mindshare is significantly more challenging to quantify. However, despite the difficulty, some marketing experts believe that it is a better measure of the health of a small company because it demonstrates that consumers have a positive impression of the brand. It is an
important metric to track because it helps businesses understand how well their brand is resonating with their target audience and what they can do to improve their brand's perception.
Digital products that calculate and factor mindshare into their attribution models have yet to reach the mass market, but there are signals of this development. For example, mainstream social media management
platforms now offer social listening tools to track sentiment. These tools allow businesses to gain insights into what people are saying about their brand online and how they feel about it. This can help businesses make more informed decisions about their marketing strategies and improve their overall brand perception.
Another example of a digital product that includes mindshare in its
algorithms is content creation and performance software. These tools allow businesses to analyze their content's performance and measure how well it is resonating with their target audience. By incorporating mindshare into their algorithms, these tools provide businesses with insights into how their brand is perceived in the digital environment and what they can do to improve their content's performance.
Finally, social data procurement platforms are also starting to display mindshare as a key performance indicator (KPI) for overall performance. This means that businesses can now measure their brand's overall performance in the digital environment by tracking their mindshare. This is a significant development because it allows businesses to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how their brand is perceived online and make informed decisions about their marketing
strategies.
The Nielsen Norman Group's UX Maturity model helps businesses understand how their UX strategy, culture, process, and outcomes can be improved. Vanity metrics are present, in some shape or form, from stages two through four, leading to misused data and lack of alignment with business goals.
Although companies excelling in design grow their revenue almost twice as much as their industry peers, fewer than half of design leaders feel their CEO fully understands their role, and 90% of companies aren't achieving the full potential of design. There has been an increase in online literature about communicating the ROI of design to executives, particularly digital product design.
Finally, be patient. Marketing and design work are iterative and generally improve over time. Don’t get caught up in the pressure to show immediate results. Instead, focus on the long-term success of your campaigns and use metrics that actually drive real results.