#82 - Stop Measuring These Vanity Metrics in your Marketing Campaigns

In this episode, we explain the definition of a vanity metric and give you top tips on how to identify them, along with examples of common ones to avoid. 

Many of the analytics tools available to marketers will have dashboards with various graphs, metrics and reports, but just because it’s on the dashboard doesn’t necessarily mean it will be the data you need.  While it’s still useful to know how many people read your blog, liked your Facebook post or opened your email, do these metrics actually tell you enough about your campaign’s performance, or are they simply vanity metrics?

Vanity metrics are the KPIs or metrics that look good at a glance, but they don't provide much of an impact on any of your future marketing decisions, or shape your strategy. It’s important to be able to identify vanity metrics so that you don’t waste time tracking values that are meaningless.  

When deciding what metrics to measure, ask yourself the following questions: 

• Will the metric lead to a decision or a course of action?
• Can the results of this metric be easily reproduced in future? 
• Is the metric accurate and does it tell the full story?

Listen to this episode of the Marketing Slice to dive deeper into vanity metrics and learn which ones are best to avoid and why.