Vanity Metrics Are Still Holding Marketers Back; Here’s How They Can Change their Measurement Strategies

The concept of vanity metrics has been around for some time, yet many campaigns and brands continue to measure results based on them. Metrics such as click-through rates, impression numbers, reach and viewability are still being sought after when a campaign is running. However, outperforming in these categories doesn’t always lead to business results and value for the brand.

Given the plethora of precision data, technology and tools available, marketers should be focusing on real outcomes tied to both brand growth and incremental sales; while ensuring they’re delivering against customer lifetime value. The days of brand and performance advertising sitting in silos are gone.

What marketers need to address is updating their strategies to measure how engaged potential customers truly are – and it’s not as difficult as it seems. Here are key shifts marketers can easily implement to optimize measurement in 2023.

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Focusing on Actionable Metrics

While vanity metrics can look flashy and give marketers a sense of achievement, this “success” is largely unfounded. These metrics provide limited ability to efficiently measure success or inform future marketing strategies. For example, clicks, followers and views can be indicative of business outcomes, but they should not take the place of more critical business goals. Therefore, it is crucial that marketers adjust their focus on actionable metrics in 2023 that align with meeting overall business goals.

Actionable metrics can include anything from conversions and high value site actions to  incremental ROAS. These types of metrics give tangible and valuable  business insights that vanity metrics simply cannot provide. For example, incrementality testing can be leveraged to understand if certain audiences, tactics and channels are driving incremental business growth. Incrementality testing as it provides insight into media’s contribution to driving incremental sales.

Redefining Success to Achieve Optimized, Long-Term Business Goals

Today, the current definition of success continues to hinge on media metrics and legacy attribution models that were built for traditional media and static digital channels, not for biddable media and dynamic optimization. Accountability to metrics that are tied to short-term business outcomes and an over-reliance on single performance metrics. Metrics such as ROAS cannot be a singular optimization layer to indicate sustained business or marketing value over a significant amount of time. It’s time for marketers to create a new definition of success attributed to optimized metrics, brand lift, and long term business growth and performance.

By redefining what success and long-term overarching business goals should be, marketers can begin to determine best marketing strategies to implement. Measuring customer acquisition with a lens on lifetime value will ensure that a customer acquisition and sales growth strategy will deliver both short term and long terms. By looking at ROAS in silo, you might be sacrificing short term gains for long term challenges. This also serves as the basis for creating a strategic measurement plan outlining actionable metrics needed to measure if goals and objectives are met.

What is a company looking to achieve? Answering this question provides a north star to guide strategic planning, and it is imperative to apply forward-thinking and dynamic goals that will drive future business success.

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