Types of vanity metrics
- Impressions. Impressions are the number of times an advertisement appears on the screen of a potential customer. ...
- Traffic. Traffic is a measurement of how many people visit a particular page on a website. ...
- Likes. Likes are a social media metric that tracks how many people "like" a given post. ...
- Shares. ...
- Follows. ...
What are vanity metrics and why should you care?
These metrics are exciting to point to if you want to appear to be improving, but they often aren’t actionable and aren’t related to anything you can control or repeat in a meaningful way. Vanity metrics are most often contrasted against actionable metrics, which is data that helps you make decisions and helps your business reach its goals or grow.
What is the difference between vanity and actionable metrics?
While vanity metrics tend to lack substance, actionable metrics lead to making better business decisions because they provide meaningful, actionable guidance about what to do with the data. Word to the wise: Actionable metrics should also be accessible and auditable. Aim for quality over quantity by focusing on the right data.
Are your metrics giving you false optimism?
The most insidious kind of metrics, vanity metrics, give you false optimism – it SEEMS like you’re making great progress, but in reality you’re actually stuck. Often, vanity metrics are metrics that have no choice but to keep increasing over time.
Is CLTV a vanity metric?
This metric is not a vanity metric. Nor is it easy or fast to build. Vanity metrics illuminate movement along the customer journey, but CLTV ultimately is attributed to how well you track and understand your consumer journey.
What is an example of a vanity metric?
A telltale sign of a vanity metric is that the metric is ever growing, where bigger is always better. Examples include metrics such as the overall number of users, number of app downloads, page views, and social-media shares.
What is vanity metrics social media?
Vanity metrics are statistics that look spectacular on the surface but don't necessarily translate to any meaningful business results. Examples include the number of social media followers or the number of views on a promotional video.
What KPI is a vanity metric?
Vanity metrics are data and numbers that might be interesting, fun, or look good, but they don't actually help you accomplish anything in your business.
What are vanity metrics in digital marketing?
Vanity metrics include data such as social media followers, page views, subscribers, and other flashy analytics that are satisfying on paper, but don't move the needle for your business goals. They offer positive reporting, but no context for future marketing decisions -- something actionable metrics can do.
Is website traffic a vanity metric?
Two heavily-used examples are social shares and website traffic. When you make decisions based on such vanity metrics, you could steer your marketing in the completely wrong way.
What are 4 KPIs?
Anyway, the four KPIs that always come out of these workshops are:Customer Satisfaction,Internal Process Quality,Employee Satisfaction, and.Financial Performance Index.
What are vanity metrics in agile?
“Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies.
Is NPS a vanity metric?
Used in this way, NPS is nothing more than a vanity metric. Its value can be equated to that of a social media like or follow or worse, a false positive that corporate leaders use to incorrectly gauge success. However, if you treat NPS as a value metric, you will achieve success.
Is page impression vanity metrics?
In this article, “vanity metrics” include impressions, “likes,” shares, comments, followers, open rates, views, traffic, time on site, bounce rate, and more.
Is customer lifetime value a vanity metric?
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is another valuable metric, as it predicts the total potential profits from a customer. In the early stages, arriving at this number can be tricky. But once you have two or three data points per user (like average purchase and purchase frequency), you'll be able to extrapolate CLV.
What are metrics used for?
Key Takeaways Metrics are measures of quantitative assessment commonly used for comparing, and tracking performance or production. Metrics can be used in a variety of scenarios. Metrics are heavily relied on in the financial analysis of companies by both internal managers and external stakeholders.
How often should you revisit your KPIs?
If you have a short purchase cycle, and/or typically iterate quickly as a company, this might be better done every six months, and/or while planning for big projects that will may materially change your KPIs.
What is vanity metrics?
Vanity metrics are statistics that look spectacular on the surface but don’t necessarily translate to any meaningful business results. Examples include the number of social media followers or the number of views on a promotional video. While the data might seem superficially impressive, these metrics do not accurately reflect an organization’s key ...
Why are actionable metrics important?
While vanity metrics tend to lack substance, actionable metrics lead to making better business decisions because they provide meaningful, actionable guidance about what to do with the data. Word to the wise: Actionable metrics should also be accessible and auditable.
Why are vanity metrics only there?
The simplest answer is, as Seth Godin says, “Those clicks, views, and ‘likes’ are only there because they’re easy, not relevant.”. Vanity metrics are typically free or easy to obtain compared with other valuable metrics such as ROI or CLTV, which require time, qualification, and testing to build. Those clicks, views, & 'likes' are only there ...
Why is vanity important?
Overall, vanity metrics can be used to measure many things, but they are most valuable when used to test and improve how your target audience is reacting to your content on different channels.
Do you tie impressions to ROI?
When you report the number of impressions, clicks, or shares your content receives, you should NOT tie the numbers to ROI. Instead, you should tie them to better understanding your audience on that channel. Even the same vanity metrics (“likes,” comments, and shares) have different meanings depending on the channel.
Is optimization a vanity metric?
Optimization metrics, not vanity metrics. Like clickbait, the words “vanity metric” have earned undeserved negative connotations, making it easy for marketers to dismiss their value. I like the term “optimization metrics” because it helps you understand their value.
What are vanity metrics?
While some metrics can be useful as a means to an end, they too often become vanity metrics – numbers that can look impressive but don’t really mean anything relative to the health of a website or business.
Identifying vanity metrics?
Now that you have the vanity metrics definition, how do you identify them? Consider the following:
Examples of vanity metrics
Now that you know what vanity metrics are and how to identify them, let’s look at an example of a physical store and the dangers of vanity metrics.
Twitter Followers
These days, if your business isn’t on Twitter, you’re not considered part of the online conversation. Having a Twitter account is only one small part of “being on Twitter” however.
Website visitors
How many “hits” your website is getting is one of the most dangerous metrics to use. Hits, traffic, visits, or however you quantify the number of people visiting your website is often the lowest common denominator when people are discussing a website.
Keyword Rankings in Search Engines
Organic search traffic is still very much the most cost-effective way to drive relevant, targeted traffic to a website. Few, if any, marketing channels provide a better way to consistently expose your brand or product to interested people.
Number of Employees and Revenue
A classic vanity metric, number of employees comes up in nearly every casual or formal conversation about a business. The number of people a company has working for them might seem like an important metric to look at, and in some ways it is. However, as with most statistics, all it amounts to is another set of figures.
Why Vanity Metrics are Bad
The most insidious kind of metrics, vanity metrics, give you false optimism – it SEEMS like you’re making great progress, but in reality you’re actually stuck.
Choosing Good Non-Vanity Metrics
You need to define metrics that really matter to your business, and measure improvements to that metric.
What are vanity metrics?
Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good but aren’t indicative of real performance and don’t help you define your marketing strategy.
What are actionable metrics?
Actionable metrics are ones that tie specific actions to observed results. This means metrics that highlight what’s working, and what isn’t.
Why do marketers tend to opt for vanity metrics?
Vanity metrics are more often than not, more exciting and more easily obtained. It takes a few seconds to log onto Instagram to view your followers. It takes mere minutes to view your monthly traffic in Google Analytics.
How to determine which metrics to track
Ok, so now we know more about what vanity metrics and actionable metrics are and why they can be difficult to measure. So how do you determine which metrics to track?
Wrapping up
And there you have it. A comparison of vanity metrics and actionable metrics plus how you can redirect your reporting.
