which kpi is a vanity metric

Ah, metrics. Marketers love them – especially when they’re making a project or campaign look good on paper. After all, who doesn’t want glowing numbers to present to their client at the end of the week? But savvy marketers know a secret: not all metrics equal growth. Some of them are even pure vanity. Yep, I’m talking about vanity metrics. What’s the definition of vanity metrics? Well, imagine this: you’re an Instagram influencer with over two million followers – a success any way you measure it. You decide to launch a clothing line to capitalize on your audience of millions. You spend months planning, preparing, networking with photographers, and making everything perfect. At long last, the day comes to launch your line! You’re full of zeal and excitement – your promo posts get thousands of likes! Surely you’ll have hundreds of sales. But two weeks later, you’ve sold a grand total of twenty (20) units, falling way below your goal of 500+. Ouch! What happened? You were tracking numbers that looked good — but told you nothing about what was actually going on. You couldn’t equate it to real growth. That’s the textbook definition of vanity metrics. Learn more about the truth behind vanity metrics — with a real story based on what I just described above — in today’s blog. [bctt tweet=”Learn the truth about vanity metrics – numbers that look good but tell you nothing about what’s going on in terms of real business growth – plus a real ‘reader beware’ story, now on the Write Blog via @juliaemccoy” username=”ExpWriters”] The Definition of Vanity Metrics According to HubSpot, vanity metrics are: “Data … and 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.” We could break that down if we wanted. A simpler definition of vanity metrics from Tim Ferris: “Good for feeling awesome; bad for action.” 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. [bctt tweet=”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. They’re the fool’s gold at the end of the rainbow. ” username=”ExpWriters”] They are fool’s gold – if you’re chasing them, you’re going to get a pile of dirt at the end of the rainbow. Why? At the end of the day, they’re not telling you the whole story. In fact, as we see in the case above with Instagram, vanity metrics don’t tell you anything at all. (It’s a real story, by the way.) Can you spot the vanity metrics she used to make her decisions? Sadly, many Instagram influencers fall victim. Source: Flawless and Brown How to Identify Whether You’re Using Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics are all over the place. They’re the marketing equivalent of those factoid listicles. Neat, possibly inspiring. Utterly useless in most cases. But still wickedly irresistible. Don’t get me wrong: tracking vanity metrics alone isn’t a bad thing. At the end of the day, knowledge is power. However, tracking vanity metrics at the exclusion of actionable metrics can lead you to disaster. The glowing halo they can create around your idea or plans can blind you to the very real red flags or problems that exist – as our Instagram influencer discovered. So, how do we identify which KPI is a vanity metric in the many that we’re tracking? Simple… Ask Yourself: What Business Decisions Can You Make With This Metric? Metrics are meant to do more than tell you about your business. They’re supposed to give you insights on what actions you can take next. By definition, vanity metrics don’t because they don’t tell you anything really useful. Let’s circle back to the Instagram influencer above to illustrate that. On what metrics did the influencer base her business decisions? She used several vanity metrics: Followers Likes Feedback from friends Lots of followers and lots of likes seem like a good thing, right? Sure! And her friends were super jazzed about her new clothing line! But what those metrics didn’t tell us? On closer inspection, a lot. For example, she probably never learned: Who her audience was. Some suggested that her clothing line was off-market for her mostly male audience. (She needed demographics instead of likes and followers.) Her true level of follower engagement. Some marketers commented that her engagement ratio was low for the number of followers she had. (That’s looking at likes per thousand followers.) Anything about the product itself. According to her post, people she sent out promos to didn’t even share her or promote her new line. (The promos to share ratio alone tell us something was wrong with the product.) Anything about the campaign itself. More than a few marketers pointed out that it was badly composed and executed. (Three posts don’t provide enough market data at all.) There were other red flags with the product and campaign that got missed because she was focused on vanity metrics. Source: Jack Appleby. 5 Vanity Metrics in Content and How to Use Them to Your Advantage The Instagram influencer’s experience provides a salient warning against the dangers of vanity KPIs and metrics. Marketers of all stripes can take a lesson or three from it – especially those of us in content creation and marketing. However, figuring out which KPI is a vanity metric is arguably easier when it comes to social media than other forms of content creation or marketing. Part of that is because social media is much more straightforward in many ways. Here are five metrics that are most likely to be a vanity metric when it comes to content, and what you can do instead to capture the most accurate view of your brand’s growth. 1. Page/Post Views Ah, views. We like knowing when something we’ve published is landing in … Read more