In today’s data-driven world, marketing metrics are the lifeblood of any successful campaign. But are all metrics created equal? Too often, marketers focus on numbers that sound impressive but fail to deliver real business value. In Napier’s recent webinar on “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Marketing Measurement,” we explored the fine line between metrics that drive results and those that can steer your strategy astray. This blog aims to take a deeper look on how to differentiate between the metrics that matter and those you should avoid.
Understanding Meaningful Metrics
Before we explore the importance of understanding meaningful metrics, it’s important to define what a marketing metric really is.
A marketing metric is a quantifiable figure/value used to assess the performance/execution of a campaign. However, not all metrics are created equal, and it can be tricky to understand which metrics are appropriate or inappropriate that provide relevant valuable insights. While it’s tempting to highlight figures like impressions, clicks, and page views, these “vanity metrics” don’t necessarily reflect real engagement or impact on the bottom line. Instead of merely chasing numbers, marketers should focus on metrics that contribute to optimizing their strategy.
As Mark Twain famously said: “If the metrics you’re looking at aren’t useful in optimizing your strategy, stop looking at them.” It’s important to look past surface-level stats and dig deeper into what truly moves the needle for your business.
Metrics to Avoid
Some of the most common metrics used today offer little to no actionable insight. These can include:
- Email Opens: With the rise of privacy-focused technologies like Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) that hides people’s IP address so that the email author/sender cannot see if the recipient has opened the email, determine their exact location, link it to their other online activity or access the auto-preview features; open rates have become unreliable. Just because an email registers as “opened” doesn’t mean the recipient engaged with it.
- Impressions and Clicks: While they may seem like good indicators of reach, impressions often don’t correlate with meaningful engagement, and clicks can be misleading. Clicks often come from bots or irrelevant users, skewing your data and offering little insight into user intent.
- Page Views: Bots and irrelevant traffic can inflate page view metrics. A high number of views doesn’t necessarily mean that your content is resonating with the right audience or driving conversions.
Effective Metrics to Adopt
To truly measure the success of a marketing campaign, it’s important to shift the focus to metrics that deliver business insights. Some of the most important ones include:
- Incrementality: Instead of looking at raw attribution, incrementality measures how much a marketing activity genuinely impacts sales. This is achieved through testing, such as running a campaign in one region and not another to solely determine how much sales increase where that particular campaign was active.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This metric helps evaluate how much it costs to acquire a new customer compared to the value they bring to your business. CAC is particularly useful for long-term strategy, ensuring that marketing spend aligns with customer value.
- Time to Conversion: Understanding how long it takes for a prospect to move through the sales funnel is critical. Effective campaigns often shorten the conversion timeline, helping you close deals faster and more efficiently.
- Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI): Linking marketing activities directly to revenue can be challenging but invaluable. ROMI ensures that you’re not just tracking engagement but also attributing revenue growth to your campaigns.
Avoiding Attribution Pitfalls
Attribution models can be misleading, often crediting marketing activities that played little or no role in a customer’s purchase decision. For example, if someone clicks on a Google ad after already deciding to buy your product, the ad may get undue credit.
Incrementality testing is a great way to avoid falling into the attribution trap by determining if your marketing activity is genuinely driving results. Typically, incrementality links marketing activity to an increase in sales or conversions. It can be very difficult to measure and is typically achieved by testing.
Testing can be done via groups and running marketing campaigns to one of the selected groups (who are pretty similar). This test allows marketers to see if the group of people that are seeing the marketing campaign ultimately engage, or download and buy more from the company.
The Customer Journey
Marketers should have a focus on aligning metrics with different stages of the customer journey. For instance, during the awareness phase, metrics like engagement and leads are more relevant, while conversion metrics become crucial later on in the funnel.
Measuring success isn’t about focusing on a single number; it’s about tracking a set of metrics that align with each stage of the customer journey. By doing this, you gain a comprehensive view of how your campaigns are performing and how effectively you’re moving prospects through the funnel.
Tips for Effective Reporting and Dashboards
A well-designed dashboard is essential for clear and actionable reporting, but many dashboards focus on the wrong metrics. Rather than gravitating towards easy-to-measure numbers like clicks or impressions, design your dashboard around meaningful business metrics.
A great framework is to model your dashboard on the customer journey. This allows you to see how each marketing channel contributes to moving customers from awareness to conversion. For example, track the effectiveness of awareness campaigns at the start and measure sales or qualified leads at the final stage.
Conclusion
In the fast-paced world of marketing, success often hinges on choosing the right metrics. Vanity metrics can make you feel good, but they don’t necessarily drive business growth. Instead, focus on metrics that reflect true performance—incrementality, customer acquisition cost, time to conversion, and ROMI—to unlock long-term success.
Above all, remember that testing is key. Continually refine your measurement strategies and adapt to what works. With the right approach, you’ll be able to demonstrate real value and drive meaningful results.
To watch our webinar in full and find out more, please click here. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
