A vanity metric is a unit of measurement. It measures the performance of different campaigns run by organizations on social media. Often called engagement metrics or consumption metrics, vanity metrics include impressions like likes, shares, comments, subscribes, views, followers, open rates, traffic, bounce rate, time on site, and many more to add. They are often used in social media marketing, content marketing, PR, digital advertising, or inbound campaigns to measure the performance and success of marketing efforts.
Examples of Vanity Metrics:
A business may have many people signing up for its products and services. Oftentimes, many customers become inactive or unsubscribe from the service. So if the company keeps tracking the total number of users without considering the inactive and unsubscribed users that is a vanity metric.
A brand with a large number of social media followers may look like a prosperous business, however, if the company fails to track the total number of followers who actually translate to increased brand awareness, social shares, engagement, and conversion rates, that is a vanity metric.
A business needs to measure metrics like bounce rate, pages visited per session to better understand customer retention rate, number of returning customers, whether any visitors are staying and looking at your products and service, and the impact of your Search Engine Optimization effort. However, if a business only tracks click-through rates and page views to show how many people are visiting your site, that is vanity metrics.
Vanity Metrics and ROI:
Although the performance statistics obtained from vanity metrics look spectacular but they don’t add value to a business when it comes to reporting an ROI (return on investment). The metrics do not reflect real-time key drivers of an organization such as actual engagement, authentic active users, or the real cost of acquiring new customers.
A vanity metric might show up as 15,000 total registered accounts, but the number immediately loses its value if there are only 100 actual active users. These flashy numbers do not help in accentuating business growth. They skip the actual nuance and context of performance and often mislead in terms of showing the real numbers.
Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics:
Vanity metrics are often contrasted against actionable metrics. Vanity metrics look impressive but lack substance and context, on the contrary, actionable metrics have context and are used to make data-driven decisions about budget and optimization. Actionable metrics include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that come from strategic research and testing including performing A/B testing or split test, completing user-experience surveys, or creating case studies.
Identifying Vanity Metrics:
Adhering to the following smart questions is often a tried and tested way to avoid common metric pitfalls
- Can the metric I am using lead to a course of action or help me make an informed business decision?
- Can it help me formulate marketing strategies to attract customers?
- Is the data obtained from the metrics reflect real numbers and is non- manipulative?
- Is the metric being monitored appealing to my ego or delivering measurable progress on sales and profits?
Vanity metrics are difficult to identify at times and can vary depending on the individual business needs and industry.
