Wool Over Your Eyes?
Vanity VS Actionable Metrics In Digital Marketing
How does the digital marketing profession measure its real value to business?
Is it just about the vanity metrics, which I will admit, look great on paper? Or should there be more to it, enough to contribute significantly to important business outcomes like return on investment (ROI), customer acquisition cost (CAC), or customer lifetime value (CLTV)?
I have had the opportunity to be on the panel of several interview sessions for various roles.
In that capacity, I have seen and heard a lot, but there is this one session that stands out for me — a session that took place two years ago. It was for the role of a digital marketing professional.
Most of the candidates had either worked for some of the best digital agencies in town or were freelancers at the time.
During the interview sessions, a few candidates admitted their lack of experience, and most spoke about themselves with an air of confidence and a good sense of achievement. They sounded great, to be honest, with impressive numbers to buttress their points.
In all the back and forth during the sessions, there were certain things that stood out for me — three things that got me thinking.
- The general understanding of digital marketing seemed to be stuck on social media content creation, promoted posts, (some) influencer promotion, email ‘sending’ (not marketing), and social and Google display ads.
- Measurement was mostly based on vanity metrics — statistics that look spectacular on the surface but didn’t necessarily translate to any meaningful business results. Some of the vanity metrics that felt like pulling wool over my eyes included impressions, likes, shares, comments, followers, open rates, views, traffic, time on site, bounce rate, etc.
- The culture of experimenting, measuring and constant iteration using insights from data was largely missing — and I think this should form the bedrock of all digital initiatives. Why go digital if you won’t measure real results?
So, the question I’m left asking myself based on the common talking points of the candidates and my personal experiences, is, could this be a general industry challenge in the digital marketing space?
Where do I place this problem? Is it with the clients, the product managers who care more about cheap ways to earn laurels and impress their semi-ignorant bosses? Or is it with the agencies who care more about the money and are too lazy to push for real measurable value in the campaigns they run?
What’s the solution? More education? Holding digital marketing professionals and digital agencies accountable to provide relevant business outcomes? Embracing the culture of experimentation within these businesses?
Obviously, the metrics you decide to measure will depend on your business model, the overall goal of the campaigns you run and the growth stage of your business.
If you have ever had to embark on a digital marketing drive, what has been your metric for success, something you consider as money well spent?
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