I’ve learned that in digital marketing it’s easy to get distracted by “vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics use measurements that on the surface would indicate growth and success, but when you investigate further, there’s more to the story. Using these metrics can lead to an inflated measure of success.
Determining whether or not your marketing strategy is paying off demands that you dig deeper to discover if you’re creating impact and reaching your goals. I often have to remind myself of this when I get too excited by new social followers and jumps in web traffic.
I’m not saying that vanity metrics are bad, or that you shouldn’t pay attention to them. So-called vanity metrics are an important part of the big picture when it comes to illustrating impact. But you also want to include other marketing metrics that provide depth and fully demonstrate the value of your efforts. Don’t focus solely on the obvious numbers — take a closer look.
Here are four vanity metrics you should investigate further when evaluating your digital marketing strategy:
1) Growth in social following.
Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or another social network, aiming for just an increase in your total number of followers on a social media channel is not always an effective goal. A bigger audience is never a bad thing, especially in terms of brand awareness. But when establishing digital marketing metrics, remember that it’s important to determine WHO you are reaching. Are you finding your target audience, developing relationships with key influencers, and connecting with current and potential customers?
Instead of focusing only on increases in followers, pay particular attention to which accounts engage with your brand on social media and their level of engagement, including who is sharing and liking your posts, contributing comments or mentions, and clicking on links.
2) Increases in traffic to your website, measured by number of pageviews.
Increases in website traffic (measured by number of pageviews) can expand brand awareness, improve your site’s domain rank, and more. However, while measuring traffic to your website is important for evaluating site health, it’s more critical to understand what type of visitor you’re attracting. Getting traffic that doesn’t take you up on your calls-to-action means you’re attracting the wrong kind of visitors, or that your website content is not optimized in a way that encourages visitors to take a step that will turn them into leads.
Looking at what content drives lead generation and conversions can be helpful in determining which traffic sources are most valuable, allowing you to focus your efforts on those rather than on increasing traffic overall. For example, by using native advertising you might reach a larger audience, but is it the right audience, and are they taking the actions you want them to take?
3) Total volume of blog posts or social updates.
Whoever says more is always better is wrong. Publishing more blog posts that fail to draw attention, keep visitors on the page, create a loyal audience, or improve lead generation through resource downloads and newsletter signups means that you put a whole lot of work into writing a ton of content that did not generally help your business. And posting too often to social channels, especially with content that your audience doesn’t find useful, can cause people to disengage with your brand and stop following you.
You’re better off having fewer post that draw in your target audience and create meaningful impact, rather than a lot posts that fail to be effective or, even worse, alienate your target audience. It’s important to establish digital marketing metrics that examine the performance of your current content to determine which topics and and approaches work best for your audience. For new ideas to test on your blog and social channels, look at top performing posts by your peers and competitors and identify trending topics.
4) Number of times a resource has been downloaded.
If your company supplies expert resources for your customers to download on your website, such as e-books or reports, you may be tempted to measure that content’s success by the number of times it’s been downloaded. However, what’s really important is to remember the purpose of a resource. Is it to encourage links back to your website, generate qualified leads, or improve SEO? Probably a mix of a few things.
For example, with our Content Marketing Paradox report we’ve gotten a number of qualified leads, but fewer links. We consider the report to be a success because our intention was to target content marketers who might be interested in using TrackMaven, rather than a broader audience which might be interested in topics with more mass appeal. Before creating a resource, think carefully about what you want it to accomplish and hold yourself accountable to those goals when measuring success.
These digital marketing metrics are seemingly important, and in a large way, they are. But what I’m recommending is that you look past the big, shiny numbers and truly understand who you’re attracting and why. Then you can determine if you’re distributing content to the right audiences, at the best time and place, and if that content is fulfilling its purpose.
Tweet your comments at @TrackMaven or send me an email using rebecca.white@trackmaven.com!