Vanity Metrics: How to Avoid Being Fooled
• What are vanity metrics? Why are they so appealing and how do they distort our perspective?
• What are the best few actionable metrics you should be tracking?
• The messy realities of collecting numbers and tips to avoid the deepest pitfalls.
3. 8 Vanity Metrics to Watch Out for
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# of Hits
# of Pageviews
# of Visits
# of Unique Visitors
# of Followers/Friends/likes
Time on site/number of pages
Emails collected
# of downloads
* From Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll& Benjamin Yoskovitz
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5. Checklist for
exposing
Vanity Metrics
No Context
No idea of
Causality
Not tied to real
customer
segments
Not tied to
growth goals
Cannot take
action!
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6. 5 Questions to define Your Best Actionable
Metrics
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7. Actionable Metrics are a Custom Fit
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8. 1) Who are our better customers?
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Copyright 2013 RoadMap Marketing LLC All rights reserved
9. 1) Who are our better customers?
Natural browsers
Diehard Fans
Open to Influence
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10. 2) Do we have a sustainable business model?
Attraction
Conversion
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Copyright 2013 RoadMap Marketing LLC All rights reserved
Retention
IntroI love data and have been a slave to metrics fashion over the years. I’d like to share my learnings and hopefully help you avoid some of the pitfalls.What are vanity metrics?Hpw to identify and avoid vanity metrics.Framework for identifying actionable metrics.And in the spirit of action, I have a diagnostic so you can assess where you are and steps to identify the actionable metrics for your business you can access at the end.
What are vanity metrics? They are numbers that make us look powerful and successful. We use vanity metrics for lots of good reasons – those are the marketing messages we are getting all the time.And we want to be beautiful and desirable to prospective buyers, partners and investors. They are often credibility indicators that make us look like our idea has traction, that there is a real market for our product or service. Let’s look at a few common examples.
The problem is when we see those numbers as a true reflection of performance. And we do not take the critical action we need to pivot or grow our business.
Take a example, say you have just launched the app Pizza CompassIn the first week 2,000 people have downloaded the free app, should you celebrate?No context – Where is that in context of all the other pizza apps out there?No idea of causality – was it due to your launch or perhaps someone tweeted “free pizza here!”Do you know who downloaded? Where they were or any background?Is your growth goals to get shared lead sales to participating pizza restaurants? If so maybe signing up pizza places for as is your biggest focus.Cannot take action!
Start with the end in mind. There are two major questions at the heart of every successful business – your top few metrics must measure that.
Define better customers – these are the customers that see the real value and will pay more and act as your biggest advocates and salespeople. They give you actionable insights. They are your strategic advantage.
Competitive advantage by focusing on the right nicheLess noiseMore efficient use of marketing and sales dollarsImportance of tracking these groups up front for data collection.
Churn = % of customers you lose each month
Churn = % of customers you lose each month
Scramble ExampleWebsiteAccounting systemsPartner reportingCannot go back and recreate – opportunity cost
Customer interviews, social media excahnges,
Data geeks and data phobes are important – it will force you to stay at different levels; you will need to explain the meabningImporatnt think is to be able to take action as a team. Ticker tape