Comments on: Metrics, Metrics On The Wall, Who’s The Vainest Of Them All?

By: Jumblr week 2 ?????the fun (or failure) starts here | We Love Lean – Lean startups, design, happiness and everything in between

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:28:53 +0000

[...] But not just anyone, we wanted metrics that told us something, not just sign-ups to boost our vanity. However we’d already had a couple of sign-ups before we’d even told anyone the URL. [...]

By: Today I Learned: Vanity Metrics | Kerja Digital

Today I Learned: Vanity Metrics | Kerja Digital — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:09:56 +0000

[...] http://blog.kissmetrics.com/vainest-metrics/ [...]

By: Saif

Saif — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:25:32 +0000

My advice – focus on outcome metrics as much as you focus on behaviour metrics (including voice of customer).

By: Lars Lofgren

Lars Lofgren — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:33:25 +0000

Yes, web publishers are the one main exception to this. Their entire business model is built around acquiring traffic and they get paid by the pageview. In this case, it’s makes perfect sense to track metrics like pageviews, bounce rates, pages/visit etc.

But for publishers that sell ad space by the click or follow an affiliate model, these same metrics become less useful.

The goal in all this is to use metrics that are as close to revenue as possible. So if revenue is generated by pageviews, great! Track those pageviews. If not, track the events that DO drive revenue.

By: Analyze This: 3 Techniques Every SaaS Product Marketer Should Know

Analyze This: 3 Techniques Every SaaS Product Marketer Should Know — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:05:47 +0000

[...] majority of the work involved for this is figuring out the right metrics to focus on, interpreting how that metric could be moved, and then walking away with some actionable [...]

By: Fresh Pressed: 10/26/2012 | CopyPressed

Fresh Pressed: 10/26/2012 | CopyPressed — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:32:07 +0000

[...] Metrics, Metrics On The Wall, Who’s The Vainest Of Them All? [...]

By: stacey barr

stacey barr — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:58:27 +0000

Perhaps what Lars means is that the vanity lies in why we choose certain metrics, and not the metrics themselves.

Metrics are simply evidence of some result, and if it is an important result, it is an important metric.

Patrick’s point about visitors being useful as evidence of a marketing campaign’s success is a good example.

And some of the listed vanity metrics are cause-effect related to other useful ones, like sales.

No measure or metric has meaning in isolation from a result or from other related metrics. Isn’t it the story told by a group of well chosen metrics that is the power?

By: Making metrics actionable — Souter Consulting Limited Souter Consulting Limited

Making metrics actionable — Souter Consulting Limited Souter Consulting Limited — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:17:30 +0000

[...] of my key things that Bobby taught me at Happiest was to look for actionable metrics and ignore vanity metrics. This can be hard when you’ve got so many fancy graphs and [...]

By: Patrick Monaghan

Patrick Monaghan — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 09:04:51 +0000

Hi,

Something I’ve been wondering is:

You mention that visitors are a vanity metric, so how do you measure the success of your marketing campaigns etc. in terms of getting people to your site.
Granted you then need to measure the conversion rates of these but surely you’d want some count of who’s coming to look at your site?

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:22:40 +0000

I agree with most of this but there isn’t a set group of ‘vanity’ metrics. It depends on the business, the strategy and other factors. For example, some businesses only have one cohort. Or time on site might absolutely be actionable if the business is focused on content.
Harvard Business review published a good article recently and the message is that businesses need to be careful they’re not relying on people or tools without the right skill set to collect and explain metrics. Just because it says ‘analytics’ on the box, doesn’t mean it’s the right analytics. The skill is in matching the analytical work to the business strategy.