The Wrong Marketing Metrics
If you’ve ever looked at your social media insights and thought:
“That post did really well.”
What made you think that?
Was it the number of likes?
The reach?
The comments?
The followers gained?
While these metrics can be useful, they often tell only a small part of the story.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is measuring the success of their marketing using the wrong metrics.
And when that happens, it’s easy to make decisions that feel productive but don’t actually move the business forward.
The Problem With Vanity Metrics
In marketing, there’s a term often used to describe numbers that look impressive but don’t necessarily lead to meaningful business outcomes:
Vanity metrics.
These are metrics such as:
- Likes
- Followers
- Reach
- Impressions
- Video views
Now, to be clear, these numbers aren’t useless.
In fact, they can provide valuable insight into how your content is performing.
The problem occurs when businesses treat them as the ultimate measure of success.
A post can receive hundreds of likes and generate no enquiries.
A reel can attract thousands of views and produce no sales.
A business can gain followers every week and still struggle to grow.
That’s because attention alone doesn’t always translate into action.
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Marketing Has One Job
When you strip away all the complexity, marketing has one purpose:
To help move potential customers closer to a decision.
Sometimes that decision is:
- Visiting your website
- Joining your email list
- Booking a call
- Making an enquiry
- Purchasing a product
The specific action will vary depending on the business.
But the principle remains the same.
If your marketing is generating attention but not helping people move through the customer journey, it may be time to reassess what you’re measuring.
The Metrics That Matter Depend on the Goal
One of the most important lessons from modern marketing is that different content serves different purposes.
A funny reel designed to increase awareness should not be measured the same way as a sales campaign.
An educational article should not be judged purely on how many likes it receives.
A promotional email shouldn’t be evaluated only by its open rate.
Instead, businesses need to ask:
“What was this piece of content designed to achieve?”
Only then can they identify the right metric.
For example:
Awareness Content
The goal is visibility.
Useful metrics might include:
- Reach
- Impressions
- Video views
- Engagement rate
Trust-Building Content
The goal is credibility.
Useful metrics might include:
- Website visits
- Time spent on page
- Article reads
- Email engagement
Conversion Content
The goal is action.
Useful metrics might include:
- Enquiries
- Bookings
- Sales
- Membership sign-ups
- Click-through rates
When the metric aligns with the objective, marketing performance becomes much easier to evaluate.
Followers Don't Pay the Bills
One of the most common examples of vanity metrics is follower count.
Many businesses place enormous emphasis on growing their audience.
And while audience growth can be valuable, followers alone don’t generate revenue.
A smaller audience of engaged, relevant people is often far more valuable than a large audience with little interest in your business.
Research from HubSpot (2024) highlights that engagement quality and audience relevance are often stronger indicators of marketing success than audience size alone.
In other words:
It’s better to have 500 people who care than 5,000 people who don’t.
The Customer Journey Matters
At a recent marketing conference, one of the recurring themes was understanding the customer journey.
Customers rarely move from discovering your business to purchasing immediately.
Instead, they interact with multiple touchpoints over time.
They might:
- See a social media post
- Read an article
- Visit your website
- Join your email list
- Read a testimonial
- Then finally make an enquiry
This creates a challenge for marketers.
The content that influences a purchase isn’t always the content that receives the credit.
A behind-the-scenes post may never directly generate a sale.
But it may help build familiarity and trust that contributes to a future decision.
That’s why it’s important to look beyond individual metrics and consider how different pieces of marketing work together.
Are You Measuring Activity or Progress?
Many businesses unknowingly measure activity instead of progress.
Activity metrics include:
- Posts published
- Emails sent
- Followers gained
- Reach generated
Progress metrics include:
- Leads generated
- Enquiries received
- Website conversions
- Customer retention
- Revenue growth
Both have value.
But only one tells you whether your marketing is contributing to business growth.
It’s entirely possible to be busy without being effective.
And marketing is no different.
A Better Question to Ask
The next time you review your marketing results, don’t start by asking:
“How many likes did we get?”
Instead ask:
“Did this help move people closer to becoming customers?”
Because the most important marketing metrics are rarely the ones that look the most impressive.
They’re the ones that help you understand whether your marketing is achieving its purpose.
Likes can be encouraging.
Reach can be exciting.
Followers can feel like progress.
But if those numbers aren’t helping your business grow, they may not be the metrics that matter most.
References
HubSpot (2024) State of Marketing Report 2024. Available at: https://www.hubspot.com (Accessed: 15 June 2026).
Kaushik, A. (2010) Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing.
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. and Chernev, A. (2022) Marketing Management. 16th edn. Harlow: Pearson.
Content Marketing Institute (2024) Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends. Available at: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com (Accessed: 15 June 2026).
