Member-only story
Why we love our Vanity Metrics
Vanity Metrics — Get rid of them. They don't help anything- they are there to just make you feel good. Vanity Metrics exist because you have to report something, or just prove to yourself that you measure things, that you are data-driven, doing the right thing.
But why do we continue to love and report them? I have a theory based on personal experience.
But First, Why do metrics exist?
Metrics exist because they help you measure things you care about, and CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT. But there is a thing about meaningful metrics — they are incredibly hard to define.
Metrics are difficult to define even in companies that have a clear and well-intentioned mandate for business performance indicators. Often departments in large companies measure things that matter to their department instead of what matters to the business as a whole.
Take Click Through Rates as an example — its an out of the box metric most ad platforms offer and is pretty easy to measure — digital marketers love to report this performance…
