Vanity Metrics | Good for Nothing | What to do with?
3 min readFeb 10, 2022
Last few days, I was scratching my head to decide a few metrics for the products and how that can be helpful in the future for making some actional decision making direction. We all have various thoughts to have ‘N’ numbers of metrics in place(probably, whatever we heard/experienced so far.) I believe, capturing the data is one part and analyzing data and making things actional is another part. I have seen products capturing huge volumes of data/user activities/events but it will only make sense if that is rightly plotted!! Also Quality of events makes a lot of sense than Quantity.
- Coming back to my recent experience, there was a discussion to capture a few metrics like,
A) # of downloadsB) # of users who visited the sites (Page views)C) Total # of customersD) Email Open Rate / Click Rate
- All looks commonly heard metrics and we may primarily think it is useful. But unfortunately, It just sounds great in hearing/ seeing but it’s very poor in nature that can’t give you any directions. Confused? Well, let’s check the above metrics one more time? Now by wearing a decision-making hat.
A) # of downloads -
It’s not helpful to just look at 1 million downloads and think you’re doing great when there are 900,000 uninstalls :(B) # of users who visited the sites (Page Views) -
* Wow, we have X number of visitors, Great!! - BUT Does it means it increases sales? Lead converted to opportunities? Increase sign up? Well - Can't be sure about this :(C) Total # of customers-
* This one also offers feel-good numbers with no context. This number literally cannot go down and it won’t tell you much about how well your business is doing. :(
What are Vanity Metrics?
- Vanity metrics are the metrics that are good for nothing! Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies.
- NOT that helps you make decisions and helps your business reach its goals or grow. Opposite to Actionable metrics.
- In case you are still wondering what could be the example of vanity metrics then above all metrics are vanity metrics. Ex: # of downloads, # of users who visited the sites (Pageviews), Total # of customers, etc.
- Sometimes, vanity metrics are followed just because it’s easy to track and implement but they are metrics that look impressive without doing any real work.
OK, what to do with Vanity Metrics?
- Well, harsh comments would be not to follow such metrics OR make it S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable, Testable)
- Take an example of vanity metrics, how many users have visited the ebook website. It doesn’t actually mean anything as we can’t be sure it increases revenue, downloads, or achieve any business goals. But if we measure users who have downloaded ebooks makes a lot of sense and is better to bind with some time frame like weekly/monthly/yearly, etc.
- A simple way to decide if the metrics are Vanity or not is to ask a question yourself whether or not it will help your business achieve its goals.
