Metrics Are Not Results
Digital marketing is metric-crazy right now. The world is metric-crazy right now. Big data is everywhere, everything and everyone is quantifiable. But are any of these numbers meaningful? Anyone who works in digital for a brand or agency hears about impressions, likes, traffic, clicks, views, and myriad other data points every day. The upside is that easy access to these numbers have given us a new view into our work, but the downside is that our view of the work is too often shaped by the numbers that we have easy access to.
Calculating ROI on digital investment is an important issue, and sometimes it all feels like a house of cards. When someone asks how a social channel is performing, it’s easy to respond with a number of likes or impressions earned in the last week. When the subsequent question is asked, “So, what do those likes and impressions do for my brand?” the answer can be a little murkier.
Here’s the problem: agencies and brands tend to think of digital in terms of individual channels — social, website, display, etc. Metrics are typically gathered and reported within those silos. Users however, do not think in terms of channels. They move between channels and touch points without a second thought.
Without a holistic plan for how these channels should work together to meet business goals, these metrics are inherently limited. Do you even need impressions to achieve your business goals? What are those users seeing? Is it valuable to them, or to you?
The solution: individual metrics should not be viewed as indicators of marketing results. Results should be measured by a curated aggregate of KPIs that ladder up to a broad digital marketing strategy. A digital marketing strategy should weigh business objectives, and prescribe tactics for digital channels to affect those objectives. Moving the needle for a business in digital typically involves a domino effect, and you’re not getting the whole picture if you’re only paying attention to a single domino.
Optimization: that said, within the machinations of a digital strategy, there is plenty of opportunity to look to individual metrics to optimize and reduce friction. For instance, if the purpose of a landing page is to capture email signups, there are plenty of ways to test and iterate to get to the most effective landing page possible.
However, it’s all too often that individual metrics are scrutinized against a business goal that is multiple steps removed. By itself, additional email signups won’t mean anything for the business, unless there’s a strategy in place for stewarding those leads into something more. This is where a holistic digital strategy comes into play — and as new channels emerge and old outlets deteriorate, digital strategies need to be more dynamic than ever.
