Numbers, vanity metrics, and rethinking success in B2B marketing
There is a collective groan that echoes through marketing teams at the end of every month, quarter, or year-end.
Dust off the spreadsheets and cue the dashboards.
Somewhere in the world, some poor marketer is frantically updating a PowerPoint filled with more colours than a geological map, desperately trying to make sense of it all before the 5 pm deadline.
Early in my career, I was on the producing side of these reports. Dozens of pages with every possible metric you could dream of (along with a fair few no one ever asked for). Copying and pasting from different platforms into a master spreadsheet that you hope doesn’t crash … again.
Then, years later, I found myself on the receiving end of these reports. A dozen reports every month, each over 50 pages long. Suddenly, it was easy to comprehend the glazed expressions of leaders and executive teams, understanding why they remained unread, with marketing still misunderstood.
When you see these reports with a new lens, you see that a large proportion of results are vanity metrics with numbers tweaked and sliced to make marketing look busy and relevant. But effective?
The measurement trap
As Lord Kelvin once said, “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.”
He is right, of course. Yet perhaps we need to add some nuance to the statement.
I have seen teams spend more time preparing reports than actually understanding what the results mean, or working to improve them. Metrics that should be useful indicators on which to base decisions morph into decorations for a slide deck, and a self-pat-on-the-back for the marketing teams. Clicks, impressions, engagement rates. Technically impressive, but rarely linked to what the business actually cares about or needs to be able to decide on the future strategic direction.
Many of these reports might be telling you what happened, but not the important why. Let’s be honest here. Numbers on their own are neutral. Irrelevant almost. Without the commentary, context, or improvement narrative, they remain open to all kinds of (mis)interpretation.
Metrics and measurement in this context should be about understanding how marketing creates value for the business. It’s also important to be aware of and differentiate that not everyone needs, wants, or understands the same level of detail.
Does your executive know what CPC, CTR, or IPM is, or why it should matter to their production challenges? I doubt it.
They care about whether marketing is using its budget to help grow revenue, accelerate deals, and build trust. The language used to communicate the results, therefore, needs to change. Much as we tailor messaging for different customer segments, we must tailor our metrics and commentary for different internal audiences too.
The five metrics that matter
Marketers love a good number. Website visits, bounce rates, social media followers. They all have their place: 100%. Yet when those figures take the headline rather than the supporting role, the story and meaning get lost in translation. A spike in traffic may look great on a chart, but it means very little if it was driven by bots, or visitors fail to stick around, engage, or buy.
Here are the five core measures I would look for when assessing whether marketing is working and communicating this to your leadership team:
Revenue influenced or generated
If marketing is not contributing in some form to revenue, it is background noise and a waste of budget. Break it down by channel and see where the main impact happens, and adapt accordingly.
Lead quality and conversion rate
Quantity is easy; quality is where the real value is. Tracking how many leads turn into a genuine opportunity with an attributable value gives a far truer reflection of effectiveness than the number of people who opened an email.
Opportunity progression
Marketing’s job does not stop at lead handover. Understanding how campaigns support opportunities through to close helps reveal which efforts are shifting the needle in the right direction. It will also bring marketing and sales closer together as one commercial team.
Engagement and enquiries
Let’s assume you are starting from scratch. Before the revenue shows up, you need to look for indicators that you are moving in the right direction. Are people interacting, responding, and asking for more information? These are the early signals that your strategy is starting to take root.
Brand search and visibility
A simple proxy for brand health. If more people are searching for you by name, or arriving on your website through direct channels, you can see that awareness and trust are quietly building.
These measures are not perfect, by any means. But they do help to tell a clearer story than a 50-page report of charts. From first interest all the way through to commercial impact.
Make metrics matter
Before your next month’s reporting cycle rolls around, ask yourself one question.
If you only had five minutes of your leaders’ attention, what would you want them to see most in your report?
Then ask this harder one: what do you want them to do with that data, and have you given them enough context to understand it?
On behalf of time-strapped leaders everywhere, this month, consider skipping the fifty-page slide deck. Focus on what truly matters and make every number earn its place on the page.
The best reports don’t just prove effort or justify work, they reveal impact and help guide what happens next.
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