Metrics Are a Lie
I’ve been in marketing long enough to remember the days before online marketing and all of the new data it provided. I was never a media buyer myself, but I worked with many media buyers who provided gigantic numbers that made the clients’ eyes light up. Hundreds of thousands of impressions and reach, with costs per impression being pennies on the dollar…but those dollars being in the tens of thousands to millions.
But as much as they couldn’t measure the actual number of people who would see their promotion, the clients would start to see results after they started advertising, which made the spend worthwhile…ish. Ads worked, but, as the famous Wanamaker quote implied, marketers were uncertain which ones or why.
The internet and all of it’s tracking provided a new level of insight into what was working and why, but there are new problems that have arisen, including rampant click fraud. In this week’s video, I explore the ways in which metrics are more than imperfect and should only be used as a guideline to a much more robust insight into your customers.
— —
Truly Social is a web series that you can share with your boss or client when they’re not really “getting” social. It’s also the name of my company — where we work with clients on helping them develop their own content series.
I’ve been working on this social stuff for over 19 years and I’ve been a participant in the social web since 1992. My videos (usually) come out twice a month …with ~5 minute “lessons” on what are truly social practices (and what are NOT).
