Why nobody talks about the feedback that wrecked your workflow...

A guy at a SXSW panel last year told me my report was full of 'fluff metrics.' I was using page views and time on site as my main KPIs. He said nobody cares about that stuff anymore. I switched to conversion rate and customer LTV and it totally changed how I present data to clients. Anyone else have a single comment that made you rethink everything?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley_jones1d ago

The guy who told me about "fluff metrics" was at a SXSW panel too, actually. He straight up said page views are just vanity numbers and nobody in the C-suite cares how many eyeballs looked at your stuff if nobody buys anything. It was one of those moments where you realize you've been playing the wrong game for years.

spencer_park261d ago

Roll my eyes every time I hear "nobody in the C-suite cares" because those same people will chase a press mention that doesn't drive a single sale. @lee847 is right though, I've seen places kill off perfectly good awareness content just because it didn't book a demo in 48 hours. Page views are a lousy final metric but they're a fine sanity check for whether people even find your stuff interesting enough to click on. Sometimes treating every number like a vanity metric is just an excuse to avoid admitting you don't know how to measure brand building.

lee8471d ago

But isn't page view data still useful for certain types of content? I get that conversion rate and LTV matter for ecommerce or lead gen stuff, but if you're running a top-of-funnel blog or a news site, those old metrics tell you if people are actually reading your stuff. I've seen clients get obsessed with conversion rate and then kill all their brand awareness content because it didn't "convert" in a week. Sometimes a fluff metric is just the right tool for the job you're doing.