The vanity metrics conversation has been beaten into the ground. Everyone knows likes don't matter. Everyone knows impressions are weak. Everyone knows you should be tracking conversions.
And yet, most marketing dashboards I see are still optimizing for the wrong things. The metrics have been renamed, not replaced.
The renamed-vanity problem
Three examples I see constantly:
MQLs. Everyone agreed leads were better than impressions. Then everyone realized "lead" was too generous — anyone who filled out a form counted. So they invented MQLs. Now teams optimize for MQLs. But MQLs are a definition, not a measurement. If you set the bar low enough, you can produce as many MQLs as you want.
Pipeline generated. Better than MQLs because it ties to revenue. But "pipeline" is still a leading indicator that can be inflated. Sales teams quietly know which deals will close and which won't. The pipeline number on the dashboard doesn't.
Engagement rate. Replaced raw engagement counts to feel more sophisticated. But engagement rate on a small audience is gameable. The metric got smarter; the behavior it incentivizes didn't.
The actual metric to track
The one metric that's hard to game and tells you what's actually happening: closed-won revenue per channel, tracked over six-month windows.
That's it. Not pipeline. Not MQLs. Not engagement. The actual revenue that closed, attributed back to where it originated, measured over enough time to filter out noise.
This metric has three properties that vanity metrics don't:
- It can't be inflated — money in the bank either happened or didn't
- It's slow — you can't move it by Friday, which forces real thinking
- It exposes channel myths — channels that look amazing on engagement often produce no revenue, and vice versa
Why most teams don't track it
Two reasons. First, attribution is hard. Tying revenue back to first-touch channel requires marketing ops infrastructure most teams don't have. Second, six-month windows are politically dangerous. Marketing leaders are graded quarterly. If you can't show progress for six months, you don't get to be there for the seventh.
So teams stay on faster metrics that they can move quarter to quarter. The faster metric becomes the goal. The goal becomes the work. The work doesn't always produce revenue.
The fix isn't a different metric
It's a different reporting structure. Quarterly reports stay quarterly. But add a parallel six-month closed-won-by-channel view that gets reviewed alongside it. Some channels will look strong quarterly and weak at six months. Those are the ones to scrutinize. Some channels will look slow quarterly and dominant at six months. Those are the ones to double down on.
The metric isn't the magic. The window is.