The numbers that go up while nothing improves

Every marketing report has them: figures that rise reliably, sound impressive, and have no connection to whether the business made any money. They persist because they are easy to produce and pleasant to present.

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Vanity metrics are numbers that rise without the business gaining: impressions, raw traffic, followers, page views, time on page, and rankings for terms nobody buys from. They are useful as diagnostics and dangerous as goals. Judge the website on enquiries, calls, work won and its value.

Why they survive

Vanity metrics are not a conspiracy. They are simply the numbers that are easiest to collect and most likely to rise, which makes them convenient for anybody who has to present a monthly report.

They also feel like progress. Watching impressions climb is genuinely satisfying, and when the alternative is explaining that enquiries were flat, the temptation is obvious.

The usual suspects

Each of these has a legitimate diagnostic use and becomes harmful the moment it is treated as the objective.

  • Impressions: how often you appeared, which says nothing about whether anybody wanted you.
  • Raw traffic: readers and buyers counted identically.
  • Followers and subscribers: a list is not an outcome.
  • Page views: inflated by navigation problems as easily as by interest.
  • Time on page: distorted by open tabs and abandoned devices.
  • Rankings for terms nobody buys from: a position on a shelf nobody visits.

How to tell a vanity metric from a real one

There is a simple test. If this number doubled overnight, would anything about the business change? If the honest answer is no, it is a diagnostic at best.

A second test: could somebody make this number rise without doing anything useful? Impressions can be raised by chasing irrelevant searches. Traffic can be raised by publishing about popular topics unrelated to what you sell. Enquiries cannot be raised that way.

Where the diagnostic use is real

None of these are worthless. When enquiries fall, impressions and traffic tell you whether the cause is fewer visitors or worse conversion, which is the first thing you need to know.

The rule is that they explain movements in the numbers that matter. They are the instruments, not the destination, and a report that leads with them has the order backwards.

The report that respects your time

A useful monthly report is short. Enquiries and calls, the pages that produced them, work won and its value, what changed on the site, and anything unusual in the market.

If a supplier's report leads with impressions and rankings and mentions enquiries at the end, or not at all, ask for it to be reordered. The resistance you meet, or do not, is informative in itself.

  • Lead with enquiries and calls.
  • Attach the pages that produced them.
  • State what changed and when.
  • Keep diagnostics as supporting detail, not headlines.
  • Say plainly when a figure is unavailable.

The rankings trap in particular

Rankings deserve special mention because they feel so tangible. Position one for a phrase nobody searches with intent to buy produces nothing, and it can be achieved deliberately.

Judge rankings by the enquiries that follow them. If a term ranks well and produces nothing across a quarter, it was the wrong term, however satisfying the position looks in a report.

How Licheo reports

Enquiries and calls first, with supporting detail behind them, in plain language, with every figure traceable to a real source.

We do not publish estimated results anywhere, and where a number is not available we leave an honest blank rather than filling it with something that reads well.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Revenue per visitor. The other parts:

Questions people ask

What is a vanity metric?
A number that can rise without the business gaining anything: impressions, raw traffic, followers, page views, time on page, or rankings for terms nobody buys from. Useful as diagnostics, harmful as goals.
How do I tell if a metric matters?
Ask whether anything would change if it doubled overnight, and whether somebody could raise it without doing anything useful. Enquiries fail both tests, which is what makes them worth managing by.
Are impressions completely useless?
No. When enquiries fall, impressions help you tell whether the cause is fewer visitors or worse conversion. They are instruments for explaining movement, not the thing you are trying to move.
What should a monthly report contain?
Enquiries and calls, the pages that produced them, work won and its value, what changed on the site, and anything unusual in the market. Diagnostics belong underneath as supporting detail.
Why do rankings mislead?
Because a top position for a phrase nobody searches with intent to buy produces nothing, and such positions can be achieved deliberately. Judge rankings by the enquiries that follow them over a quarter.

Get a report about your business

Enquiries and calls first, diagnostics behind them, plain language, and no estimated results anywhere.

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