Metrics as Myth: Why We Worship KPIs We Don’t Understand
Hey number chasers—
I once sat in a strategy meeting where a team leader proudly presented a dashboard glowing with green arrows.
CTR up 30%.
Engagement rate up 25%.
Bounce rate down.
The room buzzed with approval. But one quiet voice at the back asked: “What happened to revenue?”The answer? Flat.
Customer churn? Up 7%. Silence followed. The team had fallen in love with numbers that made them look good — while the business quietly eroded.
We weren’t reporting insights. We were performing a ritual.
The seduction of the green arrow
Marketing didn’t start with dashboards. It started with people — stories, trust, connection. Metrics were supposed to help us measure these things. Instead, they became our gods. We chant CTR, CPA, DAU, LTV as if they’re magic.
But few pause to ask: Do I really understand what’s behind this number? What it reflects? What it hides?
According to a 2023 Gartner report, 68% of CMOs admit they report metrics they don’t fully trust or understand. A 2022 Forrester study found 54% of marketing dashboards are stuffed with vanity metrics disconnected from business outcomes. We do it because it’s easy. Because it calms stakeholders. Because it tells a comforting story — even when it’s fiction.
And here’s the brutal truth: sometimes the best-performing campaigns are the ones you can’t measure. Because they change culture, not clicks.
The most valuable ideas often resist quantification — but we ignore them, because they don’t fit the slide deck.
When metrics become myths: the real cost of chasing ghosts
🔹 The Facebook video bubble (2015-2018): Seduced by video view counts (later revealed to be overstated by up to 80%), media companies laid off thousands after betting billions on a metric that was a mirage.
🔹 The NPS delusion: Airlines boasting high NPS while ranking bottom in J.D. Power satisfaction surveys. NPS can be gamed; loyalty can’t.
🔹 Startup vanity growth: App developers proudly report millions of downloads — but fewer than 10% of users return after the first use (App Annie, 2023).
🔹 iOS15 open rate illusion: Teams cheered stable open rates, unaware Apple’s privacy updates had broken the metric’s meaning.
🔹 The rebrand trap: A major CPG brand spent millions on a rebrand that spiked awareness metrics by 200% — but drove a 15% sales decline as loyal customers no longer recognized the product.
Dashboard dopamine and budget black holes
Dashboards reward us like slot machines.
Green arrows and rising lines give instant gratification. But impact takes deeper digging.
MIT Sloan (2022) found companies chasing vanity metrics were 2.3x more likely to miss revenue targets. A HubSpot report estimated that up to 27% of marketing spend in mid-sized firms is wasted on efforts optimized for the wrong KPIs.
How much time, energy, and money are we burning worshipping the wrong numbers? How many great ideas are left unexplored because they don’t fit on a dashboard?
What we should measure — but don’t
✅ Cohort retention: Who stays beyond the first impression?
✅ Net revenue retention: Are we growing value, not just headcount?
✅ Behavior change: Did we shift habits, not just clicks?
✅ Customer advocacy: Who champions us unprompted?
✅ True ROI: Does each marketing dollar create durable value?
Patagonia tracks product returns as a proxy for quality. Signal measures success by active, engaged users — not downloads. Basecamp focuses on customer longevity, not lead gen volume.
A provocation for your next meeting
Next time you see a dashboard, try this:
👉 Remove one vanity metric. Watch what happens to the discussion.
👉 Ask: What’s behind this number? What human behavior does it represent?
👉 Challenge a metric that looks “too good.” Dig for what it’s hiding.
Because the most dangerous metric is the one that rises while your business quietly dies.
Until next time, stay skeptical.
Alex
At Kredo Marketing, we help brands cut through vanity metrics and build strategies grounded in what truly drives impact. Want to focus on value, not noise? Let’s talk.
