Why Marketing Metrics Don't Matter if They're Not Tied to Business Results

When Metics Start Driving the Strategy

While serving as Fractional CMOs for a client, we told an agency we didn’t care about the metrics they were presenting. In reality, we did care. The point was to interrupt their siloed thinking that had elevated one tactic’s metrics above the client’s broader brand health.

The Problem Isn’t the Metrics

Their intentions were good. They truly wanted to be able to demonstrate their value, the quality of their thinking, and be held accountable for what they promised the results would be. All good, yet at some point the tool was dictating the strategy and that’s when things can go wrong.

Having worked on both the client and agency side, we’ve seen too often how the need for metrics, attribution, proving ROI, and for agencies to prove their worth took precedence over what makes the brand unique and authentic. The proverbial cart before the horse.

What Actually Matters

Marketing metrics do matter. But you know what matters more? The business metrics. More clicks, higher engagement, more followers — none of it means much if sales, memberships, or whatever metric actually moves the business isn't moving. That's the one that counts.

There’s an order to things. Business plan first, marketing plan second. Strategy first, tactics second. Thinking first, action second. It may sound logical and many won’t argue with this. Yet, we’ve seen issues like the case above come up time and time again. Why? It’s not due to lack of caring or wanting to do the right thing. It comes down to lack of experience, leading to tunnel vision.

The Difference Experience Makes

What's often missing is this:  talented, well-meaning teams with real expertise in their craft, who haven't had the experience of working both in the business and on the business.

When you're accountable for the business results, not just the marketing results, you develop a different kind of judgment. You learn when to question the process, when the latest approach isn't the right one, and when a metric that looks good on the dashboard is quietly working against you.

It’s one of the biggest differences between simply executing marketing and understanding how marketing decisions affect the business as a whole.