intelligent measurement

Beyond online vanity metrics

July 28, 2015 at 8:28 am 1 comment

Here is a very interesting study (pdf) from the Mobilisation Lab on what counts and doesn’t for online metrics and campaigns.

The study looks at what they call “vanity metrics” for online campaigns that they define as “data that are easily manipulated, are biased toward the short-term, often paint a rosy picture of program success, or do not help campaigners make wise strategic decisions”. Examples of vanity metrics include: number of petition signatures; web traffic, number of “opens” (of emails I guess).

So what do they recommend campaigns should be measuring?

They have plenty of good suggestions and insights. Here are some of the metrics they mentioned that could be more significant (and possible to measure online):

• Monthly members returning for action
• Actions per member (rather than size of lists)
• Number of members actively part of a campaign

View the study here (pdf)>>

Entry filed under: Advocacy evaluation, Campaign evaluation, Social media monitoring, Web metrics. Tags: mob lab, mobilisation lab, online metrics, vanity metrics.