Lenny Distilled

Track customer value, not vanity metrics

Growth → Experimentation & Metrics

It's really important to look at not just the volume that you bring in, but what is the journey of that volume with your business one year out. How much money do you actually make from them to be able to properly decide how much can I spend to win this customer?

Meltem Kuran BerkowitzAn inside look at Deel's unprecedented growth

A lot of marketing metrics tend to be vanity metrics about the number of clicks that you got, number of views, number of impressions. I think those are all bullshit numbers.

Krithika ShankarramanGrowth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe's first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman
Supporting

GMV, it's a metric that it seems like... Of course, you can't build a marketplace without growing GMV in the same way that you can't build a social product without growing MAUs. But if you focus, if the race that you think you're running is to grow MAUs or to grow GMV, you're not actually going to run the right race.

Sarah TavelThe hierarchy of engagement | Sarah Tavel (Benchmark, Greylock, Pinterest)
Supporting

The best marketing teams are focused on these funnel metrics. They're not just focused on a certain number signups or qualified leads. They're focused on that number plus maintaining or improving the conversion rate that comes after it.

Emily KramerHow to build a powerful marketing machine
Supporting

Total waste of time. Unless there's a reason for it. So if you're a media company and traffic means that that number keeps going up, then yes, it matters. But if you are driving leads and that traffic number goes up, you're not driving more leads from SEO. You're getting worthless traffic.

Eli SchwartzRethinking SEO in the age of AI
With caveats

Really understanding what is it that you're trying to do with SEO traffic, that's your conversion metric. So it could be MQLs, could be page use, could be dollar conversions, it could be people picking up the phone or watching the video, but it has to be some sort of conversion.

Eli SchwartzRethinking SEO in the age of AI