Because what we measure doesn’t just tell us how we’re doing. It influences what we do next.
Marketing loves a dashboard.
Reach.
CTR.
Engagement.
Conversion.
ROAS.
Sales.
And for good reason. We need metrics. We need to know whether our work is performing, where to invest and what to change.
But there is a question we don’t ask often enough:
Are we optimising for the outcome that actually matters?
When the metric becomes the objective
A metric is supposed to help us understand performance.
But over time, it can quietly become the definition of success itself.
If we reward clicks, we optimise for clicks.
If we reward conversion, we optimise for conversion.
If we reward short-term revenue, we optimise for short-term revenue.
And suddenly, something that started as a useful measurement becomes the thing we’re actually trying to maximise.
The problem isn’t the metric.
It’s what happens when we forget what the metric was supposed to represent.
A number can be perfectly accurate and still tell us very little
Imagine a campaign delivers exceptional engagement.
The dashboard looks great.
But the campaign is attracting people who were never going to buy.
Or imagine we achieve an excellent conversion rate by making an offer so aggressive that it damages margins, customer expectations or long-term brand value.
The numbers are real.
The performance is technically good.
But was the outcome good?
That’s a different question.
What are we actually trying to create?
One of the ideas from my Cambridge studies is that measurement isn’t neutral.
We measure the things we care about, and those measurements influence the decisions we make. If an organisation says it wants to create long-term value but continues to measure success almost exclusively through short-term financial performance, there is an obvious disconnect.
This doesn’t mean abandoning commercial metrics.
Profit matters.
Sales matter.
Efficiency matters.
But they are not necessarily the whole story.
A brand might also care about retention.
Trust.
Customer satisfaction.
Employee wellbeing.
Product quality.
Innovation.
Social or environmental impact.
Long-term brand strength.
The right mix depends on what the organisation is actually trying to achieve.
The KPI should follow the strategy
Perhaps we have this backwards.
We often start with the metrics we know how to measure and then build the strategy around them.
What if we started with the outcome instead?
What are we trying to change?
What value are we trying to create?
For whom?
Over what timeframe?
And only then:
What should we measure to know if we’re getting there?
That small shift can change the conversation completely.
This matters in creative work too
Creative work is particularly vulnerable to measurement becoming the objective.
Because creativity is difficult to reduce to a single number.
A campaign can generate fewer clicks but create a significant shift in perception.
A piece of content might not convert immediately but become an asset people associate with the brand for years.
A bold idea might underperform against a short-term benchmark while opening up an entirely new audience.
Not everything valuable happens inside the reporting period.
And not everything that performs well creates lasting value.
Better metrics don’t necessarily mean more metrics
The answer isn’t another 40 KPIs on the dashboard.
It’s choosing the few measures that actually tell us whether we’re moving towards the outcome we care about.
Sometimes that means looking further ahead.
Sometimes it means measuring something we haven’t measured before.
And sometimes it means accepting that a decision which maximises one number might not maximise the value of the business.
So perhaps the question isn’t:
“Did the campaign perform?”
It’s:
“Did it create the outcome we were actually trying to create?”
Because marketing doesn’t become smarter by measuring more.
It becomes smarter when what we measure reflects what we value.
And that’s when a KPI stops being just a number on a dashboard — and starts becoming a useful tool for making better decisions.
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