Quantity or quality. What is the key metric in the digital world?

Metrics, RoIs, data, KPIs. It’s a numbers world in the digital habitat, which makes it hard to stay away from the quantity trap where more is better. Getting excited about big numbers is easy and deceiving, especially when this is what we were all going for not too long ago. Hold back and don’t get impressed by the big numbers too fast.

Just think about yourself as a digital media consumer and how many times you have been lured by a post, company ad or viral video to never again look back or remember who was behind it. You still counted as a source of success, but will never, honestly, have an impact on the real growth of that business. It’s that simple.

Measuring the quality of the engagement, on the other hand, may be a better way to evaluate what an individual truly means for that business. Did you spend more time than average? Did you go back? Did you develop a long-lasting relationship with that brand? Which kind of content got your attention? These kinds of analysis make the work behind any programmatic campaign or digital initiative harder, but better. The amount of tools now available to measure all these details is growing and their quality improving. Keep conversion as your main destination.

So stick to quality versus quantity and don’t get fooled by numbers alone. Use a strategic view to analyse numbers and remember that not every piece of data is meaningful or provides valuable insights, and that’s just the nature of the business.