Vanity Metrics Are Holding Back Your Content

Marketing teams today are facing a tough reality. The platforms we all rely on aren’t so reliable anymore.

Organic social reach is shrinking, AI Overviews are stealing search traffic, and the ROI from digital ads are about as attractive as Mark Zuckerberg’s rebrand. To be fair, it beats his old look.

That’s why more marketers are building owned media properties, like podcasts, newsletters, and online communities. It gives you a direct line to your audience and valuable first-party data for smarter marketing.

Catching the Wave in Content Marketing 

Let’s face it, no one’s scrolling through your old social posts, unless they’re a jealous ex. But podcasts, newsletters, videos? They compound over time. The more you publish, the more chances you have to get discovered.

While this sounds sexy in theory, the reality is that 90-95% of all owned media content fails - this includes podcasts, newsletters, video channels and online interest groups.

Sure, many fail because they suck. But having built plenty of media properties in my career, I could tell you most fail because brands quit before they catch what I call, “The Wave.”

Here’s what I mean…

In surfing, you paddle out to catch the perfect wave, battling the current, choppy water and the occasional shark attack. Then finally, that wave shows up. And if you’re ready, you ride it all the way home.

In full transparency, I’ve never surfed, but I have seen Blue Crush a million times, for all the wrong reasons.

So, where am I going with this?

Most marketing teams don’t even make it into the water.

They look at the sea of podcasts and newsletters and think, “It’s oversaturated.” But what’s actually oversaturated is standing on the shore, afraid to get wet.

New media comes and goes every day. But so do new audiences looking for something that speaks to them.

Your job is to paddle out and brave the elements, so you’re there when they’re looking for you. And when they find you, that’s your momentum, your wave.

Vanity Metrics vs. Depth of Engagement

The reason so many brands prematurely bail on owned media is simple: they sweat vanity metrics.

Vanity metrics are the feel-good, saccharine numbers that make your content look like it’s working, when it’s not. They’re the low-hanging fruit stats like impressions, likes, or page views that don’t actually tell you whether your content is doing its job.

Some examples of vanity metrics can include: 

• A blog post with 10,000 views… but zero conversions.

• A YouTube channel with tons of subscribers… but low engagement and average watch time 

• A newsletter with a high open rate… but no one clicking through.

These numbers aren’t totally useless, but if you’re optimizing for them, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

And that’s exactly what happens to most marketing teams. 

They expect the streams, subscribers, and leads to roll in overnight… and when that doesn’t happen, they assume their content isn’t working and trash the whole thing.

The New Rules of Content Marketing

Unless you’re a media business built on ad revenue, big numbers shouldn’t be your priority. The web is noisier than ever, so if you want to break through, you need to focus on your niche. 

Sure, that might mean smaller numbers on the surface. But the impact is way bigger where it actually matters.

Instead of chasing vanity metrics, measure depth of engagement, KPIs that actually tell a story and help you improve. This includes metrics like podcast and video retention, newsletter open rates, article scroll depth and so on.

Google’s John Mueller put it best: “Online marketing is now about correlation, not causation.” 

You can’t expect a single podcast episode or blog post to drive sales. But they do play a role in your customer’s journey.

Owned media is about building a relationship over time, not triggering an instant response like an ad… or a scam email from a Nigerian prince trapped in a well who just needs your Social Security number to climb out.

When we launched CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered., a healthcare podcast I produce, growth was slow at first.

But we kept showing up and tweaking the content based on how our audience engaged.

Over time, the feedback got louder, online and at conferences. The show’s growth became more consistent. Eventually, we caught our wave.

That momentum led to partnerships, collaborations, a popular newsletter and more. Now, CareTalk is recognized as one of the top healthcare podcasts in the industry.

None of what we've achieved would've been possible if we obsessed over vanity metrics. Instead, we let the feedback and engagement patterns of our audience lead the way and it paid off.

Avoid the Vanity Metrics Trap

If you’re adding owned media to your marketing mix, you need to level-set your expectations and stay the course.

More importantly, you have to understand: you get out what you put in. If your effort is inconsistent, your results will be too.

Catching your wave isn’t the hard part. It happens naturally. But you don’t find your audience. They find you.

The hard part is getting out there and staying out there until they do. 

Stay patient. Stay visible. And keep refining based on what really counts, because you’re closer than you think.