Numbers that feel good and change nothing.
If a number always goes up and never changes a decision, it's there to make you feel good, not to help you steer.
Vanity metrics
Feel Good
- Total registered users
- Page views
- App downloads
- Features shipped
Actionable metrics
Drive Decisions
- Active users, by cohort
- Conversion at each step
- Retention over time
- Time to first value
The test:
if this number changed tomorrow, what would we do differently? If the answer is “nothing”, it's vanity.
Source: Eric Ries guest post on tim.blog ↗
If it can’t change a decision, it’s decoration.