Vanity metrics look impressive but rarely drive action. Open rates, list size and raw traffic can mask deeper issues. To make smarter decisions, focus on metrics that show intent and outcomes. Here’s how to do that in Force24, with signposting to key resources.

What are vanity metrics?

Vanity metrics are numbers that rise without indicating real interest or progress. Examples include:

  • Email open rates
  • Total subscribers
  • Raw website visits

These can hide low engagement, poor deliverability or misaligned content.

Why ditch opens?

With privacy protections like Apple Mail Privacy Protection, many opens aren’t human. Even when opens were reliable, they only show someone glanced at your email. Clicks are a better signal, but they can still be inflated by automated link scanners and they only show interest in an email, not in what you do. The strongest signals come from what people do after they click.

For a deeper dive, see It’s time to ditch opens and clicks - here’s why, plus 10 KPIs.

What to track instead

1. Actions that take effort

The best intent signals are things a contact chose to do. A great example is gated content. If a whitepaper, guide or webinar sits behind a form, a form submission shows the contact was willing to take action to learn more about what you do.

Use a form submission list for each form, so you can see exactly who submitted it and use that audience in your campaigns and journeys.

2. High value and goal URLs

Pages that show interest in buying or enquiring are some of the clearest signals you can track. In Force24 you can mark them as:

  • High value URLs: pages that show strong interest, such as a pricing page or a product page for something you want to sell.
  • Goal URLs: pages that show a contact has completed what you wanted them to do, such as the thank-you page after a form or a purchase confirmation.

Both add to a contact’s lead score, and you can see the activity on the Web activity page. Tracking needs to be installed on your site first by following How to deploy your tracking script (v3). If your links carry UTM parameters, add % to the end of the URL as a wildcard so they are still tracked.

3. Lead scoring

Lead scoring turns the signals above into a number you can act on. Force24 adds points automatically when a contact engages, and removes them 30 days later, so a high score means recent interest.

You can set a value for six types of engagement:

  • Email opens
  • Email/SMS clicks
  • Web page visits
  • Repeat web page visits
  • High value page visits
  • Goal URL visits

Keep the focus on web engagement by turning down the lower value actions, such as email opens. Values are edited in Account Settings. Once your scores are working, you can use them in lists and in journeys, for example to alert your sales team when a contact crosses a score you’ve chosen using Apps in Journeys.

4. Click data as a supporting signal

Clicks are still useful for comparing emails against each other, as long as you treat them as a supporting signal. Look at unique clicks rather than total clicks, so one person (or their security software) clicking several times doesn’t skew the picture.

5. Deliverability health

If your emails don’t reach the inbox, none of the signals above can happen. Keep an eye on:

Then view all your results in one place with How to report on your campaign.

Tie metrics to purpose

Every campaign needs a clear goal: awareness, engagement or conversion. Decide what a successful result looks like, then set it up in Force24 as a form, a high value URL or a goal URL so you can measure it. If a number doesn’t guide action, it’s likely a vanity metric.

Additional resources

For hands-on advice, watch our webinar recordings or reach out via live chat.