Marketers Love Vanity Metrics, CFOs Don't

There are two types of people in the world:
Marketers, who get a dopamine rush from hitting “refresh” on an Instagram insights dashboard, and
CFOs, who break into hives when they hear the word “impressions.”

The marketer wants to build brand awareness and boost engagement.
The CFO wants to reduce CAC and increase margin.

And while both technically work for the same company, their version of "success" might as well come from parallel universes.

Marketer: “We got 100,000 video views!”
CFO: “...and we got 12 sales?”

Let’s face it: marketers are often hired to make noise.

CFOs are paid to cut it out.

What Are Vanity Metrics Anyway?

Vanity metrics are the glitter of marketing—shiny, attention-grabbing, and utterly useless in the long run. They include:

• Followers (bought or otherwise)
• Pageviews (bounce rate conveniently ignored)
• Likes (from bots, interns, or Aunt Kathy)
• Engagement rate (whatever that means this week)
• Impressions (where good budgets go to die)

These metrics are easy to get and even easier to manipulate. And that’s why marketers love them.

They pad decks.

They look great in graphs.

They get you SEO bragging rights.

They make you feel productive without the hassle of delivering actual business value.

Snark alert: Vanity metrics are the adult version of gold stars. Congrats! Now go sit back down.

What CFOs Actually Care About

CFOs don’t want your glitter. They want your numbers to tell a story that ends in profit. That’s why they focus on things like:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – How much did it cost to acquire that customer who ghosted us?
• Lifetime Value (LTV) – Is that customer ever coming back?
• Churn Rate – How quickly are we bleeding users?
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Was that $50K Facebook campaign worth anything?
• Marketing-Generated Revenue – Show me the money, not the motion.

To a CFO, a marketing report full of “engagement spikes” is about as comforting as a PowerPoint presentation from Fyre Festival’s head of ops.

The Problem with Chasing the Wrong Metrics

Here’s where things go off the rails:

1. False Positives
   Vanity metrics can create the illusion of success. A million impressions sound great—until you realize they led to 12 clicks and one confused conversion.
2. Budget Black Holes
   Marketers invest time and money optimizing campaigns for the wrong outcomes. It’s like tuning a race car to look fast instead of actually winning.
3. Misguided Strategy
   Teams start building campaigns around what looks good in reports instead of what actually moves the needle.

Reminder: If vanity metrics were KPIs, every influencer with 200K TikTok followers would be a CMO. (Spoiler: they’re not.)

Why Marketers Keep Doing It Anyway

Because they’re part salesman. And salesmen love to puffer-fish the numbers.

Marketing is persuasion, and part of persuasion is showmanship. That means marketers will do whatever it takes to inflate the optics. It’s not necessarily malicious—it’s instinct. When a campaign doesn’t convert, you lean into what did look good.

"We didn’t generate revenue, but look at that click-through rate!"

Here’s why it keeps happening:

• Fast Wins: It’s easier to drive vanity wins than revenue wins.
• Presentation Pressure: CMOs want wins for the boardroom. Likes load faster than pipeline.
• Misaligned KPIs: If the exec team is rewarding engagement, guess what gets optimized?

The puffer-fish strategy is simple: make your numbers look big, scary, and important—even if they're mostly air.

Finding a Middle Ground (So Nobody Quits)

Yes, marketers and CFOs speak different languages. But that doesn’t mean they’re doomed to hate each other forever.

A few ways to bridge the gap:

• Top-of-Funnel ≠ Bottomless Pit
  Brand awareness is fine—as long as it’s part of a measurable funnel. Tie awareness to email captures, retargeting engagement, or even direct search lift.
• Attribution Models Matter
  Use multi-touch attribution to show how “soft” marketing activities influence eventual revenue. No more pretending that organic brand lift happens by accident.
• Shared KPIs
  Create common goals like “qualified leads influenced” or “pipeline sourced,” so marketing can still be creative without CFOs thinking they’ve joined a circus.

Compromise mantra: You can’t hug your Instagram followers, but you can pixel them and track their behavior until they convert.

Metrics That Make Both Sides Happy

Here are a few metrics that offer the dopamine fix and the fiscal rigor:

No more guessing games.

If both teams can agree on a few grounded KPIs, the CMO won’t dread quarterly reports, and the CFO won’t start twitching when someone says “engagement.”

Ditch the Fluff, Show the Money

Vanity metrics aren’t evil.

They’re just... decoration. Like the parsley on a steak—nice to have, but not why you ordered dinner.

Marketers must evolve past the thrill of cheap metrics and focus on meaningful outcomes. That doesn’t mean abandoning creativity. It means channeling it toward business growth.

And for CFOs? Maybe chill a bit when the marketer gets excited about a viral post. Just ask for a follow-up showing what it did to revenue.

Because in the end, marketing isn't just about visibility. It's about viability.

Final Word:
Vanity is for mirrors. Marketing is for margins.

If your metrics aren’t helping the business grow, they’re not metrics—they’re makeup.

‍