Stop Trying to Measure Everything, Use an Outcome-Focused Lens Instead

A map is a metaphor for many things, but has limitations. Polish American philosopher and engineer penned the phrase "the map is not the territory" to remind us of this. Metrics are messy and often do not match up to reality. To update our map, we should focus on outcomes and impact, instead of effort and output.

Using a different lens, we can look at our map and think of our marketing WHY, and how to define successful outcome or impact. Macro and micro details should be tracked, with quarterly analysis and rolling averages. A few key signals should be monitored, and new and better methods will emerge over time.

At the end of the day, every metric is an abstraction of the impact we have on humans. Outcome-based marketing is successful, and marketers should focus on outputs, outtakes and outcomes. Mistakes are made when metrics don't matter to top management, so let's go straight to the source and keep fiddling with the dashboard.