The only metric that matters
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2025 3:17 am
All this data availability has brought resources, but also a lot of confusion about what is important. The so-called airplane dashboard syndrome, that is, the manager is so concerned with monitoring lots of numbers that he loses sight of the real business objectives.
And then, a question arises: If you were given the option to choose just one number to guide your digital marketing work, what would that number be?
Inspired by the Lean costa rica mobile database movement, Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz, in the book Lean Analytics, call it The Only Metric That Matters. But why have just one number when we can have several?
The One Metric That Matters (UMQI) creates a sense of unity around a common goal, a focus. When we have multiple metrics, we can get confused or even have a tug-of-war between teams responsible for optimizing A or B. And you know, this happens a lot!
But when we have a core number, it becomes the center of gravity for the digital marketing strategy. It doesn't matter if the website has 100,000 unique visitors or the bounce rate is amazing. If the UMQI is not good, it means that the business is not doing well and that's when we have a problem.
Important : UMQI is not permanent, it changes according to the stage of the business. For example, in its early stages, Slack defined an active user as one who logged in and interacted with the software every day, and used the number of daily active users as the UMQI. This allowed them to focus on developing features that would create usage habits and achieve amazing growth.
Note one thing: it's not an obvious financial objective, such as increasing revenue, but a business objective strongly linked to that, that is, a strategy to get there. In the case of Slack, the more people using the tool, the higher its market value. And as it turned out, you must be an active Slack user, or at least have been one in the past.
And then, a question arises: If you were given the option to choose just one number to guide your digital marketing work, what would that number be?
Inspired by the Lean costa rica mobile database movement, Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz, in the book Lean Analytics, call it The Only Metric That Matters. But why have just one number when we can have several?
The One Metric That Matters (UMQI) creates a sense of unity around a common goal, a focus. When we have multiple metrics, we can get confused or even have a tug-of-war between teams responsible for optimizing A or B. And you know, this happens a lot!
But when we have a core number, it becomes the center of gravity for the digital marketing strategy. It doesn't matter if the website has 100,000 unique visitors or the bounce rate is amazing. If the UMQI is not good, it means that the business is not doing well and that's when we have a problem.
Important : UMQI is not permanent, it changes according to the stage of the business. For example, in its early stages, Slack defined an active user as one who logged in and interacted with the software every day, and used the number of daily active users as the UMQI. This allowed them to focus on developing features that would create usage habits and achieve amazing growth.
Note one thing: it's not an obvious financial objective, such as increasing revenue, but a business objective strongly linked to that, that is, a strategy to get there. In the case of Slack, the more people using the tool, the higher its market value. And as it turned out, you must be an active Slack user, or at least have been one in the past.