My “Open Rate” Is a Vanity Metric. What’s Yours?
The great “metrics cliff” is a gift. It’s forcing us to stop measuring what’s easy and start measuring what actually matters.
When I launched this newsletter back in May, the “open rate” was my go-to number. It was easy to chase. It felt good when it was high. It was my simple measure of success.
And it’s a vanity metric.
It’s a proxy for what I actually care about, which is engagement, trust, and impact. And the recent “November Drop” across newsletters just proved it’s a broken one.
So let me ask you: What’s your “open rate”?
Every Organization Has One
Every newsroom and nonprofit has a metric they obsess over. A big, easy-to-count number that feels good to put in a report, but doesn’t really measure anything that matters.
It’s the metric we cling to because it’s simple, not because it’s right.
If you’re in a newsroom, your “open rate” is probably the Pageview. We’ve all chased it. We’ve all celebrated when it was high and panicked when it was low. But it doesn’t measure impact. It doesn’t measure trust. It doesn’t even tell you if someone read the story. It just tells you they loaded the page.
If you’re in a nonprofit, your “open rate” might be “Awareness” or “impressions.” A number that spreads wide and stays shallow. It doesn’t tell you if you changed a mind or inspired an action. It only tells you a pixel fired.
Every sector has its version. It’s the Output Metric. The Survival Metric. The easy one. And it’s not the point.
The Gift of a Broken Metric
The “open rate cliff” is a gift. It’s a forced moment of clarity.
It breaks the addiction to the vanity metric and pushes us to ask better questions.
My “opens” are gone. I can’t rely on them anymore. So now I have to ask:
“Did they click?”
“Did they comment?”
“Did they share?”
Those are real actions. Those are signals of trust. Those are proof of impact.
This is the shift every leader has to make. It’s the move from measuring Outputs to measuring Outcomes.
Funders don’t care how many stories you published. They care whether your work changed behavior, solved problems, or built trust.
This is exactly why we built the Impact & Trust framework at API. Newsrooms knew their work mattered, but they couldn’t prove it in a way that unlocked new revenue or deeper support. They were measuring the wrong things.
A New “Bible”
My “open rate” cliff pushed me to build a new strategy. I’m not playing for opens anymore. I’m building for action.
Here’s the plan: 2–3 “Pillar” posts each week. Every one a Big Idea, an Actionable Framework, or a Leadership Playbook. Every one designed to earn a click, a comment, or a share.
Because those are the only metrics that matter.
So I’ll end where I started. Everyone has a vanity metric. Mine just broke in front of me.
What’s yours? And what are you going to build once you stop chasing it?
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