19 Sep Vanity Metrics vs Real Engagement
I’m Sean Carney. Over the past three months as a graduate intern at Incognate, I’ve had the opportunity to work across many different areas of the business. From delivery to reporting, I’ve gained valuable insight into how projects are shaped, executed and measured. I’ve also spent time with the marketing team, contributing to website updates, supporting market research, and exploring how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be applied in our work.
One of my key projects involved examining industry-standard metrics. This experience inspired me to reflect on the difference between vanity metrics and real engagement, which is the focus of this blog.
In B2B marketing, email remains one of the most effective channels for conversion. Yet many teams still focus on surface-level measures such as open rates and subscriber counts. These vanity metrics may look positive in reports, but they rarely reflect true impact. What matters is real engagement: the actions that demonstrate intent, influence decisions and drive revenue.
The limits of vanity metrics
Open rate has long been a default measure of success, with global averages around 40%. However, privacy protections such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection have distorted these numbers, making them unreliable indicators of attention. An ‘open’ no longer guarantees that a recipient has actually read or considered the message.
List size is another common but flawed measure. A database of thousands of addresses might look impressive, yet around 28% of contacts typically decay each year due to invalid addresses, inactivity or role changes. Without careful management, larger lists often translate into higher bounce rates and wasted spend, not better results.
These vanity figures persist because they’re easy to report and familiar to leadership teams. But ease of measurement does not equal effectiveness.
Real engagement signals
Clicks and conversions provide stronger signals of intent. Average B2B click-through rates are just over 3%, with a click-to-open rate of 8.6%. These may be smaller numbers than open rates, but they represent meaningful actions, moments when recipients actively choose to explore content further.
Conversion rates, at around 2.4%, go a step further by showing recipients taking valuable actions such as registering for events, downloading assets or booking demos. In outbound campaigns, reply rates of roughly 6% offer additional evidence of authentic engagement, giving sales teams live opportunities to pursue.
These actions link marketing activity directly to pipeline and revenue. They demonstrate interest, commitment and progression in a way vanity metrics never can.
Why focus on engagement
Engagement is not only about individual actions but also about how email supports wider buying processes. Research shows that 78% of buyers share vendor content with colleagues via email, making it a vital channel for distributing information across decision-making committees. This highlights email’s role in account-based strategies where multiple stakeholders influence outcomes.
Personalisation also drives stronger engagement. Tailored campaigns have shown improvements of over 20% in click-through rates, alongside notable gains in site visits and account activity. These outcomes show how targeted, relevant content can outperform generic bulk messaging.
With average returns of £27 for every £1 invested, email continues to deliver one of the highest ROIs in B2B marketing. Those results depend less on vanity numbers and more on genuine signals of engagement that connect to business outcomes.
Moving beyond vanity metrics
To strengthen measurement, marketers should:
- Prioritise replies, conversions and meetings booked over opens
- Score engagement by weighting high-intent actions more heavily than passive ones
- Track revenue per email and influenced pipeline, not just delivery metrics
- Maintain list hygiene and respect opt-outs to protect deliverability
- Continuously test subject lines, CTAs and sequencing to improve qualified engagement
Acting too late means losing the deal
Vanity metrics may offer quick wins for reporting, but they don’t reflect the real value of email marketing. In today’s environment of privacy rules and smarter inboxes, meaningful engagement is what truly counts. By focusing on clicks, conversions, replies and revenue, B2B marketers can demonstrate email’s role as a driver of growth and consensus, not just a distribution channel.
Sean Carney joined Incognate as a Graduate Intern in July 2025. He is currently studying for an MSc in Management (International Business) at Nottingham Trent University.
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