Reach is not a vanity metric

It was rejected as vanity. But reach is an important effectiveness measurement: “Were we present?” If not, your buyers are almost guaranteed to never think of you.

Somewhere along the way, reach was labeled a vanity metric.

I think we might have gotten that wrong.

I totally understand why the shift happened. Agencies ran campaigns with mid targeting and creative, then became comfortable pointing to big impression numbers that they couldn’t prove turned into to meaningful results in the short term.

Eventually, decision makers started asking for results that were immediate and attributable: conversions, pipeline, and won deals. And to survive, marketers put a heavier emphasis on activation programs and drifted away from brand building campaigns. That’s what got more budget.

Engagement metrics and pixels and attribution (first-touch, medium-touch, last-touch, u/m/w/whatever-shape; it doesn’t matter, it’s all made up anyways) models meant we could measure everything. We were getting sophisticated now, so we labeled reach as a vanity metric, cast it to the side and embraced clicks and conversions as better gauges of effectiveness.

But in rejecting the old approach, we also rejected the impression metric itself. Awareness campaigns got scooped up into the category of fluffy, unmeasurable marketing.

Untargeted reach is vanity.

If you run entire campaigns without reaching your intended audience, then, yes, your reach is somewhere between less meaningful to meaningless. But for properly identified and targeted audiences, reach is an important component of measuring whether you accomplished your awareness objective.

Think about what effectiveness is—it’s answering the question “did we accomplish what we set out to do?”

Reach answers the effectiveness question: “Are we present?”

For awareness campaigns with proper targeting, that’s the first question you need to answer. You can’t build memory structures with people you never reach. You can’t be considered if they’ve never heard of you.

For awareness campaigns where you’ve (1) built a distinct asset with a relevant message and (2) identified and targeted the right audience, reaching 10,000 of those accounts versus 10,001 is a real difference.

I know everyone has stories of a random encounter where the right person on the buying committee saw your ad, or read a post, or had a touch point with your team that *almost* didn’t happen. But it did. And because it did, they brought you into their consideration set when they came in market. Then they brought your product in front of others on their team, which set off a chain reaction of deep evaluation that eventually turned into a big win.

Those scenarios happened (and will continue happening) because you *reach* people.

We don’t always know when or where those instances will take place. However, we do know that without reaching them, your buyers are guaranteed to never think of you.

When it’s paired with a decent message and delivery, reach becomes a measurement of effectiveness.

Efficiency asks: “How cost-effectively did we achieve that presence?”

Quality asks: “Did they actually consume our message?”

Impact asks: “Did it change their perception or behavior?”

But effectiveness starts with: “Were we there?”

I fully understand reach needs to be paired with other forms of measurement to build a complete picture. Reach tells you coverage. Consumption metrics tell you quality. Interest signals tell you who’s actively evaluating.

But if your objective is awareness among a defined audience, and you’ve built something worth their attention, then reaching 30% of that audience versus 40% matters. That’s measuring whether you’re present in enough minds when buying situations emerge.

I think it’s time to bring reach back from the dead, and find ways to get more people to understand how important it is for measuring your likelihood of developing future interest in your product.