Impact will always beat the illusion of excellence
For the IBA team and its clients, the watchword so far in 2026 has been “impact”. Messaging-wise, that can mean how our clients influence change by helping businesses learn timely lessons from recent events – be they military conflicts, dealing with extreme weather, or managing supply chain shocks from geopolitical disruption.
But, as we flagged earlier in the month, from a numbers standpoint, measuring the impact your messages have had means measuring what counts, not what can be counted.
Which is why we’ve welcomed LinkedIn’s proactive advertising campaign that urges B2B marketers to cut the bullspend!
What is bullspend? It’s investing in things that look good but don’t deliver impact… and that comes direct from the horse’s mouth!
Content creation and associated metrics form a core part of marketing budgets, and marketing data and analytics company, Kantar Media sees impact as the driver behind every dollar spent: “A net 61% of marketers plan to increase their investment in creator content in 2026, so the pressure to show its impact grows. Engagement, likes, and views aren’t meaningful outcomes, for brands to predispose more people through creators, the important benchmarks in 2026 will be ROI and brand-building metrics.”
When we first explored the “Illusion of Excellence” we highlighted a dangerous B2B paradox: departments ticking their own boxes and celebrating glossy metrics while business growth as a whole remains stagnant. We warned that high-fiving over impressions and UVPMs while ignoring how marketing drives organizational success was a trap.
So, at IBA, we’re calling Bull too, on vanity metrics and marketing campaigns with all the gear and no idea! Read on to see how:
In today’s content-saturated landscape, it’s impact that counts. It’s the key driver and indicator of B2B success. But far too often, teams measure their success based on metrics that don’t align with business impact at all. We recently highlighted how B2B marketers must now go beyond thought leadership and show brand impact to ensure their brand message lands.
The mindset that campaign success is when metrics are at their peak is not just outdated, it’s the creation of the ‘Illusion of Excellence’. This tick box approach is unaligned with true organizational success. This B2B paradox was perfectly encapsulated in a recent IndustryWeek podcast as leaders spoke about the ‘Illusion of Excellence’ with departments focusing too much on their own metrics at the expense of the overall business.
PR and marketing departments need urgent realignment! They need to shift their mindset from ‘how many pickups did we get?’ to ‘what did this do for the business?’ As Einstein wrote on a blackboard: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Reach without relevance – spray and pray tactics won’t cut it
PR and marketing have increasingly been recognized as powerful lead generation drivers, and C-suites want quantifiable results, but far too many campaigns are missing the mark. PR and marketing pros have become sidetracked by shiny (and often vanity) numbers, whether it’s UVPMs or blasting content at large mailing lists in the hope it lands on the right desk and ticks the box.
So, first things first, to gain insightful metrics, PR and marketing pros need to target their campaigns at the correct people.
B2B sales processes are now longer than ever, and per Forrester, typical buying decisions for complex B2B solutions now include over 20 people! Pros need to target their content strategy at the right buying personas. In fact, there are three key personas to target: purchasers – those directly involved in procurement of a new technology or solution, ratifiers – those who sanction the purchase from a strategic or financial perspective, and influencers – those who will likely be asked for their opinion on the validity or applicability of a solution to business operations. This last group is often called the hidden buyers.
Remember – each of these buying groups require different tactics for targeting to increase the chances of turning leads into clients. They have different needs and different reasons for the purchase.
Don’t delve too deep into the dashboards – vanity metrics vs. real metrics
In today’s digital era, metrics are only a few clicks away, but are PR and marketing pros now drowning in a sea of vanity metrics with no direction to shore? Understanding which areas are performing well and which aren’t is crucial for long-term success.
Vanity metrics such as social impressions, likes, and clicks are easy to track and even easier to justify ticking the box – they show momentum, great, but are they having a meaningful impact further down the sales funnel? Often, these pros neglect metrics related to sales, brand value, and the business’s long-term success, in favor of content ambulance-chasing vanity UVPMs. It’s time to be careful with what you chase and let the meaningful metrics guide you.
Impactful content is a pre-requisite for impactful metrics
PR and marketing pros need to shift their focus to quality over quantity. It’s easy to tick the boxes with content that gets coverage quantities, but not engagement with your target personas. It’s impactful content that brings your brand front and center of your target buyers’ business issues or business visions.
Content needs to add value to your target buyer. Start thinking about opinion-led thought leadership. Timely comments on real-world issues that hook onto a running story demonstrate your vision, but they can do more damage when you have nothing of value to add to what other people are saying. Demonstrate how your company is solving the real industry challenges. Only then will PR and marketing pros start to gain meaningful metrics.
Metrics and data need to then be used to guide decision-making, validate decisions, and refine campaign ideas. By setting meaningful KPIs, monitoring beyond social vanity metrics, using insights and vision to shape content, and reporting real impact, PR and marketing pros can show their true business influence.
Metrics to track for real impact
To move beyond the initial tick in the box and reach real impact, there are five key milestone touchpoints that PR and marketing pros can use to evaluate and analyze how well their campaign is helping turn their audience from leads into clients:
- The awareness baseline: Metrics such as website traffic, social impressions, and search visibility are the perfect platform for pros to work from, as they show you have their audience’s attention.
- People see your brand, but are they engaging: People might be noticing your content, but organic search clicks, social engagements, and downloads are the first conversions for your audience that signal interest.
- Building trust: With your audience now engaging, pros can assess how well they trust your brand by looking at return visitors, content shares, and search frequency.
- Time to witness impact: When pros start to see lead form completions, content-assisted conversions, and content influence on deals, they are starting to show business value as leads convert from leads to customers.
- It’s not over yet: The deal may be signed, but now it’s time to retain them by showing how content builds customer lifetime value by tracking customer content engagement, retention rates, and the expansion of revenue influenced by content.
Through following these steps, PR and marketing pros can understand how their campaigns are performing, what works and what doesn’t, what drives conversion, and report with clear and precise metrics.
Time to tick the business impact box
In 2026, PR and marketing pros can only start thinking about putting a tick in the box when they’ve reached the right people and driven measurable impact. By understanding how to reach the correct people, the difference between vanity and real metrics, and which metrics matter most to the business, PR and marketing pros can move away from their siloed tick box mindset to look at achieving business-wide impact.
Do what counts, not what’s counted! Thank you, Einstein.
Sam Walker is a PR Executive at IBA International.
